A New Toy

I had the good luck to be given a Lastolite Ezybox softbox for my birthday last December and up until now I haven’t had a chance to use it. Katy and I set it up last night and had a play with it.

First impressions are that it’s a doddle to put up; a flick of the wrist and the softbox takes shape. I am not going to go into the how to set it up as it was fairly straightforward, if you use one you'll see what I mean. Putting it away was just as easy. I made one modification; I removed the cold shoe that came with the bracket and replaced it with one of the flash triggers I use. The model I got was the 60cm one.

The light from it was amazing and very controllable. It was made for the type of portrait shots I like to do; film noir. I have been getting similar results with using a closed down reflective umbrella, but the draw back of this approach is that there is the umbrella rod close to your subjects face just waiting to poke their eye out. Not recommended. And also I find it harder to reach in close to the subjects face to adjust the flash output. The softbox can be almost touching the models face and you still have easy access to the flash, because nits behind it.

the setup

I have yet to use it outside, but given the weight and shape it cannot be any worse than an umbrella in the wind. Fort these shots we killed the ambient, more or less and then added back in the softbox light.

And thanks again to Katy for being the model… and the photography in the end...

Noel and Katy