A Big Beautiful Light for Photographers – Westcott Zeppelin Para-59″

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The bigger the light and the closer to your subject, the softer it will be. I’ve always been a fan of BIG softboxes. So when I saw that Westcott had just introduced three new Zeppelin deep parabolic softboxes and the largest one being 59″ I was delighted to take it for a spin. First off, I already had an Elinchrom deep octa softbox, but as you can see below the Westcott Zeppelin dwarfs it!

zeppelin-next-to-elinchrom

This is a beast and that means big beautiful quality light wrapping around my subject. I do mostly beauty, portrait and fashion work and the nice thing about deep softboxes is that you get a nice fall off of the light.  Having the new larger 59″ size means that I can light more of my subject easily as well as multiple subjects more easily. I took it for a spin and really liked the results:

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It’s really hard to argue with the results. While you can get these in two smaller sizes, I immediately opted for the largest one because I already have smaller sized modifiers.

 

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It’s almost a little intimidating when you take this thing out of the box. Luckily the design of the mount/speed ring was well thought out. Since this thing is so big it could easily be a strain on your strobe. So the bracket/mount is designed to hold your strobe instead of the other way around.

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This design also helps balance it better on your light stand. Once I got it all set up it was quite easy to mount my Elinchrom strobe to it and put the whole thing on my stand, which I weighted down with sandbags. There is an optional deflector plate that you can get for it and although I had it, I actually forgot to install it. The purpose of it is to deflect the light away from the center point creating a more even lighting pattern and therefore reducing potential hotspots. I’ll be using it from now on for sure. Westcott liked my results so much they requested the use of my images for one of their new ads.

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The Bottom Line

These new Zeppelins are sure to be a hit! They are well constructed and the light is gorgeous. Having the mount bear all the weight of the Zeppelin AND the strobe makes me feel a lot better about using it as I know there will be no additional stress on my strobes themselves. This will undoubtedly be my new go-to softbox for the majority of my studio work.

You can get the Westcott Zeppelin Deep Parabolic Softboxes here:

Westcott Zeppelin Para-59″

Westcott Zeppelin Para-47″

Westcott Zeppelin Para-35″

Westcott Zeppelin Deflector Plate

You will also need a speed ring & bracket adapter for your brand of strobe. Here are the ones they make:

Adapter/Speed ring for Bowens

Adapter/Speed ring for Elinchrom

Adapter/Speed ring for Profoto

Adapter/Speed ring for Balcar

 

Big Beautiful Light for $99.90! – Westcott Parabolic Umbrellas

 

I'm a fan of big beautiful soft light for the beauty and fashion stuff that I shoot. As you might imagine I have a collection of large softboxes. While I love them and use them all the time, sometimes I need something that's large and more portable. Nothing is more portable than and travels as easily as an umbrella. Heck you can even carry an umbrella on a plane (as of today TSA has not banned them). Not long ago FJ Westcott introduced 3 NEW 7 FOOT Parabolic Umbrellas. You can get either a white one with a black cover, silver one with a black cover or white diffused shoot through one. It's a tough choice to make as I like all three for different situations. However, for starters I went with the white diffused one. Since it's a standard umbrella it should fit in any light setup/stand that you have that has an umbrella hole. In my case I used the Spiderlite TD6, which has an umbrella hole right on the included tilt bracket. Unlike the 1st two, you actually aim the light source into the umbrella and the light is diffused out from the other side. With the white and silver models you're bouncing your light source into the umbrella and back out the same way.

The bigger the light source and the closer to your subject, the softer it will be. 7 feet/6 feet curved is pretty big as you can see above in the production shot. The Spiderlites are already pretty soft and shooting though this umbrella makes them even more natural and soft. 

The umbrellas come with a carrying case to store them and make it even easier to travel with. You can use what ever lights you want with them. Like I said above, i used mine with a Spiderlite TD6 to produce the shot below. 

ISO 200, 85mm, f/1.4, 1/80 sec shot with my Nikon D700.

Model: Liz Hoang, Makeup/Hair: Joey Killmeyer

 

You can get the Parabolic Umbrellas here:

White with Black Cover – $99.90 Amazon or $99.90 B&H

Silver with Black Cover – $99.90 Amazon or $99.90 B&H

White Diffused (the one I used above) – $99.90 Amazon or $96.48 B&H

Spiderlite TD6