Parabola!!

This morning I woke up with the usual heartburn and spent the next two hours trying to fall back to sleep.  By the time 8:00 had rolled around it was too hot to even bother trying to sleep again.  With that said I went down stairsto get a bolw natures path granola and an odwalla.  As I was walking back up the stairs I noticed there was a long box lying against the staircase.  I must have missed it last night when I came home at like 11:00.  I took a closer look and low and behold!  I received a package from the fine folks at Paul C. Buff Inc.

I then proceeded to open the package.  I knew exactly what it was.  I ordered a PLM parabolic umbrella.  You can order them here.  I got the 64″ version with the white difusion sheet (1/4 stop china white I believe…).  Order one here: http://white-lightning.com/

With that said, you’re probably wondering what the deal with the whole parabolic umbrella thing is.  A parabolic umbrella is special because most umbrellas are not as deep as that of the parabolic umbrella.  The Parabolic umbrella like a graph on a chart is shaped like this from the side:

Given that umbrellas are mounted on strobe heads for the initial beam of light from the flash tube comes from the focus.  The light then hits the light modifier (the umbrella) and hits the vertex where the light is then reflected outward off of every other focus point  evenly.  The light source ends up being a lot closer to a perfect sphere of light than typical umbrellas that kind of shoot out a soft football.  Which also means the parabolic umbrella has a quicker cut off when the light hits the subject.  I like that.  I wish they made parabolic beauty dishes…

Any how.  That’s kind of what’s special about this umbrella.  Paul C. Buff also carries these things in other sizes.  I got the medium one because I didn’t want to spend another 20 bucks but yeah.  This things still huge.  And just like else where.  It’s not the size that matters.  It’s the distance between you and your subject … it makes for better contrast.

Have a good one all.  I’m going to go test this thing out

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