First Exposure: Creative Light’s Light Modifiers

Is it possible for a professional photographer to get excited about a new line of lighting accessories like softboxes, umbrellas, reflectors and stands? I didn’t think so until the MAC Group shipped me some samples of the new Creative Light line of light modifiers it’s representing. Not only are they well designed and constructed, they are priced to compete. At a time when real “value” in photographic gear is difficult to find, Creative Light has succeeded in delivering it.

Softboxes
The equipment is designed in Sweden by professional photographers and I believe it. I received two 24 x 36-inch softboxes, each a slightly different design. The RF (recessed front) softbox has a recessed front with the front diffuser attached with Velcro slightly inside of the edge of the box. This allows you to attach a grid for greater control of the light direction.

On the FF (full front) softboxes, the front diffuser, rather than being recessed, slips over the outside of the box, covering the full front. This produces a greater amount of spill, if needed, and also allows any number of them to be ganged together to create a larger, seamless light source. My old Broncolor boxes were designed like this and I’m glad to see the design revived.

Both softbox series have a highly reflective silver lining making them very efficient. Even with the internal diffuser attached, there is only an amazing 0.2-stop light loss when the boxes are mounted on a Profoto D1 Air. As well as I could meter, the light from both boxes was even within ½-stop from their centers to each corner. Color temperature of the Profoto light was unchanged with the softboxes mounted.

You assemble the softboxes as you would any others. But I noticed some nice touches while doing this. The speedring and rods are color-coded. In my case the rod color is blue, so they slide into the speedring holes marked with a blue dot. Even an assistant should be able to do it (just kidding, assistants). And the rods are flexible steel rather than aluminum or fiberglass so they hold the box rigidly. The steel is thinner than the aluminum poles I have in other softboxes, but is more flexible and easier to position. I’m sure they’ll hold up better than fiberglass poles, which only seem to break when you are setting up, not taking down the box.
The outer fabric of the boxes has a quality feel to it, and it too should stand up to a lot of use and abuse. All of the seams are evenly stitched and, once assembled and mounted on the Profoto, there is no stray light emitted from either box. Both boxes rotated freely around the speedring and Creative Light says this will be true no matter which of their boxes or which of the 18 brands of strobes for which they currently supply speedrings you own.

That’s all very nice, but the best part comes when you open the files you shot with the softboxes. I used them to shoot still lifes for a catalog of one-of-a-kind handmade jewelry. Previously I had done other items from the same designer with other equipment and was amazed at how much more life there was to the jewelry with the Profotos and the Creative Light boxes. Granted this is very subjective, but it struck me as soon as I opened the files.

I decided to use the same setup for the captures of the model wearing the jewelry and again, the results were excellent: gorgeous skin tones and was beautifully reproduced jewelry.

The RF softboxes are available in rectangular, square, strip light and octagonal formats in a variety of sizes. While the choice of sizes is not as large as some of the competition, MAC Group assures me that the size options will grow with the Creative Light Company itself.

The FF series is also available in rectangular, square and strip formats in various sizes. The range of sizes is sure to increase in time also. There is no octagonal box in the FF series.

Both softbox series can also be used with hot lights up to 500 watts.

Umbrellas
When I shoot portraits, I now use an octagonal box for its soft light and round catchlight in the eyes. But since I didn’t have either the 3- or 5-foot Creative Light Softbox RF Octa to test, I used the white 41-inch umbrella for a head-and-shoulders portrait.

I wasn’t as impressed with the umbrella construction as I was with the softboxes. The ribs slide into small metal feet that are sewn into the outer rim of the umbrella. This probably works very well, but I still prefer the old Balcar design where the ribs are permanently mounted into positions around the outer rim. The Creative Light umbrella ribs and other metal parts are alloy-composite metal and seem like they’ll take a lot of abuse.

The black outer fabric of the umbrella has a nice feel to it and, although it seems lightweight, no light is transmitted through it. The shaft is a virtually universal 8mm diameter that should fit any umbrella holder or flash head. It is nicely tapered on the end to speed sliding into the umbrella holder on flash heads—a nice, thoughtful touch.

Creative Light umbrellas are available in white, silver or translucent (shoot through) in 25-, 33- and 41-inch diameters. They too can be used with hot lights up to 500 watts.

For greater softness coupled with the portability of an umbrella, Creative Light has a 41-inch Umbrella Softbox. This unit adds a translucent diffuser to a white umbrella, with a central collar to wrap around the light head. This and the other umbrellas come standard with a heavy duty, soft-sided storage case.

Reflectors
Creative Light also makes two lines of reflectors. I used a 33-inch white/silver round reflector that folds, figure-eight style, into a 14.5-inch storage pouch. It snapped open and folded down very easily. Unfortunately, I chose a windswept mountaintop for the test, so it was a bit of a struggle for my assistant to hold the reflector in position. For situations like that, Creative Light makes a triangular reflector with a padded handle, but I didn’t have one of these to test.

Both the round reflector and triangular reflector designs come in 24-, 33- and 47-inch sizes. Fabric choices in each size are: white/gold; white/silver; white/sunlight (a mix of silver and gold); and translucent. Neither the white nor the silver sides of the reflector I used had any effect on the color temperature. Creative Light says the gold reflector will raise the color temperature 500 degrees Kelvin. There is also an accessory arm and clamp for positioning the reflectors on a light stand.

The Creative Light website (www.creativelight.com or www.MACgroupus.
com) shows other products from the company that will also be available at most dealers. While detailed pricing is not available yet for all products, MSRPs for the items that I tested are as follows: the RF softbox, $138; the FF softbox, $110; and the umbrella and reflector, $31 each. From what I’ve found online, these prices are below the street price of other products of comparable quality. They look to me to be an excellent value.

Stan Sholik is a contributing writer for NewsWatch Feature Service. He is also a commercial photographer with over 30 years of large format studio and location experience.