Big Light, Small Flash

WE ARE IN AN ERA of intense interest in small, portable flash photography. Speedlights, so named for their versatility, ease of use, and thus, presumably, speed of use, are rocking the house. Small, light, and fast! Get in and out! One-man-band stuff.

Which is cool. Bigger lights still have a sense of belonging to the studio world, high-budget jobs, assistants, heavy stands, and multiple cases of stuff. Properly so.

And, of course, what tends to go along with the above sensibilities is an understandable corollary reasoning that bigger lights drive through bigger sources, like whale-sized Octas. The small Speedlights are matched up with light shapers that are collapsible, stuffable, cheap, easy to carry, quick to set up, and thus not very big. Big enough to get good light out of, for sure, but not with the size or sophistication of sources you might match up with a 2400 Ws, big-box unit.