Umbrellas for studio and outdoor flash photography.

[Ballistics]

What size do I get? Is there a good site like Strobist 101 that gives a good detailed explanation of setting up strobes for the outdoors? Both day and night?
I wan't to dabble in car photography, outdoor portraiture, things like that.

I have a YN467 and plan on picking up a YN460 for a second flash.
I have the YungNuo RF-602 transmitter and receiver and will be picking up a second receiver.

 

[tirediron]

The actual size of the umbrella isn't as important as getting the correct distance between flash and 'brolly. I would guess that a 30 - 36" umbrella will be more than adequate for a relatively small flash. Just make sure that you figure out at what distance the actual flash unit has to be so that the light fills the umbrella, but doesn't spill over.

 

[Ballistics]

Is there such thing has having an umbrella that is too big?

 

[tirediron]

Sure, if you have an umbrella that your flash can't fill, it's too big. If you're going to err one way though, a too large umbrella is better than a too small one.

 

[Derrel]

Big umbrellas catch a lot of wind, and can easily topple "conventional style" aluminum light stands that are not REALLY heavily-ballasted, or staked down with guywires.

Paul C. Buff has created some new parabolic light modifiers, which they refer to as PLM's....basically, some nifty new umbrella designs that ******REALLY******** put out a huge swath of light, even when fairly little light is shot into them. Rob Galbraith's web site had an excellent write-up on the then-new PLM umbrellas. Rob's outdoor large sports team photography sessions and the concurrent tests he conducted showed very good,even coverage with less physical size on PLM's as compared against his standard, larger Photoflex umbrellas.

Something like a 60 inch umbrella outdoors is asking for serious trouble with the typical flimsy 3-section aluminum light stand; it's a whole 'nother thing on something like a steel Avenger or a steel Matthews C-Stand turtle-based light stand with a HEAVY-WEIGHT design and a 15 pound counterweight clamped onto the bottom of a stand that has a very bottom-heavy design to begin with.

 

[tirediron]

Big umbrellas catch a lot of wind...

Good point Derrel! (and if anyone knows about a lot of wind...)

 

[Derrel]

Big umbrellas catch a lot of wind...

Good point Derrel! (and if anyone knows about a lot of wind...)

Thanks tirediron...please remind me to send you a spoiled ham this Christmas season.

 

[Ballistics]

Thank you for that Derrel. Very informative. I'll look into what you mentioned.

 

[Derrel]

Just did another look-up. Make sure you check this NEW type of horizontal flash mounting system for speedlights used with umbrellas...

Rob Galbraith DPI: Horizontal Flash Mounting Bracket, HoodLoupe 3.0

seems like this type of horizontal flash mounting can add 0.6 f/stop worth of output in a PLM.... that's fairly significant in my book!

 

[Ballistics]

Very interesting. I see that he has brackets for 2 horizontal flashes as well.