If you have been following my Tweets, then you may remember me talking about on-location lighting setups. For a long time, I’ve been thinking about making a lighting setup for environmental portraits and editorial types of shots. Photographers such as Mitchell Kanashkevich, have helped in this quest. He has a great e-book on using flash, softboxes, and reflectors, and, of course, natural light for subjects on location. I think that got me started on this. Then I stumbled on Joey Lawrence’s work with these amazing photographs, and recently my new friend, Jerod Foster, put me on track again with all his amazing work on-location. I also have to mention Joe McNally and “The Hot Shoe Diaries” book.

The choices are many, ranging from economic setups, as my other friend Brian Hirschy writes about here, with great results, through stuff from Chase Jarvis, where you need have deep pockets. I think in the end, I chose a middle route to this… I went for a versatile and professional Nikon SB-900 and a new version of Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe Softbox. (This one is 30 inches instead of 24.) I should also mention that I bought a Lastolite Ezybox Long Extending Handle, but I’ve seen people using a monopod instead.

Now, this is not a review, Why? Because this is my first lighting setup ever! I never thought of using a flash before, just as I never thought of making videos (this is for another post later on). So, I don’t have enough experience to do a review, and I also don’t have anything else to compare it with. But, and here’s the but, I think I can provide you with a my personal insight of this setup.

Let me tell you that another reason to choose this setup was the factor that it was really easy to handle and use, with the I-TTL technology + CLS Nikon wireless technology (I got confident after reading McNally’s book.) It’s expandable, so I can keep adding speedlights, and it’s very portable as well.

So, I want to show you proof of how great and easy is to manage this type of thing. The following photo was shot after 30 minutes of opening these toys. I must say my wife was not ready for the occasion; it was early in the morning… if you know what I mean (BTW, now she loves me even more! She wants a free portrait session, because she’s in love with the look of this lighting!).
I used a corridor in my own house as the background. My intention was to merge ambient light and my new stuff. Here’s my first photograph ever with artificial light and only after few minutes playing with this setup. (No post processing, except I opened up details a bit in the shadows)

© Heber Vega | Lastolite Ezybox | f/2 | 1/125 | 85mm | ISO 400

Now, I want to show you what this looked like without the lighting setup. (In the photograph without flash, the shutter is not the same, as I was trying to expose for her face.)

© Heber Vega | Left: f/2.0 | 1/40 | 85mm Right f/2.0 | 1/160 | 85mm

I assembled all of this in a matter of minutes. I used Aperture priority for these shots, I dialed “minus” in my exposure compensation to darken the ambient light, and also dialed “minus” on the flash, to have a more pleasant light. That was it! I’m not saying that this a fabulous job, far from it, but what I AM saying is this will open new opportunities for my work, and that’s what matters! I feel I can do so much more now, and I will start using this really soon, as I have the chance to doing so.

I don’t know if someone is interested in photos of the Ezybox, how it folds and how big it is, that type of stuff. If you are, let me know in the comments and I will be adding photos in this post.

Now… let’s keep pursuing light!

NOTE: I’ve added the following photos to make clear the size and form of this setup. If you have further questions, shoot me an email!
NOTE II: One more thing! This is the biggest Hotshoe Ezybox, you can also find it in 24″x24″ and 15″x15″.






Those two white coats are the diffusers inside of the softbox. You can either use both together or only the external one.