Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I want to purchase one of the PLM umbrellas to use with Canon's 580exII speedlite. What do I need exactly to mount them together?

Thanks!
Tim

For the simplest use you just need an umbrella bracket. The bracket mounts to the lightstand and holds the flash. There is also a hole in the brackets for holding the PLM umbrella shaft. Most of these brackets are hinged so that you can angle the flash and umbrella up and down together.

Beyond that you can do a google search to see what others have been doing to try to mount the flash more centered in the PLM and to further diffuse the light to mimic a bare bulb source.

Agreed on the umbrella bracket. You may also want to consider a dome diffuser to allow the speedlite to act as a bare bulb flash. This will allow enough spread to fill the PLM, otherwise the built in reflector (even with wide angle panel in place) will not spread enough when the flash is in the proper position.

Probably the easiest and most in expensive means of mount a speedlite close to the axis of the PLM would be to thread the mini stand that comes with virtually all speedlites to the umbrella bracket. Lay the speedlite on edge on top of the ministand and bungee cord in place.

Thanks for the easy and in expensive tip to mount a speedlight on to
an umbrella bracket

It works.

Screw bungee cords. I'm going duct tape on this one.

:lol:

Thanks for the tip. If mounted and centered properly, would a speedlite with a diffuser be wide enough for the 86" PLM umbrella? Would it still work with the diffusion fabric?