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Westcott Pro Light Mods make your subject look like a rock star

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Westcott has announced its new Pro Light Mods range (buy here). These are softbox covers which simulate the Hollywood-style light banks as well as stadium lighting. Their goal is not to modify the light hitting your subject so much as turn your softboxes into background lighting in your scene behind your subject.

The new Westcott Pro Light Mods are available in six different sizes to cover a range of different softboxes. While they’re obviously designed based on the sizes of Westcott’s own softboxes, they should fit on just about any brand softbox that matches the same dimensions and has the depth to add a grid.

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Westcott FlexiGels make colouring your lights as easy as possible

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Westcott has launched a new set of FlexiGels for the Westcott FJ400 strobe. Interestingly, though, they’re not made of your typical gel material. These are an 8-pack of reusable gels made from silicone rubber. They’re designed to fit right over the bulb of the FJ400 and colour the light with red, orange, light orange (which they say is similar to a CTO), yellow, green, blue, purple or pink.

The great thing about silicone rubber “gels” is that it should make swapping them out on a whim fairly easy. It’s a great insulator of heat to prevent you burning yourself. And as it goes over the bulb, Westcott says it’s compatible with umbrellas, softboxes and whatever other modifiers you want to use. But there may be potential negatives.

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Holiday Gift Guide – The best new photo and video lights of 2022

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It’s December again, which means lots of us are sitting there wondering what to buy for ourselves or the photographer in our lives this holiday season. We’ve been saving up all year to get that something special, but we don’t want to deal with in-store queues – or maybe we’ve just slacked on our Christmas shopping this year. We want to stay at home where it’s nice and warm and see what we can find online that gets delivered straight to our door!

So, this means it’s time for the 2022 DIYP Holiday Gift Guides. We’re on Day 3, so it’s time to look at lights. These are some of our favourite new LED lights and flashes that have been released over the last year. Keep visiting back this week as we release our other guides, including cameras, lenses, tripods, sliders & gimbals, and accessories and gadgets.

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Westcott FJ-X3 flash triggers come in Sony and Universal flavours and have almost 1,000ft range

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Westcott has announced its newest flash trigger, the FJ-X3. There are two version of the trigger, the FJ-X3 M for Nikon, Canon, Sony (with an adapter), Fuji, Panasonic and Olympus and the FJ-X3 S specifically for Sony – because Sony likes to be special and different when it comes to their hotshoe.

The FJ-X3 comes with a new removable lithium-ion battery, allowing photographers to swap out and charge as needed without the hassle and cost of single-use AA batteries. It has an all-new button layout with an enhanced user interface with a new multi-selection pad for easy adjustment of power settings, modelling lamp, audible beeps and more. Westcott says the new interface design allows for multiple group settings to be displayed at once so you don’t have to dig through multiple menus to adjust each one.

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Westcott introduce the world’s smallest 60w Bi-colour COB LED continuous light

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Westcott has recently announced the L60-B Bi-Color COB LED (60W), a continuous light for photographers and videographers who need both power and transportability.

The new light is apparently 20% lighter than any other COB LED currently available. Sized at just 3.2 by 3.2 by 5.5 inches and weighing 1.45 lb, it still packs quite a punch.

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How to control a 7-foot umbrella modifier and create beautiful ultra-soft light

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What’s the most versatile piece of equipment you own? Aside from something like clips, I’d venture that it could be the umbrellas you have sitting in the back of your closet. It’s pretty usual when we start to learn studio lighting and off camera flash that we start out using umbrellas as modifiers, for a number of reasons. Then you decide to get a bit fancy and they are relegated in favour of things like octoboxes, parabolic softboxes and the like.

But the humble umbrella really can create remarkable portraits. In this video from The Slanted Lens, Jay P. Morgan shows us how he uses giant seven foot umbrellas, and tells us why they are a great modifier.

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How to shoot outdoor portraits using the sun as a back light

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When you’re outside shooting on location you don’t always want to heft a lot of gear around with you, particularly if you don’t have an assistant. So how can you shoot dramatic portraits with just one light? Simple! Use the sun as your second light source. It’s relatively simple to do, requires no battery packs and creates a beautiful slightly cinematic look. In this video, Ashley from Westcott shows you how to do it.

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Westcott has released a new touchscreen speedlight and 200Ws wireless strobe

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Westcott has announced their new FJ80 universal touchscreen speedlight and FJ200 200Ws lithium polymer battery-powered strobe, expanding on the FJ400 & DJ-X2m kit they introduced last year. Like a number of popular speedlights these days, the Westcott FJ80 features a round head, but the touchscreen is new – sort of.

The Westcott FJ200 boasts 0.05 to 1.3 second recycle times, HSS up to 1/8000, TTL and compatibility with just about all camera systems via its universal wireless trigger. It’s also compatible with Canon’s RT transmitter – which is quite unique amongst strobes.

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4 steps every photographer should know to master strobe and sunlight

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Today I’m out here with Chanda AM, and Chanda will help me illustrate how to balance ambient light with strobes. I love shooting in this situation with ambient light and strobe light. I want to be able to combine the ambient light here in this beautiful area with strobes. So the way I generally do this is:

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This is when copying other photographers’ work is a good idea

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No matter if you’re a total newbie or you’ve been shooting for a while, the last thing you wanna be is a copycat. Nobody likes copycats, right? But bear with me. In this video from Westcott, photographer Glyn Dewis shares some situations when copying others’ work will be good for your own photography without harming the original authors. So let’s hear what he has to say.

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