The Geekoto Y-Wing Reflector

This blog is about reflectors, and especially about positioning them. The Geekoto Y-Wing Reflector gives you great wraparound light control.

A reflector can be a vital tool for portraits

When we look at portraits, there are many different ways to shoot them.
You can opt for a high-contrast setup with deep shadows, or perhaps you prefer a ring flash that eliminates shadows altogether.
The funny thing is that they are all perfectly acceptable.

There is, however, always one problem.
The shadow under the chin.
When photographing someone with glasses, it’s important to remember the “angle of incidence is the angle of reflection” rule. Which means you will often place your light slightly higher and angled down. And that means that reflections in the glasses are gone. But there is a large chance of deep shadows under the chin. Some people really like this dynamic (I’m one of them), but not everyone wants this. And most commercial clients actually want perhaps a very slight shadow, but preferably nothing. By the way, never take out all shadows; this will look very unnatural.

The problem with a lot of reflectors

Most 5:1 reflectors are great for outside work if you work with the sun, but in the studio, they are often not perfect.
Rogue has a great rectangular reflector, which I love to use with portraits, but it needs to be pretty close to the subject. For a portrait, that is not a problem, but if you want to shoot 3/4, it can be a bit limiting.
So we need something that doesn’t just reflect light, but also focuses the light.
Now, of course, I’m not going to tell you that Geekoto invented something brand new, but it’s a proven solution that works great. So why not build from there?

The Geekoto Y-Wing

With a softbox named the “Quicky,” it’s no surprise that one of the main benefits of the Geekoto system is “speed”.
The Geekoto soft boxes are insanely easy and fast to set up, and you can transport them with the grid and diffusers in place.
I’ve been working with Geekoto for a few years now and really love the fact that it doesn’t matter which softbox I grab for location work, I never have to think about the speed of setup. It’s all fast.

The Y-wing reflector is also very quick to set up. And of course, you can place it on your favorite light stand, and the reflector can be adjusted in almost any position you need. Including next to your model (who said you need it below the model).
But how does it look?

The 3 looks from the Geekoto Y-Wing Reflector

One of the more difficult things when using reflectors is shooting 3/4 shots. So we made a setup where I’m using the Y-wing from a pretty low position. Because we are pretty much snowed in, we decided to let Annewiek be our model for this demo.

Let’s start with the silver side.

This side gives you the most power back on your subject.
Shadows can be a bit harsh if placed too close, but overall this is a great material for high-contrast images with nice shadow fill when you place the reflector, for example, further away.
The Y shape and size make it a very powerful reflector.

I’m using a Geekoto GT400 with the S26 softbox for these images. Distance to the reflector, etc., all the same.
Do remember that if you place the reflector closer to the face, the output will be a LOT more.
My test was to see how well it would perform when we place it a lot lower than I would normally use a standard reflector.

As you can see, there is hardly any shadow left.

So, let’s change the material to white.

It’s super easy to do, as you can see in the picture below.
By the way, the Geekoto Y-Wing Reflector is delivered with Silver, White, and Gold surfaces. It is delivered in a nice bag and includes the stand holder. It’s extremely portable and doesn’t take up much space.
The Gold is mostly used to raise the color temperature when shooting in the shade, where the color temperature is much lower than in the sunlight. This gives a weird color effect and can be solved by bouncing with a gold surface on your subject in the shade.

So, for the studio shots, I tested the white and silver.

And here we have the effects with white.

And of course, you also want to see how it looks without the Y-wing reflector.
As you can see, Annewiek doesn’t like it 😀

Let’s compare

None, white, silver

Should you buy the Geekoto Y-Wing Reflector?

The Geekoto Y-wing is a very affordable but powerful reflector.
If you are shooting portraits in the studio or on location and want something super fast to set up, fits your stands, can be adjusted in loads of angles, collapses into a small package, and has 3 surfaces to choose from. The Geekoto Y-wing Reflector is the perfect fit.

I have kept one for myself and will be using it in the coming workshops.

Shop the Geekoto Y-Wing reflector in our webshop 

Read this blog about a different softbox of Geekoto: the Lantern

 

Living in the US? Buy through our link, and support our work.