An interesting read about how you make the gear work for you in off camera flash photography, here’s a highly recommended post by Don Giannatti for his top gear list which includes Speedlight Pro Kit most product line.

I use the SpeedLightProKit Beauty Dish. It folds up so easily and packs in the lid of my suitcase. While it is not quite a beauty dish, lacking the sharp edge, the light is really fantastic.

Here is a shot of it in use in Mexico. This shot is by Bill Millios:

This simple technique is one I have discussed on ProPhotoResource.com. The article is here.

Images courtesy Hopeland Studios.

The beauty dish comes in a neatly packaged box which can be used for travel. I have the beauty dish, a large softbox and a small softbox in it with some barndoors and gel pack. I reinforced the sides of my kit box with a small amount of perfectly cut Gaffers tape so it is both rugged and attractive. The beauty dish itself is in three parts: the two that snap together to make the large dish and a diffuser that fits inside the opening. It was a little tricky the first time I set it up, but now it goes together real quick.

As I stated, there is no ‘lip’ or tight edge to this beauty dish, something that traditional beauty dishes have, so it doesn’t have that ’snap’ at the edges. I don’t think that is a bad thing… it is actually pretty good. The flash seems to fade pretty fast at the distances I use it, and I love the fall off from this thing. So while it may not be ‘exactly’ as a beauty dish would perform, I love what it does do a lot.

The SpeedLightProKit Beauty Dish will be available soon. Check their website for more information.

Some words about the SpeedLightProKit products that I use. I particularly like these units for a lot of reasons:

1. They are solid and very well made.
2. The footprint for travel is nearly nothing. I can take a bunch of modifiers in my luggage whenever I need.
3. The light is smooth, well defined and color correct.
4. The units deliver a lot of light for small tools.
5. I cannot tell the ones that have traveled all over the country, been used hundreds of times, and packed/repacked over and over again from the absolutely brand new ones I just received.

My personal kit for the SpeedLightProKit tools is as follows:

1 Beauty Dish
2 Large Softboxes
2 Medium Softboxes
2 Medium Box Grids
And an assortment of grid-spots, gels and diffusers.
That is equal to two ProKit Pro Sets, two ProKit 6 Reflector kits and most of their other modifiers.

I usually tell my students at the workshop that if you are going to buy a lighting modifier – umbrella, softbox, reflector, grid etc… – to get two of each. There are times when having two lights that totally match will be important. That may not be true with beauty dishes or the larger umbrellas or parabolics, but it is definitely something I press on the smaller to medium tools. Two that match. Important.

For those of you who may already be familiar with the SpeedLightProKit tools, I would like to point out a few changes. They have created a new mount for the Large Softbox (ProKit 6) that works extremely well. Here is a look at the ProKit 6 Large Softbox and New Mounting Ring.

Another New Item is the PR4-T tool. These are a pair of diffused panels to match the ones for the ProKit Pro and ProKit 6 modifiers. They can be mixed and matched to make a traditional ‘event shooter’ speedlight top, or something more esoteric… like a softbox with a diffusion panel to add light to a bounce card below. Or a Large softbox with some diffused light to escape and fill in ambient… the uses for this set of tools is limitless.

Here I use a small ProKit Softbox to light Frank against the sun over his shoulder camera left. Speedlight is a 430EX on half power.

The shot after removing the light in Photoshop.

For a look at the SpeedLightProKit tools I reviewed earlier this year, see this page:
Enough Modifiers to Keep It Interesting

In the end, the tools above are simply tools. You must make them work for you. I hope you consider them in your gear purchases. Most can be found at MPEX or at their own sites to which I have linked. I hope you found this article informative and useful. Please join me on Twitter or Facebook or any of the other Social Media sites listed top right of this page. Thanks.

Next Gear Review will be on Flash Units for studio and travel.

More about Don Giannatti’s GEAR post is at: http://www.lighting-essentials.com/gear-ok-lets-discuss-gear-photographic-tools-that-i-like/