Notes from the Field

When it choosing lighting tools for a photo shoot, I am as schizophrenic as they come. One minute I am using large modifiers with my White Lightnings, then the next I am using umbrellas with my Canon Speedlites.

The reason I choose one light or another sometimes comes down to basic issues, portability and the modifiers I can use with the different lights.

If I know I am going to have to hike a mile in the forest, I take my Speedlites, regardless of how I want the light to look, because I am not going to carry more gear that can fit into two small shoulder bags. I will use the light modifiers that I can fit on my Speedlites, but there is usually a compromise that I have to make when using the smaller lights. The modifiers that are available for Speedlites are usually not as good as the modifiers available for larger studio heads or monoblocs.

If I want a big, beautiful light source, I fire up the White Lightnings, because all of my large modifiers work with those lights, and I can’t really use my small Speedlites to fill a super large umbrella or beauty dish like I can with my White Lightning monoblocs, plus attaching some of my large modifiers to the small Speedlites is either not possible or practical.

If you have already reach this conclusion, let me put it out there; this is not the way to light. While I am not unhappy with the light I create, I am bothered by the fact that I have to sometimes settle or work around issues of size versus modifiers.

Beauty by Chloe, light by the Apollo Softbox and Triflash.

I have known for sometime there is a middle ground. A land where people can have their cake and eat it too. I have seen Joe McNally use items like the Lastolite TriFlash, which holds three hot shoe flashes. And I have seen, and read about, the 4-Square from both David Black and Syl Arena, which can hold 4 and even 8 Speedlites with the right modifications. Both items hold multiple Speedlites, while allowing a modifier to be connected using the umbrella adaptor on either item. The multiple Speedlites allows for more power and quicker recycle time, as well as having enough power to be used with big modifiers.

There are also great light modifiers from Westcott and Lastolite that produces great looking light from my Speedlites, without all the weight and size of the my studio strobes.

So I saved some pennies and I bought my lighting combination of peanut butter and chocolate. I purchased the new version the Lastolite Triflash, which has a locking feature to hold the flashes in the cold shoe, and the Westcott Apollo 50-inch softbox. This combination was something I have been looking for and thinking about for the last year.

Many will ask, “Why such a large softbox.”

Well, I have two small softboxes that are about the same size of the smaller Apollo, which is 28 inches square. I have been looking for a larger softbox for the last few years and the 50-inch Apollo was in my budget range and the size was perfect for what I would be shooting with it. I also like the Apollo because it is one of the few softboxes that does not require speed rings or special gear to go from either different manufactures or small hot shoe flashes. It also allows you to place the light source so it faces the back of the box, which is silver, and then bounces the light back through the front diffusion and onto your subject, which I think makes for much softer light. While I bought it for use with my Speedlites, it can go on any light source as long as it has some sort of umbrella attachment, excluding hot lights, which the Apollo is not designed for.

The 50-inch Apollo setup.

On the smaller Apollo, you may get away with only using one Speedlite, (Syl Arena has a great article on why you might want to re-think this and use multiple lights). But with a large 50×50 softbox, I would need some more power. Enter the Lastolite Triflash, which gives me the extra power with two more Speedlites inside the softbox. Another plus to having multiple light sources is that I can point them at different sides of the softbox to spread out the light, reducing hotspots and creating a more diffused light, more on this later.

First Impressions

Let’s start with Lastolite TriFlash. This is the new locking version, which is perfect for securing my Speedlites. The first version of the Triflash always felt cheap to me. It was like the engineers at Lastolite came up with a great idea, but just tacked two additional hot shoes on the side of an umbrella stand and called it a day. This new version feels properly designed and the locking feature is an added plus to keep your Speedlites secure. And unlike many locking cold shoes, this does not use a small screw as the only locking/attachment point, but rather a clamp that secures to both sides of the shoe of the flash, which makes it much more secure and stable.

The Lastolite Triflash. This is has become one of my setups when I am using High Speed Sync.

The Apollo Softbox, on the other hand, didn’t leave me with the same warm fuzzies as the Triflash. First, this modifier costs over two hundred dollars, and came with no storage sack or Velcro straps to keep it closed when it is collapsed. I have paid a fraction for other modifiers and they come with great storage solutions. Also, there were no real instructions for setup to be found. So I went to the Wescott website which had instructions to download, but where poorly written and offered little in the way of help in setting up the unit. I do have to give some lenency to Wescott, I don’t know if the company I order from forgot to include the instructions and storage sack.

Quick Note. If you own a lighting or photo supply company and do not have great videos on setting up and using your products in this day and age, you are missing the boat.

I also have to say the finish work of the Westcott is pretty bad as well. While the unit itself setup just fine, I found little threads that handed had not been trimmed off after sewing. Not a big deal, but once again, for the money, I expect the finish work to be spot on.

Set up

The Triflash sets up with no problem and didn’t require me to double check if the shoes of the flashes were secure, I just hand to tighten and I was ready to go. You really don’t need to use the attachment features of the flashes themselves, the Triflash does that good of a job. But personally, I found it is a second way to secure the flashes, so why not lock them down as well. The clamps on the Triflash are perfect and I wish all umbrella adaptors were this well built.

Setting up the Triflash is pretty simple, just attach it to a 5/8-inch stud on a light stand and then attach you flashes to the Triflash. My only complaint is that the knob to tighten or loosen the tilt on the Triflash is pretty small and hard to turn at times. I found a solution around that by using a C-stand for my application, more on that in a moment.

The Apollo sets up pretty easily as well. The Apollo is a softbox, but opens up like an umbrella. The shaft of the Apollo is pretty thick and doesn’t feel like it can be accidentally bent. There is only one piece of diffusion, and one side of it is sewn to the softbox itself, so you don’t have to worry about loosing the diffusion on setup or teardown like many other softboxes.

The Apollo attaches to a light stand via an umbrella adaptor. At the bottom of the softbox is a zipper that you open and then drop the adaptor and stand through the hole in the softbox, then slide the shaft of the softbox through the umbrella adaptor, or in my case the Triflash.

The only problem is that because of the angle of the box to the position of the stand and the space allowed by the zipper, you can’t tilt the softbox forward. I struggled with this for some time, because I like to tip my modifiers quite a bit.

Interior shot of the Apollo. Notice the C-stand arm coming through the bottom zipper.

I finally found a solution in using a C-stand instead of a standard light stand. I attached the grip arm and a 5/8-inch stud, called a nail or pin, in the grip head. I extended and angled the grip arm into the softbox and attached the Triflash and the Apollo to the nail. Now I can tilt the Apollo forward and have many more options for positioning the box where ever I want, including flipping it upside down to get it right on the ground, for low shots.

The Apollo Softbox setup on a C-stand. Notice the grip arm extending into the softbox.

Once I had the Apollo in the Triflash and on the C-stand, I put three of my Canon Speedlites on the Triflash. One of the Speedlites was a Canon 580EX II, with an extra long TTL cable attached to it. This setup lets me control the 580 from the back of my Canon 7D, allowing me to change power settings and modes, without opening the softbox up and changing settings on the Speedlite itself. I put two other Canon Speedlites in there, both set to Slave and Group A, so they trigger in the same group as my Master. Now I have a big softbox, with three Speedlites inside, all controlled by the LCD on my camera. Which, I must say, is very, very nice.

Hands free, beautiful light, all control from the back of the camera.

Results

The Apollo produces beautiful light, as you would expect from a large soft light source. The recessed front panel makes it easy to feather the light from the Apollo on or off of your subject. I found that tilting each Speedlite’s head, to hit the sides and not the back of the Apollo, produced a more even light, with no noticeable hot spots.

On the left, the heads are pointed to the back of the softbox, which gives you a hotspot. On the right, the heads are pointed at the sides of the softbox, no hotspot.

The quality of light is very nice, beautiful in fact, but what really makes the Apollo shine is the Triflash inside. I could put my one of my White Lightning in the Apollo, but anytime I want to make a change to the power setting of the flash, I would have to open the diffusion, make the power change, then close the diffusion and go back to camera and continue to shoot. But with the Triflash and the long TTL cable, I can make those changes from the back of the camera and never have to touch the Apollo.

I also have played with removing the front diffusion panel for some shoots, to get a little more power and contrast from the Speedlites. With the panel flipped up, the silver interior creates very nice light with a little extra pop.

And before I go to much further, I do want to point out that even with the master flash pointed to the back of the Apollo and the diffusion panel down, I can still trigger other Speedlites outside the Apollo as long as they stay in the line of site.

Conclusion

I am happy to announce that I have found my combination of chocolate and peanut butter when it comes to lighting. In the few short weeks of owning the Apollo and the Triflash, I have done most of my shooting with this new combo. Not because I feel the need to get my money’s worth out of the purchase, but because I now have big studio lighting results, from a small and lightweight setup with the Apollo and Triflash.

There are some shortcomings to this system. While I think softboxes work better in windy conditions, I worry that the umbrella attachment the Apollo uses is too weak and may not hold up as well as a traditional speed ring attachment on a softbox.

I also think that while the Triflash has improved in this newest version with the clamping mechanism for the flashes, the attachment for the umbrella is a simple screw, and could benefit from a better clamping mechanism, to hold the big umbrellas, softboxes and brollies that many shooters will attach to the Triflash.

I also want to point out that the Triflash is perfect for use without the softbox, as I have used it many times with bare flashes when using the High Speed Sync mode in my Canon Speedlite system. The three lights make a much larger light source and doesn’t require me to attach several different types of clamps to a stand to hold multiple Speedlites.

Kelsey brought to you by High Speed Sync and the number f/2.8

Last is the real lack of tilt when using the Apollo. While I found a way around this with the use of C-stand, many shooters will not have a C-stand available and will have trouble tilting this softbox with out one. I am not sure there is a real easy way around this, and I think it is something you have to live with when using the Apollo. It also requires that I have to include a C-stand when planning on using this setup, which is not a lightweight stand to be caring around in the field.

All of these points are really small, and very critical about both the Apollo and the Triflash. The simple fact is I have a big beautiful light source, that is lightweight, easy to setup and tear down, works with both Manual and TTL settings with my Canon system, and with a long TTL cable, I can control all of this without having to touch the softbox once it is in place. My only real regret is that I didn’t purchase this combination sooner.

Chloe shot with bare Speedlites using High Speed Sync. The Triflash made this so simple and easy.