Godox AD-E2 - A Worthy Umbrella Bracket Upgrade

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New And Improved. I just started following Markus Rothkranz's channel on YouTube. At first, I was a little skeptical about his approach to photography, but as I watched his BTS (behind the scenes) commentary on lighting techniques, I started to get interested. Personally, I prefer a written blog posting over a video because text can be skimmed more quickly than slogging through the normal patois that has become a mainstay on the 'Tube. However, I came to appreciate his minimal approach to outdoor lighting, and over time, started to check his channel on a regular basis.

During one of his recent videos he described the new umbrella bracket that is currently supplied with the Godox "mini-monolights", including my beloved AD200. Shown here is the newest iteration of the humble umbrella bracket. While not visible in the photo, it has several important improvements:

Metal Construction: The original brackets were made from plastic, which I considered perfectly adequate until one such unit shattered when a light stand toppled over in the wind. I'm a little more optimistic that this won't happen with this one.

Photo Source: Click here.

Elimination Of The Spigot: Umbrella brackets accommodate spigots (short threaded brass rod stock) at both ends. When properly oriented, the top spigot recess is used to attach a cold shoe, while the lower recess attaches the bracket to the spigot on the tip of the lightstand. While the spigot adds versatility, you only need a 1/4 x 20 thread to attach nearly any accessory you would need. As you can see, the spigot has been replaced with a tripod-inspired 1/4 x 20 thumbscrew.

You can see that an AD200 easily mounts on the bracket using the flash's 1/4 x 20 threaded socket on the side. This keeps the flash close to the umbrella's axis. This makes it easier to use the AD200 with my Westcott umbrella-based softboxes in which the flash is mounted inside the softbox to prevent light spillage. My collection of Westcott softboxes haven't received much love lately, simply because the collapsing softboxes like the Lastolite are easier to transport.

Screw Retention: The original umbrella brackets had only a spring metal tab to hold the umbrella in place. This annoyed me to now end, so the addition of a retention screw is high on my "like list". However, Mr. Rothkranz gave a possible explanation. Lack of a retaining screw would allow the umbrella to slide out of the bracket if the wind catches it, This could be a good idea, as a flying umbrella is more likely to survive an episode of free flight. If held in place, the lift-off would probably drag the light stand with it, potentially resulting in the purchase of a working replacement for a potentially destroyed flash. If this is the case, I may decide to not tighten the thumbscrew if a flying umbrella is a very real outcome.

Incidentally, in these photos, the retaining screw is on the backside of the bracket. I guess it was considered unphotogenic.

Umbrellas: The umbrellas that I usually carry are similar to this Phottix Double Fold Umbrella, a 36" diameter shoot through umbrella that collapses to a compact 16" length. To save on weight, they have shafts that are thin, six-sided tubes, which can be crushed if retaining screws are overtightened. I normally force the shaft of a wooden pencil down the shaft for reinforcement. I normally cover the tip with a small plastic cap for added protection and remove it if it interferes with the umbrella bracket.. 

Inserting an umbrella was actually a fight! The spring steel retaining tab, relocated to the interior of the umbrella mounting hole, already provides a secure grip on the umbrella shaft. In fact, it feels so secure that the retention screw may be a "belt and suspenders" situation. In addition, the contour of the tension spring is easier to insert the umbrella from one specific side, while I'll mark for future reference.  This was by design because the AD200 and its subsequent variations all can be mounted on the side, parallel to the umbrella axis.

Goodbye to this kluge

Clarification: Just in case this makes no sense, here is an AD200 mounted on a conventional umbrella bracket. You can see that the umbrella shaft is secured at an angle from the bracket. This is an accomodation for the additional height of a conventional speedlight, and is designed so that the beam of the flash and the center of the umbrella coincide when the umbrella is fully extended. Notice that I needed to add an additional spigot (photo left) to provide the necessary clearance for the screw to turn.

Flash Attachment: The tripod-inspired mounting screw can be used with either the low profile AD200 flash variants or by adding a cold shoe, conventional shoe-mounted speedlights. I can now position the AD200 much closer to the umbrella axis when using a traditional umbrella bracket. If I mount the cold shoe on a small ball head, I can achieve the same results with a conventional speedlight.

So what's not to like?

Watch The Edges

I don't do art well. If there is anything that governs my selection of subjects, it would be how I respond to their coloration. or how subtleties of in lighting reveal some form or texture. Other times, the subject is visually amusing. And that doesn't take much.

Lately, my primary "morning walk" camera has been a Fuji X-70. It has an 18mm lens, the equivalent to a 28mm lens on a full frame camera. The camera has a leaf shutter that allows me to synchronize flash at exposures of 1/1000 of a second, sometimes less if the conditions are right. It also has a  tilting LCD panel which comes in handy when photographing from high or low camera angles. I also own the dedicated Fuji eye-level optical viewfinder which I could use, but don't from fear of dropping this relatively expensive accessory.

My biggest thrill has been the the X-70's ability to create images where the sky could be exposed to an ominous level of darkness. By adding a small flash, I can properly expose a foreground subject. The ambient exposure for the left image was 1/1000, F11, ISO 400. I needed the small aperture to keep the yellow rose in sharp focus. The one on the right  was shot at 1/1000, F5.6, ISO 100 because I needed a more open aperture to minimize the depth of field, which was a gesture in futility when using an 18mm lens. Still I liked both images because of the color, a bias to which I freely admit.

Halloween: In my neighborhood, Halloween is a big thing. It's a chance to buy plastic garden ghouls and create one's own Danse Macabre in the front yard. One nearby home displays a plastic skeleton that must stand fifteen feet tall.

In years past, I would haunt the Cole Valley neighborhood where the decorations appeared to be seasonal art projects created by local children. It appears to be a very desirable neighborhood for young families due to the proximity of Grattan Elementary School. Way back then I usually carried a camera with a manually focused prime lens, and this required an attention level 110% and both hands on the camera. With the autofocusing X-70, I now had a free hand to hold a small off-camera flash. This, along with my purchase of a Lightpix Q20, made flash-enhanced images so much easier to create.

1/1000, F 16, ISO 100

By way of comparison, this photo was made without flash at the ambient exposure of  1/1000, F 16, ISO 100. These settings are under the standard "Sunny Sixteen Rule" by more than three stops, which is the darkest I can make the sky without resorting to a neutral density filter. The flash (output unrecorded) provided enough light to properly expose my ghostly friend, although the highlights are a bit hlt. Without the camera's autofocusing capability, I could not have used my free hand to hold the flash, a definite disadvantage. By contrast the second shot was made at 1/125, F 11, ISO 100. Compared to the first shot, I added three more stops of exposure to get the details in the sky and the house in the background (below right). It also becomes very clear that if there was to be any foreground detail at all, it would have to be provided by the off-camera flash. 

1/125, F 11, ISO 100

From here on out, the little remote flash did all of the heavy lifting. Working in the digital universe has definite advantages. The instantaneous feedback provided by the LCD screen allow for on-the-spot adjustments to exposure and composition, and when working with a manual flash at close range, one can simply move the flash in or out to achieve the desired exposure.

One problem that comes with the tiny Q20 flash is the coverage. It was probably designed to cover the frame area of a 35mm lens, or longer, a presumption I've never been inclined to test empirically. When working with photos like these this limitation isn't too bothersome if I take the care to "aim" the flash directly at the center of interest. If you look at the skeleton photo, you can see the light fall-off at the lower half of the frame. The only correction is to move the flash farther from the subject and suffer the subsequent loss of light intensity.

So What's The Beef? If one forgives the vapid background and the totally unthreatening blue sky, what's not to like? Well, for starters, the bat-like creature near the upper right hand corner. Had I framed it more carefully, I could have included the entire silhouette within the frame, adding some tiny bit of relevance to the image. 

I normally don't  re-shoot images that proved unsuccessful when viewed in post production. This all points to one revelation that I can't escape: I need to pay closer attention to the overall content of the frame and not concentrate solely on my momentary euphoria that bright colors so often elicit.