Review of the Paul Buff Lite Mod System. Part 1

Review of the Paul Buff Lite Mod System. Part 1

Hello all I know its been a minute since I've last updated this blog. Alright, its been almost 2 years but life calls and unfortunately gets in the way of things.  On a brighter note I'm back with a short review of the of the Paul Buff lighting modifiers.

Now I've always wanted to use a set of barn doors and a snoot and colored gels etc... and that is exactly what I will be doing in my next blog post. 

This one will just be a short brief look at the various items.

So, I got a great big box weighing in at almost ten pounds, and packed to perfection by the fine people at Paul Buff/Alienbees. This is an image of what came in my box (minus the snoot box).

I said for just about $300 bucks no small amount of chump change, but in the larger picture of photography a small amount which can easily be recouped via actually attempting to sell some images or via resale.  I decided to try two of the Paul Buff Lite mod unit main frames,2 of the barn doors and also the snoot attachment. 

Now for build quality I will say that everything seems to be well made. The barn doors and snoot fit onto the main frame unit by just sliding into place.  Again, this works fairly easy. Never owning any other moonlights but Alien bee's,  I could imagine that a Profoto would go on a bit smoother but again not a deal breaker or a p.i.t.a in anyway.

The Barn doors feel great they open and close easily and I don't feel as if they will be an issue.  The snoot has a build in grid.  If you do need or want a tighter beam of light you can add one of Paul Buff grids directly into the main frame unit to tighten the spread of light further. 

The main frame unit also has to slot holders ie.. the unit can hold a set of barn doors and a grid behind it or a snoot with a grid behind it. 

I chose to order these grid holders from Paul Buff's Website.  I never bothered to look or read the site I'd been eye balling them for years always assumed they were metal, but they actually are paper. Not a deal breaker they are simply used to hold the gels in place.  I skipped buying the gels from Alien Bees/ Paul Buff and just picked up a standard gel pack set from B&H.

I believe the gels are pretty much the same. The gels will be much bigger than what can fit inside of the main frame unit and much bigger than the Paul Buff gel holders, some cutting will be required.

Gels are much bigger than needed but nothing a little cutting wont handle.  you can also use/save the excess for any flash units you may have.

This bottom picture pretty much shows how much gel you will have left after your done cutting to size.

So how do you review a light mod system, well again this was just a quick nuts and bolts now comes the hard part taking picks :-)  I actually have about 2-3 shoots in mind which I hope to get to so I can post the follow up as soon as possible.  But if anyone has any questions please feel free to reach out. 

I will also include a link to all the items in this review below.  Please keep shooting, learning and growing.

Link to Paul Buff / Alienbee Lite Mod System

Alien Bee Paul Buff Lite Mod System


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