[VikingPhotography]

Last weekend I had the chance to field-test my Lastolite EzyBox Hotshoe kit; basically a 24" collapsible softbox which comes pre-packed with a lightstand, a tilt bracket that can accomodate a hotshoe mount strobe (SB-800, 580EX etc.), an extendable hand grip and two small bags to carry the whole shebang around in.

Since the place I was shooting was a ticketed event open to the public, I decided against using the light stand since I reckoned it made for two many chances for folk to trip over it, so I mounted the softbox on the end of the extendable hand grip. The connection between the camera and the SB-800 was via a Nikon SC-29 TTL cord. Results from using this combo are as follows.









I think the results speak for themselves and are miles better than what I would have acheived by using an unmodified SB-800 instead. You can see the kit itself at this link

[Dave]

Good results from an SB800 Now I thought I looked conspicuous using a Gary Fong replica lightspere, but you with that softbox

On the landscape portraits I can see how you get the shadow on far side of the face, but for the portrait orientation I am assuming the lightbox will be directly above lens ?

[VikingPhotography]

Originally Posted by Dave

Good results from an SB800 Now I thought I looked conspicuous using a Gary Fong replica lightspere, but you with that softbox

Yeah, it wasn't exactly unobtrusive... but I'm well past the stage of being self-conscious in what I do photography wise these days! All that I'm concerned about is getting the shots the way I envisage them to be and, to that end, I'll use the tools I feel appropriate to set my work apart from the other guys shooting at open events

Originally Posted by Dave

On the landscape portraits I can see how you get the shadow on far side of the face, but for the portrait orientation I am assuming the lightbox will be directly above lens ?

For these shots the softbox was placed at a distance of about eight feet from the subjects at various heights and angles relative to the lens axis, but never directly in line with it; that's the beauty of the hand grip - you can place the light source anywhere you like.

I'm considering shelling out for some PocketWizard radio triggers so I can have the softbox positioned by a free-roaming assistant, allowing me to shoot multiple lighting angles in very quick sucession - something that couldn't be done with conventional studio lights.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by VikingPhotography

I'm considering shelling out for some PocketWizard radio triggers so I can have the softbox positioned by a free-roaming assistant, allowing me to shoot multiple lighting angles in very quick sucession - something that couldn't be done with conventional studio lights.

Have you considered the radiopoppers ?

Out of interest for the shots above did you use the TTL function of the flash, or set to manual ?

[VikingPhotography]

Originally Posted by Dave

Have you considered the radiopoppers ?

Folks over at sportsshooter.com have been harking on about the radiopopper system but, when I last read about them, they weren't commercially available. Now that's changed I'll take a look at what might be a very viable alternative to PocketWizards; the set-up video certainly seemed to show the promise of the system

Originally Posted by Dave

Out of interest for the shots above did you use the TTL function of the flash, or set to manual ?

I set the flash in manual mode and adjusted camera settings accordingly. An example: the first shot is at f/5, 1/160 sec and ISO 200 and I think the flash was somewhere around 1/4 power at a distance of about eight feet from the subject. In the second shot, I had to use ISO 320 to get the result I wanted.

The softbox slightly cools the flash output by about 800K and naturally absorbs some of the power the SB-800 cranks out.