By Earline from Jacksonville, FL on 3/20/2008

I take pet and people portraits, and I was really afraid that the Photek Softliter would be so big that animals would be afraid. In reality, it is so big that animals just seem to think it is another piece of furniture in the studio. As for the light quality, I am very happy with it. It is truly soft light and it wraps around the subject more naturally than my previous umbrella setup. I am using it with a Nikon SB-800, and I am definitely pushing the flash to the limit. I have not yet used it in shoot-through mode. Overall, I am very pleased, but be aware that you will need a pretty powerful flash to get the best effect.

I love my 60" Photek Softlighter. It is very similar to a softbox/octabox for light control, and it is quick to deploy and inexpensive like an umbrella.

I can also remove the diffusser and use it as a regular bounce umbrella, and I can also remove the black backing to use it as a shoot thru umbrella. I can also remove half of the umbrella shaft so that I can place it even closer to my subject for super soft lighting.

It is well built and I get fantastic results from it.

For the price this can't be beat. It triples as a shoot thru umbrella, silver reflective umbrella, and a large octabox! Fast setup compared to softboxes.