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


Lee Color Effects Lighting Filters Basic

Looking At The Paul C. Buff Foldable 35" (Medium) Octabox

Hello, and welcome yet again to another Paul C. Buff or Alienbee ,as some of you might call it, review.  I will try to keep this brief, or at least not as wordy and off topic as I usually tend to blog.

I had been looking at and researching octaboxes for quite sometime.  I had narrowed it down to the pcb octabox or the Apollo orb.  I have one friend who uses his Octabox religiously Mad'art Photography .  After working with him and his octabox I knew I had to have one.  I also have another friend who had the original Apollo orb (I believe they make all of the umbrella ribs out of fiberglass now) which gives a nice light but seems kind of flimsy on the build quality.  However, the Apollo orb seems great when it comes to versatility.  The orb gives you the option of using either an alienbee /Studio light or a Speedlight.  I chose form over function. 

I picked the 35" Paul Buff Alien Bees  Octabox because a lot of my shooting tends to take place while out on location.  Sometimes I have help, other times I'm alone.  Looking back I should have just picked up the 47", as it couldn't be that much bigger or unwieldy to handle alone.  For now I will just use what I have and make do. 

When the box arrived I was expected something much heavier, but to my surprise the box was packed with the accompanying grid which still didn't add to the weight. 

 

The octa comes out the box inside of a black holding bag for the Octabox.  The bag is kinda of flimsy but in no way a deal breaker.  I would however suggest maybe spending a few bucks to buy some material and take it to your local tailor or cleaners and have them sow you a bag.  I would have one made a little bigger than the octa to make it a bit easier when putting it back inside of the bag.  

The octa also comes with an outer diffusion panel and an option internal diffusion panel to further soften the light.  As for the option diffusion panel love it, but hate the snaps.  I'm not really sure, but the snaps are relatively small and I have to struggle to unsnap them.  Which leads me to believe that I will sooner or later brake or snap one off. 

  I love Paul Buff's umbrella and thumb screw design.  All you need to do is push down on the thumb screw towards the center of the Octabox , slowly and carefully allowing the box to naturally expand.  When you reach the center and here the snap, twist the thumb screw to lock in place and your done.  When I originally bought a giant alienbee/pcb softbox and octabox I hated it.  I hated the box so much that soon after I purchased it I tried to sell it.   I still can't give the octabox away ( I recently just tossed in the trash).  Build quality of the older Octabox was great, but playing around with those tension rods proved to be dangerous for me.  A few months ago I tried to set up the old octabox and nearly took my eye and ceiling light out.  That was about it for me. For the photography veterans who had to deal with that on a regular basis, god bless you pioneers and brave souls. Thankfully we now have the Paul Buff umbrella style design and many other similar designs where not as much play is needed with dealing with the tension poles.



Quality of light

I hope to do a few shoots personal and paid hopefully over the next few weeks to detail my use of the pcb octabox.  Ive taken a few shots with my favorite model so far but nothing to fancy.  I really must say that I love the quality of light.  I had initially done test, and as a disclaimer none of my test are brick wall scientific.  Because I don't know how to and I think for me would take most of the fun out of it.  I did do some measuring which I had intended to show  and explain in full detail, but someone accidentally deleted a few of the pics :-)

As a breakdown I will explain what I did do :
using the rule of thumb I picked up from Zack Arias that the light should be no further away from your subject then twice the diagonal of the face of the modifier.  Desmond what the hell are you talking about?  Ok what I did was simply tape a tape measure and measured a diagonal across the face of the octabox.  Lets say it measured 3ft.  I then double it and I should be able to have the soft box about 6 feet away from my subject and still maintain that "Octabox quality of light" before it starts to look more and more like a point source of light. 



This rule should also come in handy to help you decide which size soft box, octabox, umbrella or any lighting modifier that you will need.  Shoot in your living room studio often? is your living room a small box like mines? then a small 35"octa is great.  Do you on average shoot 1-2 people at a time in a small space? then a small octa is great.  Do you tend to shoot 3-7 people at once? Then its time to start stepping up the size of your light modifier.  You physically will have to have the light moved back 5-7 feet to get 4-6 people into a shot and have the light ratio remain constant across the frame. 

But here are a few shots with some the testing that I had started out to do before I accidentally started deleting some pictures. 

In all, I think its a great modifier, and one I will use often.  From the few quick test that I have done, I really like the look that I can achieve with the egg crate grid attached.  I did this write up because I've been able to find some stuff on Paul Buff's Octabox but nothing that really spoke specifically to the  35" Paul Buff/Alienbees Octabox or anything other then general info.  I'm sure this is not the best review out there and leaves much to be desired, but I hope it will be a little helpful to someone who was in the same boat as myself trying to pic out a Paul C. Buff/Alienbee Octabox.

Update:  This is an old blog post which I never got around to sharing.  I just wanted to add a few pics that were taken using the Octabox in the real world.  Hope this can help someone.  Again keep shooting training and practicing