Lastolite Umbrella Box 40"

Lately I have red many good things about the Umbrellas with Diffusers so I decided to treat me to a brand new 40” Lastolite Umbrella Box. I had the choice for a larger one but I knew I couldn’t use it with small speed lights so I had to quit on the megalomaniac idea.

Kirk Tuck, in his latest book mentions a lot the Photek Umbrellas with diffusers, he suggest they can deliver a light almost as soft as a very expensive Octabank and uses a lot the 60” with Alien Bees or Profoto 600W lights. This is where I got the inspiration for my purchase and decided to give it a try the minimalistic way.

It would not be fair to say that I run a very extensive test, in fact I didn’t. Just put together a background, two stands and the D90 on a tripod to take some shots at my new baby reel, a Team Daiwa Bradia 2000, a tiny little jewel. I left the diffuser dome in the SB800 and had to pump it to ¼ power in manual and 200 ISO to achieve this f11 at 1/200 seconds. The Lastolite Umbrella Box was positioned right on top of the reel. The second light is an SB800 with diffuser dome on through a LumiQuest Softbox III, a small yet powerful light diffuser. This was feathered a bit towards the background and flagged with a small gobo to avoid light spill on the reel. The power of this light was set at 1/32. Both flashes have been triggered with Nikon CLS in separate groups

For the sake of it also have a look at how the light works with different modifiers. For the following images we got rid of the second light and just used the SB800 on top of the reel, see the difference:

SB800 with diffuser dome only

SB800 through LumiQuest Softbox III

SB800 through Lastolite Umbrella Box

Lumiquest Softbox III

A couple of hours ago I received the prizes of my March win of the LumiQuest contest. The parcel, which arrived in 48hrs since I choose my goods, included one Softbox III, a ProMax System and two cinch straps.

Didn’t really wanted to wait too much to test it, so I quickly unpacked it and put it on my SB800 on a stand. I choose one jaws of my collection and made few test shots.


Camera settings: D90 with Nikkor 35mm f2. F9 at 1/200 sec at ISO 100. Flash in Manual 1/10 when using the sole flash with diffuser and 1/8 when using the Softbox III still with diffuser. The light was at around 45º camera left and the reflector is a white cardboard placed on the right of the jaw, slightly behind it.


Here is the sequence of the images:

Only SB800 with diffuser. Harsh, harsh lights

Only SB800 with diffuser and reflector. The light bounced by the reflector smoothens a bit the shadows but yet they are unpleasant

SB800 with diffuser and Lumiquest Softbox III. The shadows are way smoother compared with the first image

SB800 with diffuser and LumiQuest SoftboxIII with reflector. we have quite an even light and reasonably soft shadows.

"The rig"

Quite a great result for a 22X19cm softbox. I think it will be my "secret" weapon when doing the fishing portraits. It doesn't get on the way of the CLS and is very light, so hand helding the SB800 with the Softbox III mounted will never be a problem.

Thanks you guys at Lumiquest for giving me the chance to try this cool diffuser, now we just have to wait for the Grand Prize :-)