How fast can you be ready to shoot? I’m not talking available light here. I’m talking a nice, creamy, soft serve, off camera strobe-filled umbrella light. Adding a $12 part to your current setup, you can be ready to shoot in moments flat.

I am NOT condoning speed photography. Speed kills! It’s just sometimes I want to add a little off camera light to my street photography in places some mall security guards government officials might not really want me to. Besides, you never know when a pigeon is going to land on a sleeping sunbather and you just have to use the sun as your kicker with a big umbrella eye light on the wing-ed rat. Right? Huh?

Chances are you already have most of this gear thanks to the crack dealer lighting master and gear educator known as Strobist.

What you need:

Very portable light stand. Not much point in lugging a full size light stand around for a run-and-gun because you’ll be too tired to use it.

Use Pocket Wizards? No problem. Add a 1/4″ screw and a 50¢ right angle bracket (from any hardware store) to mount the box and you’re still speed racer. If you are using wireless TTL you are good to go. If you are using another off camera trigger, you’ll just have to figure it out.

Flash Shoe. My favorite is this one by Stroboframe, but any will do.

Compact umbrella. I’m not reinventing the wheel here. If you read Strobist, you’ve already got at least one of these, right? It’s got to be the collapsible compact type so it’s not longer than your collapsed light stand. Other wise you’ll look even sillier.

Umbrella holder. Doesn’t matter which one. I think they all stink. At least this holder comes with flattened or drilled out inserts so the insert doesn’t spin. Make sure your holder comes with a 3/8″ threaded brass insert. Why? Because you’ll need that to attach the…

MAGIC INGREDIENT! Yes, the one piece of kit you may not already have is this mini-ball head. Around $12. B&H pilled up on the stock so they’ll be ready for the mad rush if you guys and gals are interested. Though, if the reaction is even close to what happened with the barn doors, the 180 they pulled aside aren’t going to last past next weekend. Adorama has the mini-ball head as well. But they only have a handful.

Regardless, I’m hoping you want to know how to put it all together – if you haven’t already skipped ahead to find out. Well my typing fingers are tired and my photo finger is itching so try and figure it out from the photographs below. If it’s not clear just let me know (nicely!) in the comment section and I’ll elaborate. There’s even a video at the end to show you the Nice Shotgun in action.

Left: Mini-Ball Head. Right: Stroboframe mount with thumbscrew unscrewed.

This is the assembly that makes it all work. The ball head plate is removed by unscrewing.
That’s the right angle bracket placed between the head and mount. You may want to use
loctite or a locking washer between the threaded brass insert andthe mini-ball head
so the flash doesn’t come unscrewed and spin around at the worst possible moment.

UPDATE: As per reader request I’ve added the above photograph to show how
the Pocket Wizard attaches to the right angle bracket. You can use any 1/4″ screw
that is short enough, but I like to use the 3/8″ to 1/4″ that comes with the nano stand.
Oh, and because I was in a hurry I only just noticed I mounted the flash facing the wrong
way. Just flip it facing the other direction so you have room for the PC cord. Sorry!

Here it is all put together. Ready for action. The bungee is there so I can leave
the legs loose. Just undo the bungee. Flip the legs open. Tighten and go.

This is the open profile. You can adjust the angle of the flash with the ball
head to give you options from direct center to pointing right in your eye.

Now get out and shoot already!

Bonus: If you just want the most compact light setup, aren’t worried about speed, and don’t plan on using an umbrella you can use the mini-ball head on top of your light stand (if it has 3/8″ threads). This also turns your light stand into a tripod for your G9 or other pocket camera.

Nice!

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