In Joe McNally’s CLS video it showed him using a ballhead to align the flashhead along the umbrella stem axis. Made sense that it would distribute the light more evenly; so I bought the rig. Here’s the test results – you decide.

As pointed out in the note above, I forgot the diffuser.

Single SB800 set to TTL into Wescott 42″ shoot through umbrella.

The ballhead is the Manfrotto Lite Tite Swivel+Umbrella Adapter 26
The coldshoe is the Stroboframe Shoe-type Flash Mount Cat. No 300-SHO

I consider this as a ‘nice to know’ experiment only. With the inherent spill associated with shoot through umbrellas and with the difusser on the speedlight the coverage appears to be good. One additional advantage I found with the ballhead set is the ability to quickly rotate the flash body to align the IR sensor to face the camera.

I’ll know better after I field test it.

Sideview

Nikon Speedlights

When I decided to start playing with Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS) I took this series of photographs to try and understand the difference between a shoothrough umbrella and a reflective one.

I also used this test to learn how to use the Commander mode on my D300 to change the power settings of the Speedlights.

SB-800 on left into 32 inch Photogenic white umbrella: SB-600 on right through 48 inch Wescott umbrella. Controlled by D300 Commander mode.

• Top half of photo: both at half power
• Bottom half of photo: Both at full power.