Playing with the Parabola...

I know what you are thinking – three blog posts in three days… what’s going on?

Well today my 86” Parabolic Light Modifier Umbrella (PLM) showed up from Paul C. Buff all the way in Nashville, Tennessee USA. It only took 72 hours to get here too – well done UPS! The image here should give a little bit of an indication of the sheer size of this beast.

Now, I am a little restricted in my studio space with it's eight and a half foot ceilings but after a little bit of playing around with positioning angles and heights I was able to get a few nice single light set-ups. Shadows can be controlled depending on how close or far the light is from the subject and the angle to which it is positioned. Nice. David Griffin has done a wonderful review of this product on the Studiolighting.net website; some of which reads –

“The light pattern and quality created by the PLM is nothing short of incredible. Paul C. Buff has created something that's amazingly CHEAP, versatile, and even practical! From the smaller 42" PLM to the larger 86" PLM this is THE light mod to own. Imagine this, go out on a non-windy summer day under 12 o'clock devil light… you need to overpower the sun but don't have a flash over 160 watts. Pull out a sandbagged PLM 42" or larger and Get Ta Shootin! In my test I could pretty much overpower the sun with F16, ISO100 at 1/250th with a 100 watt bare bulb flash from about 4.5 feet away or closer! Its safe to say that this is my new favourite light modifier. I'm shocked that it’s not being hailed all over the net. But that's okay I'm a trailblazer anyway - you'll see what I've done with it in my next magazine spread!

The PLM is by far the most revolutionary light modifier I have seen. I without a doubt or restraint challenge everyone to find a more versatile 7ft light modifier for $112.91 or less!!! If you do, send it too me so I can A) review it and B) start using it! As this item quickly goes to the top of my cheap list… I say hey… GET THIS tool… and you know what… GET TA SHOOTIN!”

So there you go; a versatile light modifier that has a multitude of uses, and it's about $5000AUD cheaper than the Profoto alternative. I have a fashion shoot for a client this weekend that I am eager to try this puppy out for! I will be posting images from that shoot so you can see the results of the light produced by the PLM

The last image below shows the cool and rather unique catch lights that the PLM makes in the subjects eyes – which I like very much. I think I am going to be using this thing quite a lot…