sometimes my vanity can get the best of me. for so long i’ve dismissed umbrellas as a diffuser for my photography because they remind me of school picture day. gross. i never wanted to take photos that remotely resemble the photos i suffered through my whole life, and i was convinced that softboxes and beauty dishes are the only tools worthy of my kit. i was a fool.

yesterday i went to adorama convinced that i was about to bring home a 60” collapsible beauty dish because i was under the impression that with that and my speedlights i could take full-body portraits with my subjects lit evenly and beautifully head to toe. wrong. so glad i went to the store instead of just buying online blindly because i would’ve made an expensive mistake.

as it turns out, speedlights have a 50 watt-second power rating. in order to fill a diffuser of that size, the lighting expert there (i can’t remember her name but she’s awesome and not afraid to be completely honest). so she told me that look, if you want to use a 42” or 60” beauty dish or softbox, you’re going to need a mono light. they have one that runs for $325 and there is an equivalent unit on amazon for $300. so if i wanted that beauty dish, it was going to cost me minimum about $425 including tax. nope. i’m not ready to drop that kind of money on one light.

then she told me that if i really needed a good light spread, then i should probably just get an umbrella. i cringed a bit until i saw that they had a 40” for $15, and that for another $25 i could get a heavy-duty umbrella mount for my light stand. they had a cheaper one made of plastic, but some things are worth upgrading, so for $40 or $1/inch, i walked out with a new toy.

today i used it for the first time, and got to test it on two different photo shoots. for both, it was exactly what i needed and the quality of light was really fantastic. sure i will be doing some tweaks in lightroom but even out of camera it was really killing it.

the best part is that it is small enough to slide into my light stand carrying bag, so now i can roll with an even smaller two-light setup. with my lowepro bp30 (which is ridiculously small and was super cheap at bhphotovideo) and my flashpoint air-cushioned 9’ light stand, i’m fully loaded. even though my neweer 24x24” softbox packs up super small, it’s still too big to fit in my compact bag, and i really don’t enjoy rolling through to the city with that one because it’s very conspicuous. for that reason? i’ve avoided bringing it for my lunchtime photo sessions even though there were times a nice flash setup would’ve done me good.

the lesson is this: don’t be vain. don’t get tricked into buying the most expensive thing just because it will look cooler to use because no one will see your fancy softbox in your photos.