Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm looking at the PLMs for editorial-style environmental portraiture. I'm pretty sure that most of what I want to do can be achieved with a combination of a silver 64" PLM and, when needed, the diffuser fabric.

Occasionally though, I like the look of a shoot-through umbrella or lantern-style modifier. I know about the spill-kill backing fabric for the white PLM, but I wonder if there is anything to be gained from using a silver PLM as a reflector to fill a white one. That is, mount a white PLM directly in front of a silver one to make a lantern with a curved back, and a light which fires indirectly.

Specifically, would the high efficiency of the silver PLM translate into less light loss compared to using the black spill-kill fabric. Also, I assume that filling the white PLM with parallel light will produce a tighter spread of light on the subject, albeit still with significant spill to wide angles.

Has anyone tried this arrangement?

[quote="Struan Gray"]Specifically, would the high efficiency of the silver PLM translate into less light loss compared to using the black spill-kill fabric. Also, I assume that filling the white PLM with parallel light will produce a tighter spread of light on the subject, albeit still with significant spill to wide angles.[quote]

The light given by a lantern or shoot thru is a wide spread light. To add a silver PLM would not give you more confined spill than by using a spill kill fabric (which is also silver lined, by the way). In any case, constricting the light given by a shoothru which is used for its light spreading properties sounds a little counterproductive. I would suggest silver PLM and diffuser as well as white PLM with spill kill, each for thier individual properties. For the record, no I have not specifically done any comparative testing with a double PLM set up.

I do appreciate the usual uses of these tools. I'm just wondering if I can get an interesting, and different, mix of ambient and directed light from the two-up combination. I see that the European distributer finally has some stock, so I should stop speculating and do my own tests. The white PLM is not that much more expensive than a cover for the silver model.

Thanks for the reply.