Octa for Bowens mount?

I'm looking to get a big fat octa for the up coming wedding season and I'm sure it wont hurt for shooting babies, portraits, etc. But what to get? I have 2 x 400ws Lastolite Lumen8 strobes using bowens s-mount. What should I be looking for? The Elinchrom 53" octa looks darn nice but can I get an s-mount speedring for it? I was also looking at a Walimex 80-inch octa which is much cheaper and comes with a grid. But huge!

Bowens themselves also make a 60" Octo: http://www.bowens.co.u​k/content/pages/octo15​0.html

Any thoughts? Recomendations? It will be my main light for weddings, portraits etc. I need me some big beautiful light

Have you checked out Interfit? I have no experience with them, just remember seeing that they make octoboxes with S mounts.

dkspook wrote in post #9841995
I'm looking to get a big fat octa for the up coming wedding season and I'm sure it wont hurt for shooting babies, portraits, etc. But what to get? I have 2 x 400ws Lastolite Lumen8 strobes using bowens s-mount. What should I be looking for? The Elinchrom 53" octa looks darn nice but can I get an s-mount speedring for it? I was also looking at a Walimex 80-inch octa which is much cheaper and comes with a grid. But huge!

Bowens themselves also make a 60" Octo: http://www.bowens.co.u​k/content/pages/octo15​0.html

Any thoughts? Recomendations? It will be my main light for weddings, portraits etc. I need me some big beautiful light

There are lots of considerations to make here, there are many offerings but the most important if you are a wedding shooters comes down to: Do you have assistants? normal octaboxes (dynaphos, interfit, photoflex, etc.) are a pain in the derriere to put them together and even with practice is time consuming; with some help it would be better if you plan to shoot weddings with it.

Then there is color shift problems a lot of cheap octaboxes and softboxes (umbrellas too) aren´t treated against fluorescence and or tints in the inner and outer baffle which results in magenta/purple color casts.

The bowens 1.5mts octa is nice but you need a heavy duty stand and sandbags too because it easily becomes top heavy, but it is beautiful light.

The other option would be the 60" Photek Softlighter II which produces madly beautiful soft light and it is easy to setup but the con would be that if you use it outdoors you need many sandbags and someone to hold the stand; because of the size it easily becomes a sail and it is kinda fragile so you have to be careful with it, but the price is so low you can buy like 4 of them for the price of a good (no cheapie magenta cast) Octa, the other con is that it doesnt has grids. The 50" Westcott Apollo softbox is yet another option although the biggest con is that it doesn´t allow much tilt because of how you setup the stand inside the softbox.

Also i read in the Lighting Rumors blog that there is a store in the UK selling knock offs of the Paul C Buff PLM that could be nice although I don´t know how they fare in terms of color casts.

I tend to favor the softlighter II (if it isn´t vs the big elinchrom octa that folds like an umbrella or the profoto parabolic umbrella) in the situations where a grid isn´t needed, if grids are needed the photoflex (or plume, waffer, etc.) 5 feet octa is nice (although a PITA to put together), and if you really are in a tight budget talk with the people who have bought the walimex or interfit octa to see if it produces a purplish or magentaish cast.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the replies guys - I've been eyeing the Lastolite 3x6 panels as well... The look very versatile, but will definitely need a "handler" but I usually have an assistant so that shouldn't be a problem

Will be looking into that Softlighter II...

dkspook wrote in post #10214175
Thanks for the replies guys - I've been eyeing the Lastolite 3x6 panels as well... The look very versatile, but will definitely need a "handler" but I usually have an assistant so that shouldn't be a problem

Will be looking into that Softlighter II...

Here you can see some snippets of it in this behind the scenes video of Tina Fey vanity fair´s photoshoot and in the video you can see the final photos (Tina with the white blouse) too http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=ydR_-y3fsIU

dkspook wrote in post #10214175
Thanks for the replies guys - I've been eyeing the Lastolite 3x6 panels as well... The look very versatile, but will definitely need a "handler" but I usually have an assistant so that shouldn't be a problem

Will be looking into that Softlighter II...

As alredy been mentioned, the Softliter II 60" is not a quality product, using it for weddings on location outdoors is not something i would do, unless your prepared to replace them continuously.

The skylitepanels can be mounted on stands using gripheads, regardless of assistent you will need some heavy duty stands and sandbags.

What lights are you planning to use ?

I can vouch for the Photoflex Octodome, 5' and 7' versions - they're built well, easy to set up and are griddable.

The Creative Light 5' Octa is also a nice unit - picked one up a couple of weeks ago (along with some strips and a 2x3) and was impressed. I assume they make a Bowens mount - if not pickup a Bowens QR, drill-out the 1/4-20 hole for the 8th rod and you're good to go. I did just that with a Bowens QR (with Profoto insert) and works like a charm.

Conner999 wrote in post #10214640
I assume they make a Bowens mountm.

They do, they offer a speedring for just about any major brand, 17 in total as well as one for speedlights (canon & Nikon)

Yeah, knew they offered the typical myriad (with the Eli units needing the bolts reversed for free rotation) and the rather nice looking speedlight ring, and assumed Bowens, but couldn't be bothered checking. The rings (mine are Profoto insert) are robust and while maybe a bit over-engineered, well made, easily adjusted to the degree of free rotation you want and the price is decent.