Anyone use a 7' reflector?

I was introduced to the Westcott 7' reflector, which is only $99! I was thinking of getting one for the studio but I wanted to see what people here have thought of them.

I mostly photograph seniors, beauty and bridal in studio. I love the idea of a huge umbrella to get soft light, but one limitation is my studio is only about 9' tall and its not very wide, but the umbrella will be behind me, I wont be able to get it off to the side very much.

Plus I can use this outdoors, but I dont know how much light it will give from a speedlight.

Youre going to use a 7' umbrella outdoors? I hope youre filming the sequal to Mary Poppins.

I have the PLM from paul buff. Its pretty much the same thing. Its a great modifier, but not for a speedlite.

In the video they used a transparent umbrella as a skrim and got pretty good results, but I wont be buying a 2nd one any time soon, if its not windy it would be interseting to see the results of this outdoors instead of the smaller umbrealla I have now.

But for the most part this would be used in studio.

Ah, Ive seen that video. I thought it looked nice as well.

Not the greatest item for outside, even with just a slight breeze it can be a pain. Your going to get pretty much the same look using the large or the small with a speedlite outside.

Im mostly wondering how you all that have one of these like the look of the lighting in studio compared to smaller umbrellas?

GerryDavid wrote in post #15975908
Im mostly wondering how you all that have one of these like the look of the lighting in studio compared to smaller umbrellas?

If you are using a speedlite it will look the same as a smaller umbrella because a speedlite wont spread enough to fill it. It would look much like a 42 inch umbrella. With a bare studio light its a different matter as the light can fill the larger modifier.

In studio Ill be using the elinchrom dlite4 strobes. : )

They are great for times when you want to "flood the zone" with light. They give off a huge spread of nice soft light. If you use them with a diffusion panel its a big soft cloud of light.

With 9' ceiling the 7' umbrella is going to be essentially a floor to ceiling light source behind you. i.e. a really big ring light. That will work as a fill or for a glam look. It would be better if you could get it a few feet higher so there was some down angle.

I have all the PLMs The V2s, especially the soft silver is an outstanding modifier. Especially when its large. THIS shoot used big soft silver main and medium white shoot through for fill. The main was about 6 feet from model and about 30* off axis and angled down about 45*.

The PLM system from pcb can be used with speed lights...you just have to use the umbrella mount rod instead of the speedring

brooksclayton wrote in post #15984560
The PLM system from pcb can be used with speed lights...you just have to use the umbrella mount rod instead of the speedring

Sure, but a speedlite wont come even close to filling the large PLM. So anything gained by going that large is lost.

gonzogolf wrote in post #15985694
Sure, but a speedlite wont come even close to filling the large PLM. So anything gained by going that large is lost.

Yeah true. A handfull a times I've used a tri-flash bracket at twighlight with the PLM and aim them to spread to fill the whole thing.

brooksclayton wrote in post #15986030
Yeah true. A handfull a times I've used a tri-flash bracket at twighlight with the PLM and aim them to spread to fill the whole thing.

I've done that myself for a group shot.