Specifications

But, these cords can be fragile and/or develop breaks in connection from bending or over time with use,

so it’s good to have an extra sync cord as well. You should also have a sync cord in case your remote

trigger fails or runs out of batteries.

** Tip: In a pinch, your on-camera built-in hot shoe flash will trigger your strobe light. However, you’ll

also get the flash from the hot shoe as well. You should re-direct or diffuse the hot shoe flash if using it

as a trigger. **

Soft box or Umbrellas

Soft boxes and umbrellas are both accessories to attach onto lights in order to diffuse the lighting, as a

lot of the time you do not want the direct hard light or full force of a flash to be struck in the photo.

Umbrellas are often included when purchasing strobe lights or lighting kits. Soft boxes also diffuse light

and typically attach over the entire head of the strobe light. Soft boxes come in various sizes and are

great for studio portraits and product photography as well.

Soft boxes can be a bit tricky to put together and even harder to break down! And the sturdier the

materials, the more difficult it can be to navigate the support rods into the center ring mount of the soft

box. In fact, if you’re not going to be porting your soft boxes often to other locations and if you have the

storage space (or overhead hanging space), then it can be less troublesome to leave your soft boxe(s)

intact.

Octagonal Soft box

An octagonal soft box is exactly what it sounds like – an octagonal shaped soft box. These are great for

full-body portrait or fashion shooting. It diffuses the light in a more “person-like” shape. These are also

great to set overhead as downcast lighting to softly light a subject.

The diffused lighting and flash lighting options that soft boxes and octagonal soft boxes provide are well

worth the investment, though, you can find both relatively cheaply on the usual source; eBay and

Amazon.

Hot Shoe Flash

Before we wrap up the subject of lighting, let’s not forget about the subject of on-camera flash. Yes,

your camera has its own little pop-up flash, but you don’t want to use that!

You’ll want to get a hot shoe flash that attaches to your camera. Make sure to check reviews and find a

hot shoe that is compatible with your camera brand and model. Also, keep in mind that your hot shoe

requires batteries too! So, that’s one more piece of equipment to consider when power-checking your

kit for a shoot.

There are other ways of using a hot shoe flash as well. You can set one on a stand and attach a sync

cord or wireless trigger in the same fashion as you would with a strobe flash.

Also, when using a hot shoe flash, you’ll probably want a diffuser. Some hot shoe flash units have their

own plastic flip-down filters, but you can also buy an attachable filter to produce well-diffused flash

lighting.