Under My 42-Inch Umbrella With Vintage Speedlights

In this article I will show you how to create a key light source for indoor portraiture with not one but three vintage speedlights and a 42-inch umbrella.

Triggering slavery like a coloniser

I found lying about at home:

1) Two Made-in-Japan Popular 606 speedlights from the 1970s/80s. These worked not only on batteries but on A.C power as well. To save the planet, I used the latter option to say goodbye to batteries. These units could only be fired at full output because there was no output control on them.

2) One Nikon SB-15 vintage speedlight from the 1980s. This unit could only be powered by four AA batteries—sorry mother Earth.

Initially I fired it at full MANUAL output power but later preferred using its A2 BLUE setting, which provided lesser light but enough to trigger the optical slave units attached to the Popular speedlights.

3) One Godox 3-in-1 Reemix-II receiver mounted on the Nikon SB-15 so that when I fired the camera’s shutter, the SB-15 speedlight fired too, and whose light would in turn fire the optical slaves attached to the Popular 606s. Elementary, my dear Dr. Watsons!

4) One Godox 3-in-1 Reemix-II mounted on the Nikon D-750 DSLR which transmitted a radio signal to fire the SB-15 speedlight to which the Reemix-II radio receiver was attached.

5) Two optical slaves attached to the Popular speedlights which fired when the Nikon SB-15’s light hit their sensors.

Mounting the horses

An adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter came in handy and on this I mounted the Nikon SB-15 speedlight.

The Popular 606s were mounted on the left and the right sides of a flat-plate multiple-speedlight bracket. The adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter was mounted in the middle.

All this hardware was attached to a microphone boom stand. Because the weight of the attached devices tended to topple the mic stand, a large pipe-wrench was hung from the boom arm’s end to act as ballast weight.

To prevent the boom-arm from dropping down, I locked it to the vertical shaft with a carabiner (a quick-release lock used for mountaineering).

A 42” silver umbrella was mounted inside the adjustable speedlight/umbrella adapter.

Output in Watts

If you think that mounting three speedlights in this manner provided three times the wattage or light output, you are wrong. One could work out the light output with a formula but using a flash meter is more convenient.

With a subject-to-light distance of 2.13m (7’), the flash meter allowed me to dial in very useful aperture settings of f/8 and f/11 at ISO 100, with 1/125 sec shutter speed.

The 3-speedlight key light was complimented with a background speedlight (read my article: Filter Holder For Speedlights).

Butterflies in the stomach

I tested the entire set up using 1/200 sec shutter speed instead. The idea was to experiment with lighting that cast a dramatic butterfly-like shadow under the nose.

This single point source light was positioned head-on and tilted down 45° at the subject. This provided Hollywood-fame ‘butterfly lighting’ or ‘Paramount lighting’—the latter named after the movie studio: Paramount Pictures.

I read somewhere that such was the power and overall effect of this kind of lighting that famed British actress Audrey Hepburn specifically mentioned in her contract with Paramount Pictures that she ‘only be photographed using butterfly lighting’. Only social butterflies can afford such luxuries.

With nobody around who even closely resembled the petite stylish British actress, I took comfort in butterfly lighting family members for informal portraits in the master bedroom.

Final words

The results were very reassuring. Because simple butterfly setups did not always provide solutions for all shooting situations, I sank a fair amount of money into buying expensive studio strobes and soft-boxes.

The experiment worked well. I got nice deep shadows on the faces with the silver umbrella. Expensive Fresnel lenses would give even better results, whereas white umbrellas tend to produce softer shadows.

Right after I shot some portraits, I ordered a massive parabolic silver umbrella (165cm or 5’-5” diameter) which still lies unused. Please stay tuned for a follow-up article on that piece of equipment.

So, get your digital camera out of the camera-bag and shoot away before it de-values enough to make you invest more in another toy which again would spend most of its life in yet another camera case.

©Tahir Gul Hasan, 2024

Read my other photography articles:

1) TGH Photography Exhibition (DAWN article) A Professional's Touch

By Mahnaz Hasan

2) Pictures In My Mind

My own views about the first solo exhibition

3) Yashica Electro-35: Making Your Own Battery

How to make this impossible-to-find battery for a vintage camera yourself

4) In Pursuit Of Photography

Launching my portrait photography studio

5) Filter Holder For Speedlights

Reference: Butterfly Lighting: A One-Strobe Setup for Amazing Portraits! (digital-photography-school.com)