Umbrellas that fit Elinchrom Lights

mumbles wrote in post #10297290
I think we are all cautiously awaiting the new PLM.....

OK, I must of missed the original thread. What is the PLM?

Okay but I want this something in a 60" umbrella for something different, all I want is an alternate to bouncing off the ceiling for a broad overall soft fill when doing table top, something that is very general.

Back on other conversations, I'm I guess kind of an umbrella fan anyway and fascinated by what I can get out of them. Several decades ago I traveled all over Alaska shooting commercials for television. We packed a whole Panavision camera kit but for lights we had to keep it small and my assistant and I took 9 Tota lights with both 120v bulbs and other bulbs that would run off of boat power, a whole kit of small grip gear which would put up a 10'x10' silk and white gryflon (for bounce) stretched with Lowel poles and held in place by human grip stands and 3 umbrellas, two very small and a larger one from Lowel.

The 9 Tota lights would get all stacked on one stand sometimes and go through the 10' silk (actually it was 1/2 oz spinnaker material) and create a large soft source of light. We did it that way so we could borrow extension cords (we carried 3) in case we had to run power to different houses etc. It was fun but I loved those umbrellas and that big silk/reflector when out sometimes in the middle of nowhere an we could transport it all in a Dehaviland Beaver float plan (not sure my spelling is right). I also took one of those old silver space blankets, before they became so thin, and I cut it down and put gromets on it to make a silver reflector which fit across a square made of of 4 lowel poles so I guess that would have made it about 5'x5', I remember it giving a very sweet - slightly edgy, slightly soft bounce light to a scene (not necessarily faces up close) on sunny days.

Back then Cinema Products made a silver parabolic umbrella which was about 32 inches across, mounted on a Tota light it was amazing what you could do with that. Anyway, I remiss, I love light control and I really love umbrellas, but I know it's really easy to fill your garage with this stuff when you buy to try and then don't like it.

I finally got around to converting my 60" Eclipse. Based on the coverage of the modeling light on my Freelite without a reflector, I cut the umbrella about 14" from the sliding section. Tetrode cut his at 18.5". I also cut the 7mm rod in half for my two umbrellas because I want the extra length to use with my SB800's at 14mm. I cut the shaft with a tube cutter and reamed it out. The fit was extremely tight. I ended up pounding the rod in with a sledge hammer about 1.5". There's no way it's going to come back out. This is a risky maneuver as you might bend the remaining shaft if you hit it too hard. I broke the cap of the umbrella that had one. Now they match. Any one know if I can get replacements?

One thought if you find yourself with the same problem would be to heat the end of the cut umbrella shaft. A propane torch would be perfect, but you probably could do it on the stove. You'd have to careful not let the whole shaft get hot as you might melt something. The heat would cause the metal to expand, making for an easier fit. When it cooled, it would grab it tight. They do this all the time when making wagon wheels.

I"m certainly not losing any sleep waiting for a PLM. I hope that when it's available it's as cool as we are hoping, but...............

I really am curious about the way it will be mounted, considering it's still an umbrella. We'll see.. who knows when though.....

I'm just not a big enough fan of umbrellas to want to do the conversion. I've done so much experimenting and work with a standard umbrella adapter with the strobe on top and I point the reflector towards the center.

Not having the flash tube right on the axis of the umbrella shaft just isn't as crucial as many of us make it out to be at times. I challenge anyone to look at images shot with an Elinchrom strobe and umbrella mounted to its central shaft and images with the strobe on an umbrella adapter and see the difference or perceive that small change in coverage when the light is actually falling on a person.

From my own experimenting I think I'd agree with Robert that the light doesn't have to be in the very center of the umbrella. I have set mine up to do that and have them at a distance that seems as good as it gets but it still boils down to the light source, what the character of the material is in the umbrella and how wide the umbrella is, how much coverage and how far the umbrella is from the subject.

Reasons I like umbrellas is that they are compact, with an assortment I can fit them into locations that aren't all that large, they are fast to set up, and don't require heavier stands to support them.

But all of that aside, I really do like having the spill light from an umbrella, I tend to like to use a reflector for the fill light, I also tend to like quite a bit of shadow on the fill side when it looks good but the way I like it is to get the fill bounced from the umbrella key. That leaves me my second speedlight to line the hair, or head from the back or along the down side from behind.

But I've been finding that the space considerations using CA Sunbounce reflectors for the fill side although working nicely, I may replace them indoors with a third light and small umbrella for fill, the reflector seems to dominate the area and in some cases I'd like the overall situation to seem less of a big deal to the person I am photographing, it's a mental thing about having them relaxed and not making it seem so important.

Because of that I'm also looking at the Kacey beauty dish for both indoors and out and keeping a couple of the Westcott double collapsable umbrellas in my speedlight strobist kit (I find I can do pretty much anything I want with those as shoot through or with the black backing on and they work as good as anything but haven't seen what a 60" umbrella will do yet).

To do this I'd want the beauty dish, put it together with two of the new third party speedlights set up with a skyport receiver, get the grid and sock and have this all together in the bag he makes for it. A lot of money so I have to think about it for a while and see if it's something that might be worth the effort and money.

I've been looking for the magic umbrella, I'll admit that and recently have been taking a couple of models and trying out pretty much every umbrella I have and quite honestly, I can use any one of them and get very similar results by adjusting the fill light to a similar balance and have found so far that the Westcott double fold seem just as pleasing as the rest.

The other option at this point is to pick a smaller softbox to use with one or two speedlights, something like the Ezyhotshoe or one set up on a Kacey adaptor.

I've decided to stick with speedlights for most location work and not invest in something like Ranger/Quadra/Profotos systems, I'm getting very close to what I want with speedlights now and when I need to go bigger indoors or close to electrical, I tend to just grab my Elinchrom strobes and my 69" Octobox which is a no fail setup, so easy to get sweet light with that it almost seems like cheating but it's not for everything, at least not yet, there's always more to learn.

TMR Design wrote in post #10454796
I'm just not a big enough fan of umbrellas to want to do the conversion. I've done so much experimenting and work with a standard umbrella adapter with the strobe on top and I point the reflector towards the center.

It's only about 20 twenty minutes work and you get to play with power tools. In the case of the Freelite, there's no other place to mount them.

cortes wrote in post #10461474
It's only about 20 twenty minutes work and you get to play with power tools. In the case of the Freelite, there's no other place to mount them.

Hey Curt.

It's still not worth it to me. If I want to use an umbrella I just grab my Softlighter which already has the right size shaft, and away I go.

I use a Photek Professional 60" umbrella. Not the softlighter version. The shaft fits perfectly in my Elinchrom lights. It is also convertible.

picturecrazy wrote in post #10462174
I use a Photek Professional 60" umbrella. Not the softlighter version. The shaft fits perfectly in my Elinchrom lights. It is also convertible.

HI LLoyd,

That's a great tidbit of information to know. Thank you. Are they standard umbrellas or are they sold and described as having a 7mm shaft?

TMR Design wrote in post #10462185
HI LLoyd,

That's a great tidbit of information to know. Thank you. Are they standard umbrellas or are they sold and described as having a 7mm shaft?

You know what? I haven't a clue. I just tested out umbrellas at my local camera store until I found one that fit into my lights. This Photek was the one. I have no idea what the spec is on it. It doesn't have any kind of model number or name on it...

Here are some pics if it helps.

1. This is what the label looks like on the cover and on the umbrella itself.

Jannie wrote in post #10298511
Okay but I want this something in a 60" umbrella for something different, all I want is an alternate to bouncing off the ceiling for a broad overall soft fill when doing table top, something that is very general.

Back on other conversations, I'm I guess kind of an umbrella fan anyway and fascinated by what I can get out of them. Several decades ago I traveled all over Alaska shooting commercials for television. We packed a whole Panavision camera kit but for lights we had to keep it small and my assistant and I took 9 Tota lights with both 120v bulbs and other bulbs that would run off of boat power, a whole kit of small grip gear which would put up a 10'x10' silk and white gryflon (for bounce) stretched with Lowel poles and held in place by human grip stands and 3 umbrellas, two very small and a larger one from Lowel.

The 9 Tota lights would get all stacked on one stand sometimes and go through the 10' silk (actually it was 1/2 oz spinnaker material) and create a large soft source of light. We did it that way so we could borrow extension cords (we carried 3) in case we had to run power to different houses etc. It was fun but I loved those umbrellas and that big silk/reflector when out sometimes in the middle of nowhere an we could transport it all in a Dehaviland Beaver float plan (not sure my spelling is right). I also took one of those old silver space blankets, before they became so thin, and I cut it down and put gromets on it to make a silver reflector which fit across a square made of of 4 lowel poles so I guess that would have made it about 5'x5', I remember it giving a very sweet - slightly edgy, slightly soft bounce light to a scene (not necessarily faces up close) on sunny days.

Back then Cinema Products made a silver parabolic umbrella which was about 32 inches across, mounted on a Tota light it was amazing what you could do with that. Anyway, I remiss, I love light control and I really love umbrellas, but I know it's really easy to fill your garage with this stuff when you buy to try and then don't like it.

I agree with your love of umbrellas. I have a 24" all the way up to the softlighter 60". What I did is modify my quadra to have a standard umbrella mount, and I can fit anything in it now. If you have non modifiable heads like BXRI's, then I'd suggest doing that 7mm rod modification to some lastolites like was suggested.

All Calumet umbrellas are 7mm to the point where they split in two, usually about half way down the shaft.

This includes all my 46 inch and 60 inch umbrellas.

They fit all of my Elinchroms perfectly.

Trailboy wrote in post #10468264
All Calumet umbrellas are 7mm to the point where they split in two, usually about half way down the shaft.

This includes all my 46 inch and 60 inch umbrellas.

They fit all of my Elinchroms perfectly.

Wow, I never knew that. Pretty cool.