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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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One of the most effective tools that a photographer can add outside of their basic camera gear in certain situations is a portable speed light, as Canon calls them, or a portable flash unit
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and these can really help you to control the light in certain situations and fight against things like backlighting or shooting in the middle of the day
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There's a variety of different ways, obviously, that they can make a huge difference in your photography
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That being said, having a flash mounted on a camera, whether it's your camera's built-in flash or even a flash unit mounted on top via the hot shoe
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is rarely one of the most flattering sources of light. for the reason that it tends to be somewhat harsh
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It's very directional. And so as a result, one of the first things that you often try to do
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is to find a way to get your flash units off camera. And beyond that, another very effective tool
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is to learn to use what we call a flash modifier. And I'm here today to talk to you about what has become
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over the last several years, one of my favorite flash modifiers. And there are some brand new versions of them
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and that is the various light scoop models or super scoop from the company Light Genius
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Now, for many years, I prefer to do environmental outdoor photography, whether I'm doing weddings or portrait sessions whenever possible
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I just think it creates a more unique type result. But of course, when you go outside and introduces a whole lot of new challenges
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and one of the flash modifiers that I've liked to use in the past, I like to get the flash units off the camera
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and to use some remote triggers is I would like to use things like umbrellas or perhaps even some portable soft boxes
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where it's a similar type idea except for you have the diffuser portion that goes over and creates a soft box
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But if you take a look at any one of my various umbrellas that are still surviving and or portable soft boxes
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you will find that the internal wires or rods that hold everything up you find almost all of them have warps and twist in them because where I shoot it seems to rarely rarely be without some kind of wind And so I can tell you how many times in the middle of a portrait shoot or a wedding shoot that all of a sudden
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over it goes, the light stand, and there's a crash, and often the umbrella is all warped
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And of course, there's also the risk to the actual flash unit itself, although thankfully I've never actually had a flash unit destroyed in those settings
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But as a result, I found that I was becoming somewhat disenchanted with using those kinds of light modifiers for that reason
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So several years ago, I actually did a review of the Light Scoop 2 from Light Genius
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And if you didn't catch that episode, you can find it here. And as a part of that, during that time, I began to use the actual Light Scoop unit and found that it was quite an effective tool for those situations where
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you know, something larger was more prone to catch wind and things would tip over
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So I began to use this, both in those kinds of settings, and then I also graduated on to one of their
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larger ones, which is even better if you're shooting more of a group-type setting, spreads the light
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a little bit softer and wider, and this is the Super Scoop model
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And so over the years, I have actually traveled with these a fair bit, because the other
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benefit to them is that they're quite portable. And for whatever reason, I live in Canada
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as many of you know, I'm originally from the state of Arizona. And for some reason, I've
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without trying to, I seem to have somewhat of a wedding photography business going in Arizona
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where it's become popular amongst some people to bring me in to shoot weddings there. And so often
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I'm traveling, trying to, you know, bring all the gear along. And so one of the great things about this is that it's
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very easy to throw one of these onto a flash unit and there's Velcro to just hold it into place
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And by the way, this is the proper positioning for it. You want your flash unit facing up and kind of rotated to the side like this
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And that way the light goes up and it's shaped by this. And so as it comes forward, it's much softer and thus much less harsh
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And so you don't have the hot spots that are created. You have less of that kind of washed out type look and a more even
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natural looking lighting And I will go into technique here but obviously there are other techniques you can use in terms of the intensity of the flash unit and which curtain that you use to further dictate how the light going to be shaped
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But I have found that even if I need to, for whatever reason, shoot with a flash unit mounted on the camera
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using one of these helps the light output to be much softer, more manageable, and I'm much more pleased, at least with the final result
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and so I have found that I can travel just with a few of these, you know, light scoops or super scoops
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and then because I'm using, you know, portable flash triggers, instead of bringing on light stands
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which is sometimes impossible through airline luggage, what I'll end up doing instead is just grabbing a few
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assistants out of the crowd and have them positioning them and, you know, kind of a statue of liberty kind of way
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holding up a flash unit. And I've gotten results that I'm very happy with, even in lighting large groups
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some of the family shots I've been doing. There's had as many as 50 or 60 people, and so that
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becomes a pretty fair challenge when it comes to lighting within a church. But I've been able to do
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it even with a couple of flash units just by kind of effectively positioning the light and working
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with it. Now, there was one kind of liability to this design that has been addressed in this
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third generation of them. And it particularly became true when you were traveling with the actual
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light scoop or super scoop, both of this previous generation. And that is that while there was some
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of this kind of molded foam as a part of it, the kind of the rigidity of it that helped to hold the
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shape. And the shape is very important to the proper shaping of the light. But it was held in place
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by an internal wire about the thickness of the kind of wire that might be in a wire close hanger
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And so as a result, because of that, that if it got bent in your luggage or your camera bag
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it means that it was no longer in the proper shape. And so you were left trying to twist and contort it and try to figure out what is the proper shape
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when in fact you may not exactly know what that is. So there's a big upgrade moving to the light scoop three
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and that it now is it's all a molded foam. It's extra thick as far as the molded foam
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But the end result is that you can bend it, it can twist or whatever, and it will return back to its original form
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Whereas you illustrate with this if you were to bend it over for one thing there a great amount of resistance but obviously once you done because of the wires it actually going to retain the improper shape And so the
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end result is that these actually travel much nicer. You don't have to worry about them because
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they will return to the proper shape. And that's true, both of the light scoop or of the super scoop
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itself. So I found that I can get these easily into a camera bag. I can bring them along and they
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become a really an indispensable part of my workflow, whether I'm shooting outdoor portrait
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sessions or shooting a wedding. The other thing, too, is that if you're wanting to shoot in a
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portrait position, you just rotate the flash unit up, it fires up through here, the light is
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shaped, and you really get nice results. I've continued to use these over the last several years
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because, while obviously it's not complicated, it works, and it does a great job of shaping the light
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And so if you're looking for something to help you in terms of modifying your flash output from portable flash units
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or perhaps you're looking for a solution as I was to a way to travel with your gear and to be able to have some light modifiers that could go along with you
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So I recommend these light scoop products as being nice and portable
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And then also it's a great small company, but very personable and they actually treat you well
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which is a nice change. If you'd like to check out any of the light scoop
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or super scoop products for yourself, you can visit lightgenius.com. That's L-I-T-E-G-N-I-U-S dot com
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And if you'll go to backslash Abbott for all of my viewers and readers
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they have thrown a promotion on there wherever you are in the world
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you can get free shipping of these products right to your door. I've got one other piece of great news
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and that is that LightGenius has agreed to let me give away a couple of the Light Scoop 3 as a part of this review
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And so if you will look down in the description below, you can get information on how to enter the draw
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and have one of these shipped right to your door. I'm Dustin Abbott, and if you haven't already, please click that subscribe button
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Thanks for watching. Have a great day
