Anyone use umbrellas ?

If so do you use shoot through or bounce off, or both depending on what you are shooting ?

been trying to get more into the lighting and flash side of photography now, since I have spent quite a bit of time learning the camera without flash etc

depends on the type of brolly.

My current flash kit has a softbox and a shoot through brolly.

My last lighting kit was a continous lighting and it had one reflective brolly and one you could shoot through.

The shoot through brolly will reflect some light though.

Soft-boxes are nice, but can be expensive. You can get much the same effect with a shoot-through umbrella. The light is nice but relections (eg eye highlights) can be less so. See here:

Nikon D40X Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40x/)

Not a problem with most subjects, though, including portraits :)

Richard.

Thanks, do you get any kind of effect from the light shining at the metal poles from the umbrella, or because the light is so diffused that it doesnt make any difference?

I prefer bounce into if I'm using a brolly (I use silver) but rather use a medium-ish softbox (32x24") with my shoe mount gun(s). They are more expensive as Richard says but do give you more control.

I find shooting through white brollies a bit harsh particularly with digital. You get a nice even light with two lights reflected from them.

I normally use a large-ish softbox as a main light, then a fill-in will be a lower-powered light bouncing off a silver brolly, as I'm typically trying to spread the fill-in light as much as possible.

Shoot through brolly can be useful in place of a softbox - but I prefer the box.

So - if you've got a softbox, get a (often reversible gold/silver) brolly... If you haven't got a softbox, get a white shoot-through brolly... and use a reflector to provide fill.

Never use brollys, only softboxes.

Shoot through *can* allow you to get the light in closer vs reflective (and therefor softer) - the softness is largely dependant on the *apparent* size of the light source - a reflective is constrained to a certain minimum distance before the subject is wearing the light source; shoot thro faces the other way!