What's in the Bag? Folding Reflector

Not a whole lot to say about this, except that a lighting kit would be incomplete without a reflector of some sort and a folding reflector is very compact and can really come in handy. I have a variety of folding reflectors in my studio ranging from 12” up to 40” x 60”. Most of these are the 5-in-1 type, but in retrospect, that is not a good idea for the medium and small sizes. More on that in a bit.


For the mini location kit I have added a 32” folding white/silver reflector. This isn't shown in the original photo of the kit, but it is in there now. This is the largest size I can fit into my current bag. Folding reflectors fold into thirds to become 1/3 their full size when folded. As you can see, the 32” size fits into a 12” case.

This model has two sides, silver for a more direct reflection.

The other side is white for diffuse reflection.

Why silver/white instead of a more versatile 5-in-1 you might ask. Three reasons for this. First, and most importantly, a thin profile when folded. The extra material for the 5-in-1 makes it rather thick when folded. I barely have room to slip this in and if it were much thicker it would be a bad fit. Secondly, the cover for 5-in-1 style reflectors don't usually fit very tight, so it is more difficult to control the light, especially on the silver side and even more so with a breeze. Thirdly, in this size I only ever use silver or white, so black, gold, and scrim (translucent) would almost never get used, as 32” is just too small for a useful scrim or for subtracting light. In the large sizes black and scrim come in handy from time to time, but I just don't see the utility for either in the smaller sizes (there are always exceptions, so I mean this in a general sense). All of the 5-in-1 reflectors I have are set up so the cover has to be reversed to switch between silver and white, which is really inconvenient. I don't like to make people wait while I flip a cover around.

Coming Next
That's it for today. Just one more post for this series and then we move on to some new subjects, real world lighting or maybe a bit more about equipment, or maybe the two combined. I'll think of something and hopefully you will like it.

Until then...

-Gene

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