Pebbling a Paul Buff Reflector

[doidinho]

Has anyone added pebbling to a Paul Buff reflector? If so I would like to know how you did it and your results.

[AmpedPhoto]

Has anyone added pebbling to a Paul Buff reflector? If so I would like to know how you did it and your results.


??? care to explain

[Lotto]

Pebbling like put dings inside? :) I did sand down my liteMod unit and took shine off the reflector. There's a little but noticeable "more even" like pattern when I point the reflector straight into a while wall. I did lost 1/3 stop of light. But even since then, I hardly eve use the bare reflector straight toward the subject, I found myself either bounce or use grids with the reflector, so that mod is kind of useless to me.

The new reflector from AB has a rougher finish than the ones bought 2 years ago.

[TMR Design]

Has anyone added pebbling to a Paul Buff reflector? If so I would like to know how you did it and your results.

Hi Robert. Do you own one of the original shiny reflectors? Is that why you want to change the texture?

If you do own one of the original ones then you can do what myself and others did, but we didn't 'pebble' the surface. What we did was to take some medium to fine steel wool and 'texturized' the surface by evenly using the steel wool on the entire interior surface including the outer lip. This takes the shine off and eliminates the hot spots and unevenness. It takes about 5 or 10 minutes and essentially gives you the same light appearance as the new matte reflector.

[SkipD]

I used a coarse 3M "scrubbie" material and a little elbow grease to put a matte finish inside my AlienBees reflectors. Works great.

[doidinho]

Thanks for the replies. Robert, I own one of the newer reflectors, so no need for steel wool (however, great idea for those with the older ones.)

I basically was just wondering if anyone had tried pebbling their reflector and gotten good results. I notice that there reflectors have no pebbling, some have dimples, and some have actual pebbles.

It is my understanding that the pebbled reflectors give the most even light.

[TMR Design]

HI Robert,

Honestly, I think that an attempt at pebbling would be a wasted effort. Myself and others have used the old reflectors (after texturizing) and the newer matte reflectors and found them to be very even.

Are you just curious or are you having trouble with evenness? If so, I'd be curious to see a shot of the strobe with the reflector, firing at a black or gray wall. When I did that exact test I didn't feel there was any problem or issue with evenness.

Granted, the Elinchrom (and others) are pebbled and produce very even light but I'm not sure it's any more even than the matte finish of the PCB reflectors.

If you're really determined to find out if it's going to make a difference I suppose you could take some aluminum foil and randomly but neatly create a pebbled (or organized wrinkles) surface to line the inside of the reflector. It might let you see if it makes a difference but as I said, unless you're noticing a problem or feel that the light is not even, then there's no need to go any further.

[doidinho]

HI Robert,

Honestly, I think that an attempt at pebbling would be a wasted effort. Myself and others have used the old reflectors (after texturizing) and the newer matte reflectors and found them to be very even.

Are you just curious or are you having trouble with evenness? If so, I'd be curious to see a shot of the strobe with the reflector, firing at a black or gray wall. When I did that exact test I didn't feel there was any problem or issue with evenness.

Granted, the Elinchrom (and others) are pebbled and produce very even light but I'm not sure it's any more even than the matte finish of the PCB reflectors.

If you're really determined to find out if it's going to make a difference I suppose you could take some aluminum foil and randomly but neatly create a pebbled (or organized wrinkles) surface to line the inside of the reflector. It might let you see if it makes a difference but as I said, unless you're noticing a problem or feel that the light is not even, then there's no need to go any further.


Thanks Robert, I'm not having any problems, just curious. I was hoping someone else would have have experimented and could post their results. Anyway, looks like nobody has given this a go.