Customer Reviews

SO)PROMAX SYSTEM

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I currently have the Lumiquest promax system and two sto-fen omnibounces in my bag. The lumiquest gets the most use out of any light modifier I have owned. First off, I love the image quality achieved when I use the 80/20 bounce, with and without the diffuser. The gold card I use outdoors for fill flash (nice effect) the white card I use a lot in doors with high ceilings and the silver card I use in real low light to give sharp highlights (weddings). This is a great modifier that does the job of so many other tools that would never fit in a camera bag. When you're through with the Promax, it folds into a wallet and goes right in your bag. SWEET! Well worth twice the price.

I now use the ProMax system exclusively for all of my indoor shots. My favorite for indoor shots with low ceilings is the 80/20. It helps achieve a more natural exposure than direct flash and fills about 95% of the shadows that regular bounce/direct flash produces.

This works great. I use this and a Sto-Fen. Sto-Fen is better in some instances, especially if speed is needed or switching from plain flash and diffused flash is needed quickly.

But if you plan to keep a bounce / diffuser on through out shoot, then this does the job.

As far as the velcro tabs go on Flash, don't do it.
Get the Velcro strap for it, or
I think a Sto-Fen (do an amazon search for it) that you trim the top off and stick Velcro stickers to the Sto-Fen would work better than strap.
It would be more stable and less prone to slipping.

Also in those times that you need to prep everything and start shooting quickly. You could get the mod'd Sto-Fen on faster than the strap and get shooting in half the time. Yes we are talking seconds faster but that could mean the difference of a great shot or no shot.

When I first got my Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras, I was blown away by the results when I bounced it off of the ceiling. I was a bit underwhelmed however when I used a plastic diffuser similar to the SBM Supreme Light Diffuser for the Nikon SB600 and Olympus FL-36 Flashes, and since there isn't always a ceiling handy, I was looking for more.

The Promax system is more--much more. First off you get the 80-20 bounce, which augments ceilings by shining 20% of the light more or less directly to complement the 80% that bounces off of the ceiling. This was a very pleasant bonus. What I really needed were the included inserts, which deflect the light forward in a manner much more pleasing than a direct flash. This works great whether there are available ceilings or not. There are three included, and I've kinda found myself using the silver one more than the white one (yet to try the gold).

They all have a modest light penalty, but don't read too much into this, as the flashes that this kit is for are TTL flashes, which automatically adjust for this. Want an even more diffuse lighting effect, well there is a translucent plastic (vinyl I believe) cover that velcros on. This works beautifully, but at an even greater loss of light (see above).

The kit comes with velcro bits that tape onto your flash, but I didn't bother with these and went with the LumiQuest Cinch Strap. If you already own a decent flash for your Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, or Olympus SLR setup, you're really missing out if you don't give this kit a good look.

The only real negative is that the documentation is well, almost non-existent. My SB600 came with quite a tome of a manual, and I had lots of ideas of what I could do before I threw some batteries in it. Here, well you'll see how to set it up, and then it's up to you to experiment. It may seem a bit frustrating at first, but it will pay off.

This is a great item to have for any flash work. It is completely collapsible which makes it ideal for storage and transport, and works just as well as some of the other plastic type diffusers (think Gary Fong). The ability to bounce 80/20, diffuse, create silver, or gold...makes it very versatile and all fits into a slim folder when not in use.

It can take 30 seconds or so to change out faces and/or change configuration, which is why it doesn't get 5 starts...but is a minor thing.

This kit includes a flash light modifier for practically every condition you can encounter. Includes a small folder case which holds all the included modifiers. It is very handy as a place can be found for it in even the smallest camera bag!

The 80-20 setup alone is great. It does a fine job of allowing a lot of bounce flash from the ceiling and a small amount of light shot forward that nicely wraps around subjects and lightens the shadows. The surface area is reasonably large.

This does not waste the light going upward which will be diffused from the ceiling - unlike the STOFEN plastic cap which is supposed to be pointed straight up in the typical usage. The STOFEN does a good job, but the 80-20 here does it even better, IMO. The main tradeoff is that this will look a little dorky compared with the STOFEN cap. You see STOFENs on press photograhers' cameras because, I think, it is unobtrusive and simple whereas this is a bit more elaborate and would be more annoying if all photographers used it at a press conference.

So this does a better job than the STOFEN but looks dorkier. How knows? - it might scare small kids. (And no where near as dorky as the Fong Dong.)

The other pieces of the "system" are handy - can set it so that the light does not shoot upwards (high ceilings or not white) and can be further diffused with a soft plastic cover on the front. Because of the wider surface area in that case, should do a better job. Also has plain white, sparkly silver and sparkly gold to push all the reflected light forward.

I did an acid test with this: took the 80-20 mounted into a dark bathroom, stood right in front of the mirror, focused and the Canon 430EX figured the exposure using infrared, and took a shot pointing at the mirror directly. Know what? It did a great job. The bathroom is nicely lit up with no hotspots, and I am not washed out at all in the photo. The reflector of the 80-20 is showing bright white of the flash but is not glaring.

Oh, and when you point it at someone's face who is close, they don't get washed out at all and the background is nicely lit and no red eye.

Buy the cinch strap that Lumiquest offers so you don't have to attach those sticky-backed velcro fastener pads to your flash unit.

Note: when shooting portrait-mode, this system will not bounce off the ceiling unless you reattach the 80-20 piece in a way that isn't the best. The Fong Lightsphere and STOFEN diffusers don't have this problem.

Good product reasonably priced. Takes a bit of getting used to for figuring out how to handle the flash exposure. I increased about 1/2 stop and does well on most subjects but distance is critical. If you are taking pic's on the fly, plan on bracketing or else fixing the exposure in your software later. I like this product and once I got the additional strap for fixing it on the flash it is easy to use.

I found that I had to adjust the angle a bit by experimenting with the position of the side flaps to get the optimum flash bounce. I would recommend taking quite a few pics in various light ranges to figure before you go into a serious shooting.

I find the product to be a bit flimsy but it does the job its designed to do.

I've been using this thing for about 3 months now, and it has really gone a long way toward making my photos look much better when using my flash. With using a straight bounce flash, the shadows can look a little off. When using a straight bounce card, there sometimes is no difference over pointing the head directly at the subject. This is a nifty little outfit because it comes with the diffuser, as well as the white, silver, and gold reflectors to focus more light forward if there is no ceiling to bounce off. I really like using the gold for portraits taken against a sunset, it really balances the skin tones and matches with the warmth of the sunset. Maybe a bit on the pricey side, but still a must have in my opinion.