Photography News Issue 36

Photography News | Issue 36 | absolutephoto.com

57 Accessories test

MANFROTTO MN1052BAC Compact Stand

INTERFIT 107cm 5-in-1 Reflector Kit

£69

£150

£80

£70

POCKETWIZARD Plus IV transceiver

£80

NEST Athena A40 shoulder bag

LEE FILTERS Neutral Density Standards

From £60

BOUNCELITE Solo

Quick Stack System. If you’re going to mount a speedlight, you can attach it using its foot standwhich screws onto the MN1052BAC’s removable 1/4in thread, but you’ll need an adapter to angle it. manfrotto.co.uk Reflectors are vital for balancing the light on location, and filling in unattractive shadows, but get the right one and it can do a whole lot more. This five-in-one reflector kit from Interfit has four surfaces for different effects and also an air-cushioned stand reaching 2.6m at its maximum height. Clamping onto the top of this is a multi-directional arm, with a rim attachment clip which holds the reflector in position for you, allowing you to swivel it as required and leave it in that position while shooting. The reflector itself, which is a little over metre in diameter, and collapses to 36cm, uses a reversible jacket that 8 Interfit 107cm5-in-1 Reflector Kit £80

at the same time to vary the lighting style, by either directing the light towards the subject or bouncing off a wall or ceiling; using the two together, and also rotating the flash direction, gives a serious amount of lighting options. At 250g, the BounceLite Solo is also light enough that it won’t unbalance your flash, but it has a sturdy feel and attaches to almost any accessory model you could want via a rubberstrap.Thisstretchesaroundthe back and clips securely at the opposite side. There’s also a rubber ‘mount pad’ spacer for smaller flashguns. You can also go for the BounceLite Venue kit at £85which includes two filter cassettes and awallet of lighting gels. bouncelite.com

want to use the widest apertures that your lens allows (and some portrait lenses, like those featured on these pages, go very wide) you’ll be letting a lot of light into the camera. The shutter speedwill increase to compensate, but sometimes it won’t be able to go fast enough to prevent overexposing the subject. Usually the only answer here is to use a smaller aperture, but if you place an ND filter over the lens you will be able to cut the amount of light and stick to thewider settings. Lee Filters produces high quality ND filters in all sorts of sizes and strengths in its ND Standards resin filter range. The weakest is a 0.3ND filter that will cut out one stop of light (so at f/1.8 you’d go from 1/8000sec to 1/4000sec), and there are 0.45ND (1.5stop), 0.6ND (2stop), 0.75ND (2.5stop) and 0.9ND (3stop), too. Each is available in Lee’s Seven5 (75x90mm), 100mm System and SW- 150 (150x150mm) sizes, to fit those respective filters. leefilters.com

outer is 750Dwaterproof twill and for added security has a two high-quality closers, a Duraflex buckle and YKK zips, while a slot on the rear lets you attached the bag to a trolley or roller bag. The bag’s base has rubber feet to avoid abrasion and for downpours or dusty conditions there’s a rain cover provided as standard. nest-style.com come with an integrated bounce card and a wide-angle diffuser to help spread the light and soften shadows, the BounceLite Solo builds on those effects and provides more control for photographers. In its simplest set- up the BounceLite works like a small softbox, with its white inner and large diffusing front panel spreading and softening the lightmore thana smaller clip-on diffuser can do. There’s also a flip-up bounce card reflector which is much larger than the integrated versionona flash, and this canbeused 10 BounceLite Solo£70 Although most speedlights

offers white, silver, gold (‘soft sun’) and black surfaces (gold warms the subject a little, and silver produces higher contrast, while white gives the softest look, and black absorbs light to strengthen shadows). The inner disk is a diffuser which softens direct light

for amore flattering look. interfitphotographic.com

Nest AthenaA40shoulder bag£80

For location-style portraits it’s often best to travel light with just your camera body, a few lenses and a flashgun. For that kind of shooting, a shoulder bag is ideal, and a great example is Nest’s Athena A40, a roomy bag that also offers lots of protection for your gear. The Athena 40’s inner, which includes 10mm padding, will take a DSLR body with a lens attached (of up toapproximately 18-200mm in size), with space for four or five more. As well as space for a flash there’s a dedicated pocket for a laptop or 10in tablet. The bag’s

Lee FiltersNeutral Density Standards from£60

You might think of ND filters as more of a landscape essential, but they can be just as commonly used when shooting portraits in very bright conditions. Because you will often