Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I was practicing some lighting setups yesterday with a couple of strobes, a lightstand, and an umbrella. While setting everything up, I realized I didn't quite know what sort of an effect strobe placement within a shoot through umbrella has. Ie, placing the flash head close to the centre of the umbrella vs. a bit more off-centre.

The reason this even came up is due to the way my triggers work. I use Yongnuo RF-602's and the receiver attaches underneath the Speedlite. This means that I then attach the receiver to the bracket on the lightstand. The overall net result is that the flash head is about 1/2" higher than it would be if I were mounting the Speedlite only.

How much of an effect does that 1/2" have, and what kind of an effect? If I had to guess I'd say the light may be distributed less evenly and be more intense in the top half of the umbrella.

Thoughts?

You have it right. If the flash is not centered in the umbrella the "hot spot" will be off centre as well and you may not be illuminating the entire surface of the umbrella. Not a huge deal - just try to illuminate the umbrella as best you can by adjusting the depth of the flash unit on the umbrella shaft and using the widest beam possible. If you find that the umbrella is causing a hot spot on the subject where you don't won't it just feather the umbrella slightly away so the hot spot is not so noticeable.

Ditto to SD

heh heh

Thanks for the comments and the reminder to adjust the beam. I had neglected to pay attention to the focal length of the strobe last night.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by feathering the umbrella away? Do you mean pulling the umbrella further away from the strobe, so that the light that hits the umbrella has had a chance to start spreading out some?

Feathering the light is when you point the hotspot of the light away from the subject so only the edges of the light beam hit your subject .. Try pointing the center of your umbrella behind or infront of the subject so the main part of the light is not illuninating your subject thus only lighting them with the soft "featgered" edge light from your umbrella

Got it, thanks. Clearly I was overthinking my initial assumption as to what it meant

You can also play with the zoom setting on your strobe to say 24mm rather than 50, 85, 105 or even 200mm - that will spread out the beam across the umbrella more. SD mentioned it above when he said "widest beam possible".

I've seen people add metal brackets to lower the flash position so that the flash head is pointed closer to the center of the umbrella, or so that the flash is lying down for the same reason. In the past I've also used ball bungees to strap my flash to the umbrella bracket, not the most professional looking but it works..