Better Mouse Trap - NOT!

Just because someone comes up with a new product, does not make it the best tool in the box. FJ Westcott is a producer of lighting equipment and lighting modifiers. They are well known for the daylight balanced constant lighting soft box kits, I have two of their TD-5 lights and they give a very full, soft and predictable light. With the new brew of off camera speedlights  such as Nikon's SB-900 and Canon's EX 850 II, they recently ventured into small and more portable soft boxes. The Mini-Apollo is a 16" soft box that the speedlight fits inside. This system assumes you have a means of remote triggering the speedlight as it is not mounted on your camera.

When I first purchased this unit the speedlight would sit way too high in the soft box but it did work. A few months later I found out that Westcott made an "L" bracket to hold the soft box allowing the speedlight to be more centered. This is a great idea but comes with some of it's own issues.

The photo above shows the proper installation of the "L" bracket and then mount the speedlight pointing forward towards the diffusion material. This ends up being way too close and just creates one big hotspot on the diffusion panel.

Turning the speedlight around (above) gives good dispersion of the light and an equal amount of light coming out of the soft box. The problem is this places the speedlight precariously close to the edge of the shoe (see close-up below). This clearly was not going to work.

Finally I mounted the "L" bracket onto the shoe with the soft box attached then the speedlight. I had to leave the bracket loose and slide it into place with the speedlight or else the speedlight would bump into the braces on the umbrella. Not very good for the dexterity challenged. Besides the controls were now blocked by the "L" bracket which you can see in the photo below. Not that big of deal considering the outstanding performance of the TTL II functionality of the Canon Speedlight.

The last issue I have with the Westcott's product has to do with the mounting of the umbrella/soft box on the "L" bracket. There is a nylon block with two hex bolts that holds the Umbrella arm in place. Why hex bolts? First is anyone puts a wrench on those babies and jambs some torque on them they will strip the threads right out of that nylon. Again... Why hex bolts? At least one of the bolts should be finger friendly. How hard would it be to have a knob on the top treading. Hmmm what is that cost? Maybe 25 cents.

I finally was down at the camera shop and saw the EzyBox Hot-Shoe by Lastolite. Right there in the store I put the thing together and realized this would work soooo much better than the Westcott Mini-Apollo. Looks like a tungsten or daylight fluorescent bulb may even fit in the EzyBox for a constant light device to use as a kicker for a main light. I might just have to try that.

So am I going to unload my Westcott Mini-Apollo? Hmmm... That is a thought but I guess that depends on how many offers I get in the comments. Price is negotiable.

We will be celebrating Christmas this week so my blogging may be a little spotty. I may get some up here and there but I wanted you all to know that if there there are not any new posts, what what going on.

Cya later... Doug