Tag Archive for: review

Our brand new fiberglass umbrellas

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For our Dutch visitors, please also read this blogpost on our Dutch site.

Umbrellas?
Yes I know.
Often the first light shaper you get when you buy your first strobes.
And let’s be honest, the quality of those photos are not all that, Right?
So in most cases we immediately start saving up for soft boxes, but they retail for a lot more money, and when you finally have the budget to invest in soft boxes… the quality often doesn’t jump up immediately right? But it does.

Well it’s easy to explain actually.
When we buy something new, we take time to test things and figure out how to get the best out of it (we paid for it right?)
And believe it or not, often the softbox indeed gives you much better results after a few days, but does this mean that umbrellas are limited?

I would like to say the opposite.
The main reason most photographers don’t use umbrellas anymore is because we still remember the problems and results from umbrellas connected to that first period, but… we didn’t know what we know now right?

A new friend
Let’s be totally clear, I’m without a doubt in the category that didn’t really like umbrellas. But I’m also the first one that will admit he was wrong… and very wrong (well ok not that wrong).

The main thing about umbrellas is the way you use them.
When we look at the new kit from Rogue we get two different kind of umbrellas.


First we have the white one
This is a 86cm umbrella you can use as shoot through, or reflective.
This is also often the kind of umbrella that gives beginners headaches for the simple reason the light goes everywhere. But in all honesty that’s also the power of this light shaper.

This umbrella is literally awesome to light white backgrounds.
Where with other solutions there is always some hot spotting on the background, it’s also very difficult to also include the floor, let alone also give the model a slight edge light. When you place the white umbrella correctly and adjust the distance to the preferred result you could in essence light the full background evenly, the floor AND give your model a slight accent light.

The main reason the even lighting of the background becomes more and more important has connection to the new cameras that use a soft shoulder and don’t clip highlights as easily as in the past, meaning if you get a hotspot behind your subject it can literally reflect back into your camera washing out the image and most certainly destroy detail in fine details like hairs (especially with a blond model). With umbrellas you prevent this from happening.

The white umbrella gives a beautiful soft omnidirectional quality of light and is also great to use a fill in flash, especially with larger sets and situations where you simply don’t have the room for a large soft box, or where you need a wide area of a room/set covered with light. But also think about larger groups etc. omnidirectional light is always handy.

The black one
The other umbrella is the black one.
This one is used in a reflector setup and is delivered with a nice soft light sleeve that is very easy to attach and has an opening for both speedlight and larger monoheads (we use it on our Hensel Experts and speedlights).

The main thing about the black umbrella is the softness of the light when used with the sleeve, but also the spread when used without. Let me explain.
When you use a standard softbox the light is in 99% of the cases placed in the back of the softbox aimed at the front or sometimes at a diffusion panel in the middle of the box. With an umbrella (and a little bit on a beauty dish) you don’t work with direct light, but actually with reflected light, and this means you get a MUCH nicer and more even light output. Meaning softer light from a MUCH smaller (in depth) light shaper.

The other thing I really like about the black umbrella is that you can opt for both the super soft quality of light with the sleeve, but also for a much harsher quality without the sleeve, making it one of the most versatile light shapers I actually have in our studio. Well ok the Westcott Lindsay Adler projector takes that spot but that’s something completely different 😀 (and more expensive).

The black umbrella I use a lot for fill in flash where I want a beautiful soft quality of light but don’t want the light hitting the rest of the set. Often I place this light 2-3 stops under the main light for an effect you just can’t do in post processing without adding loads of noise and detail loss.

Take for example this setup.

As you can see a very nice “dark” setup with loads of mood and atmosphere.
Normally I would use a large 1.20 softbox (800 euros) for this, first of all it takes up a lot of space (can’t take it with me on location) and it’s expensive for just fill in. With the black umbrella I took of the sleeve and added a small reflector to really focus my fill in light.

By the way that’s also something I love about umbrellas, they look so simple but you can change the rod distance, add sleeves, shoot through or reflect AND use other light shapers to really change the total look of the shot. How about for example using a grid inside the reflector… have to try that soon 😀

But you can also use the black umbrella for something else.
How about placing it above our model and aim it so the model is lit and the background. Add some Black diffusion filter on your lens (KF concept black diffusion filter 1/4 in this shot) and you get some interesting results from just one strobe.

Of course our cool ClickPropsBackdrops background also helps 😀
Ok, lets take a look at the disadvantages and advantages.

Disadvantages
I have to be honest I’ve been thinking about this a lot. So I decided to do it differently.
The main disadvantages of the umbrellas are often two fold.

First there is the control of light
especially when you start out you simply don’t have the proper knowledge to really use the umbrellas to their full potential. The setup can be quite difficult, not because it is difficult but because a small adjustment can give you a huge difference, in the past I would label this as hard to setup, but now that I’m a lot further in my journey I actually call it “mind boggling opportunities for many different looks”.

This about changing the distance of the light source itself, maybe making it leak on the sides on purpose, or using a reflector with or without grid, how about…. and….. you got it, you have to be able to use it to it’s max potential to really see the benefits. But when you do it will beat probably almost any light shaper you have for broad light, because let’s be clear, an umbrella is not a snoot, but it can easily replace most softboxes. So this argument I think is mostly experience and understanding of light.

The second one is a big one, construction
And this is a big one.
Most umbrellas I used in the past were easily broken or bend making them unusable in a few weeks/months of use. And although they are cheap I never really ordered new ones and just replaced them with using softboxes. The main advantage of these new Rogue umbrellas is that they are not only compact without sacrificing use cases, but their base is made from fiberglass, and that’s a BIG thing, these umbrellas will last a long time, and for lightshapers that are great on location (and in the studio) it means they get a bit more abuse than a softbox that is only used in the studio, so a sturdy construction (and a handy carrying bag) are I think essential.

To be honest this is about it, from what I can think off.
You could add wind on location, but that also goes for softboxes, and an umbrella with a sleeve is less prone for wind problems than without of course, so I would not really add this to umbrella specific.

Advantages
Ok, are you sitting down?

Price
The price of the whole kit is in Europe around 100 euros. Which gives you the white and black umbrellas, a sleeve for the black one PLUS a carrying bag, you do wonder how anyone can afford NOT to have one, right?

Usability
You name it, and you can probably light it with an umbrella.
White backgrounds.. no problem (saves on background reflectors which can’t be used for anything else)
Beauty portraits… no problem
Fill in light…. absolutely awesome
Full bodies, portraits, whole sets, the umbrella can do it all.
But most of all it fits on every brand and both speedlights and monoheads (studio strobes) but even on led lights you can place umbrellas.

Space
This is perhaps the biggest one.
Get large softbox quality in a very tight space. Especially on location, but also in the studio, I often fight with the space to fit all my lights in there. I often demo on trade shows where I only have a space of perhaps 3×4 meters which is really really tight if you also have to place your lights. So often I will bring one striplight and some reflectors or a beautydish, but add an umbrella to your kit and you can also use super soft light in tight spaces.

Conclusion
I never really looked at umbrellas the last few years, sometimes when I needed one I would pick one from storage to find out a rod was broken or it wouldn’t open nicely because something was bend, meaning most of the cases I would just not use it and grab my softbox again (safe and it worked). The new Rogue umbrellas forced me to look seriously at umbrellas again and I totally fell in love with it. It really fits my way of photography where I love to experiment with modifiers and don’t really like the one trick pony light shapers. And the umbrella is far from a one trick pony.

The umbrellas are now available via our webshop in the Benelux, or via our supported dealers.
More info on rogueflash.nl for Dutch customers and www.rogueflash.com for international customers.
I HIGHLY recommend picking up one kit and an extra white umbrella to be able to do almost anything you encounter.

See our live stream where I introduced the umbrellas via our Digital Classroom series.
This was the first time I really used them, and it’s live… so you really see me experimenting with them and finding new use cases.

But there is more, so lets take a look at some samples.
With smoke I always love the wrap around effect on my model, but I also want to see the detail in the smoke and a bit of light on the background, normally this means a 3 light setup. With proper placing the black umbrella we did it with one during a workshop smoke.

Here another setup with the umbrella and one accent light for the lens flare.
Normally I would use a softbox as mainlight. Now in this case we have plenty of room, but look at the space the umbrella needs and compare that to an average 1.20 softbox, I think it’s easily to see the huge advantages of using an umbrella 😀

 

And let’s add some more images I shot with the umbrellas.

Bring some Hollywood in your images

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Sometimes you come across software that is truly unique.

Most software that you find online are variants of each other, eg Lightroom, Photoshop or they are focused on a specific part of the workflow such as tinting, skin processing, etc. But there is always a variant of a variant to be found. That’s why I was really surprised by BorisFX Optics.

As a big film lover I regularly see light effects of which you as a photographer know that it is as fake as can be… but oh how beautiful it is in the context of the film, think of the beautiful glow around street lighting in the fog on a warm summer evening, realize that there was no fog at all but it was added through special effects….

When we think of special effects we often think of space ships, talking mice, etc. but what we often don’t think about is that special effects are also used to add fog, glow, lens flares, smoke, etc. to a scene to increase the atmosphere. in a movie, and it’s just often easier to add it later than to fog up an entire street perfectly.

But also fire and particles are part of special effects, just think of a scene where someone walks into a burning house, all those small fire particles of burning paper/material… huge chance that these are all special effects.

The software that is used a lot for this could be labeled as the big brother of BorisFX Optics. And this is also very clear by the huge amount of options and very realistic looks.

There is a lot of software where you can work with overlays for smoke, for example, but I have never seen software where you can literally let the smoke pass by like a movie via a multitude of sliders and choose EXACTLY where you want the smoke, and even then you can still change a staggering amount of things building the perfect smoke. And believe it or not but almost every effect you choose has a similar slider choice, if you don’t get the desired effect with this I wouldn’t know what to do.

Anyway, isn’t this “cheating”?
Yes and no.
What I personally have trouble with is when people make no effort at all for correct lighting or styling and then try to make a photo interesting through all kinds of filters, and although sometimes you can get some very nice results, it is a completely different result if what I have in mind when I shoot a scene.

Of course you can always say that if it is not caught by the camera, it is not real… but…. then I wonder how do you see a black mist filter, which makes a lens flare clearly stronger?

And that’s basically how I see BorisFX Optics too.
I’m still trying to get the photo 100% correct in the camera, I build the whole set, put the lighting in the right places, use smoke etc. etc. But after the shoot I use BorisFX Optics to turn everything “on”, the lens flare is already in the photo, but in the retouch process you can enhance it with eg BorisFX Optics and really give it your look and feel. The same applies to turning on a spot just a little bit extra, it is there, but you make it just a bit clearer, or enhance the glow of an old tube amp…  I personally have no problem with that at all.

And let’s be honest, in the end we still made the photo ourselves and went through the entire process in the software and that is a completely creative process, only instead of just colors we now also add atmosphere in a photo which otherwise would not have been possible, and this makes it possible for me as a film enthusiast to give photos a much more film look.

In the coming months I will make several videos about BorisFX Optics, you can find them on our YouTube channel and of course from this site.

► Get 20% off Boris FX Optics via https://bit.ly/3zpQLzZ and use coupon code: doorhof-optics22

Creative photography with Rogue full tutorial

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As a photographer we want to be flexible and not limited by the gear we use (to a certain degree).

When I started working the flashbender from Rogue is was over the moon with the creative possibilities and over the years they kept refining the products and making them even more flexible.

This year (2022) Rogue released their magnetic system for round strobes and speedlights and in combination with the flashbender this is a real creative powerhouse.

In this video I take you through several of my favourite setups, I show you the setups, the shoot, the raw files and the final results plus all the techniques.

For more info about Rogue check Rogueflash.com for international customers Rogueflash.nl for the Benelux

Rogue magnetic flash system review

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There are always those products where you think “that’s not made by photographers”. You probably know what I mean, it looks fantastic (on paper) but to use it in real life is of course something completely different.

Let’s face it, this isn’t the first magnetic system, but it’s probably the last one you need.

But let me first make something clear. This is a very flexible set. And although I use it in the studio for this review and the enclosed live stream, it’s the perfect tool for weddings, events etc because it’s not only flexible but also a very fast system….. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rogue
If the name Rogue sounds familiar to you… that’s very well possible, Rogue released the flashbender on the market years ago, and together with Rogue we have put together the Frank Doorhof signature Flashbender which I actually used almost exclusively on my speedlights, until now ……

The Flashbender is great, let’s be clear about that, and I still use the Flashbender on my speedlights, but not exclusively anymore….

Rogue Magnetic flash system
As mentioned, there are more magnetic systems, but Rogue has listened very carefully to the complaints and wishes of the photographers using them and adapted their system exactly to what a photographer needs. So, let’s take a look at the system.

First, you should know that this system is designed for the wildly popular “round” flashes such as Goddox, Westcott and the Profoto A series for example. Special adaptors are available for both Profoto and standard rectangular speedlights. I use the standard speedlight adapter for my Nissin speedlights, the adaptor is available in “standard” and “small”, for most speedlights “standard” will work perfectly. In the case of the Nissin speedlights I did remove the zoom head (it also works with the zoom head on the flash but without the zoom head everything is a lot firmer) Note… not every speedlight has a separate zoom head.

I am going to review the complete set in this review, but you can also buy parts separately of course.

You can see the kit in 3 parts.
First we have the Dome.

The Dome
Let’s get straight to the point.
Of course, we are not going to get super soft light from a small light source, everyone who promises such a thing is not aware of how light works. A small light source will always give a harder light than a large softbox.

But still, the Dome does something very beautiful.
Due to the entire structure of the Dome, the light becomes omnidirectional instead of focused and this makes a HUGE difference. I’m not going to say that you get the effect of a large soft box, but this is very close to what you can expect from a medium/small soft box. This is actually a very smart way to turn a small light source into something that comes very close to really soft light, and that in such a small Dome, I’m impressed.

The “disadvantage” is that the light goes almost everywhere, but this will not be a problem for most people, on the contrary it helps enormously with lighting up the entire scene or a large part of the model, I use the dome also as fill in for color gels and it literally does a perfect job for that.

During the livestream of Digital Classroom, I used the system for the first time, the reason was actually very simple, I wanted to give people an impression of how easy the system is to use, even if you have never worked with it before. I could already predict the light, but I had the Dome, well it could go both ways, especially since using something like a dome is not really my thing. But as you can see in the stream I became more enthusiastic with each photo.

Using the dome and gel for fill in with color is absolutely awesome with this system

The Dome is perfect for a beauty portrait, as you can see in the examples.
But where the Dome really comes into its own is as a fill in with or without colorgels. During the livestream you will see me doing this as well. And the beauty of the Dome here is without a doubt that you can illuminate the entire scene with standard or colored light without too much effort. This gives a lot of flexibility in terms of highlighting a model / set but also a lot of creativity by using the gels. If you still use shadows in your RAW convertor, start using fill in flash, trust me you’ll thank me very soon.

Gels
And then we of course arrive at the gels.
Under the dome I usually mount the gels.
Changing gels is super simple, you remove the ring with the dome and place the new gel and… well you click the Dome back and done.

The gels themselves are from the well-known brand Lee and are super strong and specially coated so that they do not tear (easily). This is a problem with many color gels, but the Rogue kit feels nice and strong and if you buy the special gel package you get a huge selection of cool named colors, if your favorite color or shade of that color is not among them it would surprise me.

Besides the colorgels there is also an extensive color correction set available. These are a must have for every photographer that needs to balance the strobes with other light sources.

Grid(s)
A good flexible system also needs a grid, and as expected… the grid is of course also present in the kit. If you (like me) use a lot of focused light and want to have a bit more flexibility in terms of grids, you can of course just stack a few grids on top of each other for a super focused light source.

Speedlight adaptor

As mentioned before I’m using the system on standard speedlights, and that’s where the adaptor comes into play. The adapter is made of a flexible material and slides easily over the speedlight when you stretch it. When fitted, it is “fixed” but is also easy to remove by stretching it slightly again.

With the new magnetic system Rogue puts a product on the market that solves many problems which photographers encounter in real life. Sometimes it’s little things like the way you click the rings together, they click together very easily but try to remove them in a straight movement, and you really have to pull it off, but once you understand the trick you literally click them loose with ease, just push it up on one side and it’s easy to remove the ring, place a new gel or accessory and back to shooting in seconds.

Personally, I find it important that the system really locks, I do not want parts to come off during a photo shoot, but I also don’t want to be messing around with changing color gels because I can barely get my system loose. This is literally the best of 2 worlds, it is both locked very tightly but can also be easily removed by the proper move, very cleverly done.

What will make many people very happy is the way the magnets are fixed inside the rings. This system is designed in such a way that the magnets remain stuck in the rings, so no magnets that fall out and have to be found again, they are fixed in there to stay.

Conclusion
Rogue has a super flexible system that will perfectly match any photographer who likes to work with speedlights or round flashes but does not want to limit him/herself to 1 style. With the magnetic system, a lot is possible switching from flat (beauty) light with the dome to very high contrast with the grid(s) and of course every combination and order, you can even take the dome off the ring.

If you also the color gels you will quickly understand why I became more and more enthusiastic during the livestream, this is really a system I am 100% psyched about. Personally, I use 3 speedlights on location with 2 magnetic systems and a flashbender with strip light and one color gel kit.

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t know what else you’d need.
And the best thing?
The whole system is affordable and doesn’t take up a lot of space in your back, in fact you can probably fit it in your pocket during the shoot.

The magnetic system is for sale via our webshop or in the better camera shop
For international sales please check www.rogueflash.com
See the live stream where I introduce the system for the very first time here.

See the introduction video here.
Join the Home of Rogue Facebook group for loads of information and inspiration.