Creative and business resources for photographers – ProPhotoNut

21 Comments Add your own

• 1. Russell  |  March 30th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

  Very nice, I will be ordering one soon

• 2. Rich Scorer  |  March 30th, 2009 at 8:13 pm

  I really love the look of this product. It appears to be the product that many bare flash “Strobists” / Sto-fen users are looking for but usually don’t find then end up making at home from a muddle of parts all sourced from different cheap and nasty eBay suppliers.

  I just wonder if it’s a missed opportunity not putting the fitting to make this also an umbrella stand adapter.

• 3. damien  |  March 30th, 2009 at 10:51 pm

  Thanks Rich,

  You can integrate the Arri/ Manfrotto umbrella holder bracket but it doubles the weight. I have also found that it is almost imposable to use an umbrella with a Speedlight outside in even a slight breeze without weighing down the lighting stand. Once I get into this level of rigging I use my Mobil because it has all the solutions and the power to cope outside. I use the power pack as my stand weight.

  I can always offer variations of the bracket to include the umbrella holder if there is sufficient demand.

  Damien.

• 4. David Tillyer  |  March 30th, 2009 at 11:23 pm

  I don’t want to come on here slating this product because this is almost the perfect product for any budding strobist (I agree with Rich that it should have an Umbrella bracket) and well done to Damien for coming up with well made, marketable solution but… I have been using a similar product from lastolite for some time now and it is cheaper (I think), weighs alot less than I imagine this does and has a brolly bracket:

  Its the Lastolite 2403 and costs approx £25 (small pic below)

  http://www.lastolite.at/umbrella/tilthead.jpg

• 5. David Tillyer  |  March 30th, 2009 at 11:25 pm

  I want to add:

  In Damien’s defense, the product that he has uses far better quality components than the Lastolite unit which is made mainly from plastic.

• 6. damien  |  March 30th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

  Hi David, I too have the Lastolite bracket but it is different to yours. It is this one and yes it is considerably cheaper. However it is fundamentally flawed in that it will not tip past horizontal on a lighting stand and this is crucial in order to be able to use the flash gun with it’s lens in a vertical orientation. The one I’ve got has a metal insert in the cold shoe that ensures the flashgun pins are shorted out – Not a good idea. They must have changed this by now, I’m sure.

  The bracket in the picture from your link, looks like the metal one that Manfrotto make only it has the round plastic cold shoe, that’s the cold shoe that is no good for the SB-900 and a bit of a tight fit on some other flash units too. When I want to use an umbrella I use this unit in conjunction with my bracket.

• 7. David Tillyer  |  March 31st, 2009 at 7:57 am

  Damien, I totally agree with the flaw you have indentified. I have had to always use my flashes in the normal position. I haven’t tried an SB900 on it yet but my SB800 are a very tight fit unlike the Lastoite EZYBOX Hotshoe Softbox where the flash can just fall out at any moment.

  I have another product which has been great at weddings for off-camera flash. The Joby Gorrilla Pod. The larger version can be modified by using the stand that comes with most nikon and canon flashes. The Pod can go pretty much anywhere and is really handy if you need to wrap it round something.

• 8. Shayn Parker  |  April 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm

  Hi,
  Any reason why its gone up £5 inside one day of being available?
  I was just about to order and noticed this.

• 9. damien  |  April 1st, 2009 at 5:53 pm

  Hi Shayn,

  Yes, you are right. Within hours of putting our flash bracket online we had sold all of our first batch of stock. I immediately reordered the components and even in a large quantity the prices of two of them were less keen than they had been. There was no direct reason given by our suppliers but I suspect the currency exchange rates are to blame. Our margin on the flash bracket is not big enough to absorb the extra costs and I was not prepared to loose money on each sale. My aim of selling the brackets is not to make money as such, (Selling photographic prints is a far more profitable exercise) but to provide a solution to a problem that the photographic accessory industry has not addressed. Of course there are wider benefits of selling the brackets, attracting new site visitors is one.

  We are looking to find new component suppliers at the moment. Manfrotto (Bogen imaging) are not playing ball with us so we are forced to buy retail and as a result I am having to look at overseas suppliers markets too. The main thing I have to ensure is that we offer good value to our customers while maintaining a sustainable business model. I hope this helps.

  Kindest regards,

  Damien.

• 10. Marc  |  April 4th, 2009 at 8:39 am

  Hi

  Just trying to order a couple of the flash brackets to get sent here in Brisbane, Australia. I have read above that you have just re-ordered batch two but I can’t get them added to my cart.
  Is the shopping cart down temporarily?

• 11. Shayn Parker  |  April 7th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

  Hi Damien,
  Can you tell us when new stock of this flash bracket will be available?
  Rgds
  Shayn

• 12. damien  |  April 7th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

  Hi Shayn,

  The next 20 sets of components came in and immediately went out today to back order clients. That completes our back orders and we are expecting the next 40 sets of components in this week. Once the initial demand is met I am hoping to keep the stock reorder point at a sensible level and maintain a speedy next day service to our customers. I now understand what camera manufacturers must go through with each product launch. Not wanting the expense of stock piling new products prior to release and then playing catch up to meet the initial demand.

  Sorry for the delay. Kindest regards, Damien.

• 13. Michael  |  April 14th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

  Great product and saved me alot of time looking to build the same thing.

  Many thanks

  Michael

• 14. Tom  |  April 21st, 2009 at 6:32 pm

  Does this work with the sb900? Does it go on via the hotshoe or the plastic stand you get with the sb900?

  Thanks

• 15. damien  |  April 26th, 2009 at 6:59 pm

  Hi Tom,

  I am happy to say this works with all flashguns including the SB900. I’ve used the SB-900 several times on the bracket now with the hot shoe NOT the plastic stand thingy and all is well

• 16. Jason Little  |  April 27th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

  Hi Damien,

  Just wanted to say what a lovely product, I did get something similar from Speed Graphic recently, the model was by Kaiser and it wasn’t too bad, it did have the brolley fitting but the bas fitting was all wrong, I had to use another adaptor to fit it too a lighting stand and the weight of the gun and brolley was a bit too much for the ball head securing screw.
  I like your so far and am looking forward to getting to grips with it in the field.
  Can I say how impressed I was with delivery, incredibly fast, ordered Friday night and delivered first thing Saturday morning. (Pass my thanks onto Laura please)
  Looking forward to your one day seminar in June, it should be an amazing day, can I ask that you bring along samples of your portfolio folders if possible as I would like to see these.

  Many Thanks, Jason (JLMedia Ltd)

• 17. damien  |  April 30th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

  Hi Jason,

  I’m glad your flash bracket arrived quickly.

  I will have a full range of portfolios at the June one day special event. There will be plenty of other goodies available on the day too

  Damien.

• 18. Simon  |  May 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am

  Thanks…….ordered Monday arrived weds !!!

  Excellent service as always……..

• 19. Hilary  |  March 28th, 2010 at 10:16 pm

  Hi Damien

  I’ve just bought the ezybox hotshoe, a light stand and lovegrove flash bracket from the e-shop which all arrived the next day – great! I can manage to fit the ezybox hotshoe to the stand, (without the lovegrove flash bracket), and my speedlight to the stand without the ezybox, but can’t seem to attach the ezybox hotshoe to the stand with the speedlight using the bracket. I want to do this so I can tilt the ezybox (with speedlight) – am I being a bit slow????

• 20. damien  |  March 28th, 2010 at 11:56 pm

  Hi Hilary,

  Thank you for your custom and your kind words. The Lovegrove Flash bracket is for attaching a Speedlight to a lighting stand. You need a Lastolite tilthead bracket for the Ezybox in order to tilt it. This is the item you need. Sorry for any confusion. I think we have stock although our website indicates out of stock for some reason at the moment or you can use a Manfrotto LiteTite bracket. I know these are in stock so please call Blaise on 01275 853204.

  Kindest regards, Damien

• 21. Hilary  |  March 29th, 2010 at 12:09 pm

  Thanks Damien

  Kind Regards

  Hilary

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