White BG - What to get to Achieve

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by MrScott

Wow Robert, your details have paid off!!!
Have you had the chance to test on something wider than 9'?
If so, was it as simple as moving the BG lights to 5' or 6' out?
Also, can't tell from the pics - how large is the deflector and is it formed or flat? If you could take a pic of it mounted that would be great.

Thanks for describing the setup - I've had issues with off paper background shadow reflections on tileboard. This seems like a great way to hot up the BG outside of the frame.

Based on the current placement and readings I'm getting I don't think I'd have any trouble making this exact setup work for an 11 or 12' background. Pulling the light out might be necessary to make sure all corners and edges are being lit correctly. At a 12' width I might be inclined to angle the lights in carefully but you also have to be careful doing that because now the edge will be hot and you want to keep that at the edge and out of frame for any shots you'll be taking.

The Elinchrom deflector set comes with a silver and gold deflector. They are convex and have a pebbled surface. The Mini measures just under 5" in diameter.

[hawk911]

dayyum Robert- you just make the lights click on for me with White BG shooting. Deflector the hotspot!!! Doh

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by hawk911

dayyum Robert- you just make the lights click on for me with White BG shooting. Deflector the hotspot!!! Doh

I'm surprised this is the first that you caught that Geoff. I mention it all the time and I rarely light a white background without a deflector and the wide angle reflector. It really spreads that hot spot and with the coverage of the wide angle reflector you can get some very even pure white lighting with great coverage, even with only one light.

[hawk911]

I'm a bit slow sometimes. I know you use the wide angle reflector; just never clicked on the "de"flector

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by hawk911

I'm a bit slow sometimes. I know you use the wide angle reflector; just never clicked on the "de"flector

The deflector also works great in a beauty dish and if you want even light that is very soft just use the deflector and a diffusion sock and you're golden.

Strip boxes are also great for using deflectors. Even the best strips have falloff from the center to the short edge. WIthout any additional modification the deflector can even things out considerably.

Obviously the deflector can be used inside any modifier. Once you have one, check it out in the various boxes. I really like using the silver deflector with the 53" Octa.

[hawk911]

I've got 'em- all 3. Gold, silver, and I have to check again if I have the white or translucent. I've used them before on the BD.

[Shadowblade]

Any ideas on how to get the wide-angle reflector/deflector combination for a Bowens S-mount?. Seems like a better solution than the bare reflector/barndoors combination I've been using, which can cause problems with hot spots.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by Shadowblade

Any ideas on how to get the wide-angle reflector/deflector combination for a Bowens S-mount?. Seems like a better solution than the bare reflector/barndoors combination I've been using, which can cause problems with hot spots.

This is a Bowens 120 degree wide angle reflector:

http://www.adorama.com/BZ1883.html

There was someone else that recently mentioned a DIY so he could use Elinchrom deflectors with the umbrella mount on his strobes. A mod or DIY would have to be created and it would either have to be specific to the strobe you're using or be designed so that it could adjust and adapt based on the different placement of the umbrella mount on the strobe.

[TMR Design]

After thinking about this some more it occurs to me that you'd have to DIY the deflector, not just the deflector holder. The Elinchrom mini deflector is just under 5" in diameter. The Bowens reflector I linked to is only 6" wide. That won't work well.

[hypers2k]

Hi guys, great thread!
has anyone come up with a similar option for bowens users?

[umphotography]

Originally Posted by TMR Design

Hi Craig,

You can use any Elinchrom light as background lights. Even a D-Lite 2 is going to give you enough power in most situations.
BX250Ri's would work well. If you look around (B&H used department often has them) you can find the 600S or 300S which are the older analog versions of the RX series and quite often the prices are very good.

If budget is a consideration then either the D-Lite 2 or the BX250Ri would be all you need. Having more power in the background lights would be ok if they were RX strobes because of the wider range of control. WIth D-Lite's and BX or BXRi's you lose a stop of control. WHen I had 400BX's they were great but at times I needed the power lower for my background lights and I was limited so in the case of a small studio and 4 or 5 feet from the lights to the background then anything at 200 or 250 Watt seconds is going to give you all the power you need.

I don't use light stands for lights when I light for pure white. I use Manfrotto AutoPoles and the lights are attached to the poles using SuperClamp and SuperClamp hardware. I love the autopoles because they save so much floor space.

If I'm metering the backgrounds' reflectivity I stand at camera or subject position, point the 1 degree spot meter at various parts of the background to check for uniformity, and that's it. Ultimately I'm not concerned with small amounts of falloff from any other light source because it's completely insignificant in terms of contribution and the overall reflectivity is what's important.

Oh Man

I did not know these manfrotto poles existed. Thank you so much for this information. This will solve a lot of problems for my 12" wide and 32' long studio. Robert, in your opinion, are these pretty sturdy with the super clamps. I would be mounting an AB800 to them.

[umphotography]

Also not sure about these norman wide anglle reflectors with AB lighting. PCB makes a wide angle and ive used it with my umbrellas and have not tried it yet in a parabolic. It was only 12.95 so i grabbed it and thought i would experiment with it. Im thinking ill get another and experiment with it on my white backgrounds. Your right about the graduations and hot spots. Its been a pain in the A$$. I resulted to using small white shoot through umbrellas and hanging black fabric in front of them to control spill and it worked pretty good. But if a wide angle can spread it more evenly and control the spill a little easier, life would be sweet.

here is PCB's wide angle reflector for B users. they make 2 types. I have not tried these yet on a White BG but it looks like the UBR at 29.95 Might do the trick...got some experimenting to do
http://www.alienbees.com/7ur.html
http://www.alienbees.com/ubr.html

[munzzzzzzz]

I'm doing something similar and have had decent results with the 22" white PCB beauty dish with the diffusion fabric. Like the reflector Rob is using, it is spec'd out at 130 degrees coverage and comes with a deflector. It's obviously bigger, and I don't know that I'm getting the perfect results that Rob is able to achieve, but I'm pretty happy with it for the small amount of time I've worked on it. I first tried it without the deflector, and even with the diffusion dome on my Einstein's you can see a small hotspot, so I don't think think that PCB's 7" umbrella reflector is going to do the job as there would be no way to use a deflector without causing a LOT of spill. The UBR looks pretty cool, but I don't think it would work for achieving a pure white background either. The coverage pattern on PCB's website seems to imply it is designed to illuminate a single subject with falloff in the frame - not quite what you're going for.

Based on Rob's previous comments I also tried a Norman 5" wide angle reflector. They may fit on Alien Bees, but they don't seem to fit on my Einsteins - they just fall right off. I'm not about to start bending fingers on my lights, so it was pretty much a no-go. It would also be pretty hard to use any kind of deflector with them because you'd need to use the umbrella mount, but if I remember correctly the reflector's diameter puts it in about the same area as the umbrella mount - meaning you'd pretty much have to cut through the entire side of the reflector to use the umbrella mount at the same time.

So far, my experience is that the 22" beauty dish does the best job if you have limited space. If you have a wider studio and want to blow out the background like Zack Arias does, you have more options, but I just don't have the space... my "studio" is also only about 12' wide.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by hypers2k

Hi guys, great thread!
has anyone come up with a similar option for bowens users?

Many manufacturers do make a wide angle reflector but the key to the even lighting is not only having a wide angle reflector for greater coverage but it also involves the deflector to broaden and even out the hot spot.

[TMR Design]

Originally Posted by umphotography

Oh Man

I did not know these manfrotto poles existed. Thank you so much for this information. This will solve a lot of problems for my 12" wide and 32' long studio. Robert, in your opinion, are these pretty sturdy with the super clamps. I would be mounting an AB800 to them.

Autopoles and Superclamps are a great solution and very strong. The thing to be careful of is how you mount the Autopoles. As long as you extend them so you have a very snug fit before locking the pole in place then you'll have a very strong mount.

Obviously, don't try to use the poles with a drop ceiling or a ceiling that has no structure behind it.

I use my Autopoles and Superclamps with the Bogen 042 arm and have no trouble at all with an Elinchrom 600RX (heavier than Bees) and a 69" Octa or a 54" x 72" softbox.