Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

You've discontinued the spill kill and renamed the PLM reflector.

I believe we have re named the PLM reflector as a spill kill reflector, as it does a better job of spill killing with conventional umbrellas and bare bulb use, and because PLM V2 no longer requires the PLM reflector to control spill . . . . this is done by the on-axis speed ring mount supplied with every PLM V2.

Paul, is this to say that the PLM reflector can't be used with the PLM v2? I've got PLM reflectors on order alongside PLMs with the thought that I'd use them when I wanted to gel my PLM light. Will that now be impossible with the speedring? I have a feeling if I'd ever used a strobe/speedring before the answer would be obvious, but I've got no experience. Thanks.

You couldn't gel the PLM reflector . . . the glass dome protrudes beyond the glass dome and would melt gels in a few seconds. Same with the speedring. You could probably put about a 12" gel circle with a hole in it out in front of the dome about 6" away. The gelled light would hit about half the PLM surface and you would get color out of it . . . but the catchlight would be feathered from color in the center to white at the perimeter.

PLM reflector can still be used if you mount the PLM off-center using the 7mm shaft, but I would certainly prefer the on-axis speedring.

Hmm... I suppose I heard someone talking about that before with Alienbees or something else and misapplied that to working for Einsteins as well. Thanks for the heads up.

I have seen it done with bees, but the model lamp has to be removed for it to work.

You can see an example of this on a B1600 on Rob Galbraith's website:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10046-10396-10407

Scroll down about 2/3 of the way to the bottom. It's also pretty apparent as to why the modeling lamp would need to be removed, and why it wouldn't work on an Einstein with the dome.

Wow, I didn't even know Rob had done this. Great comparison of light modifiers. Please not the "original 7" reflector" was the highly polished one and has a cold spot in the center. Current 7" reflectors are mat finish and don't do this. We've been shipping the mat ones for a couple of years. The 8 1/2" is textured and superior to the 7" in output and has a nice smooth pattern.