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Lastolite TriFlector

The TriFlector is, as the name suggests, 3 reflectors. They are on an arm arrangement that allows them to be wrapped around a person and individually adjusted, so that you can have a single soft light that has light thrown back from different angles to in-fill shadow areas.

Above - Lastolite TriFlector in use with Sunfire panels, notice the shadow in-filling and warming effect. For all images on this page Below - The same scene with the TriFlector removed.

It comes as a kit with the TriFlector, with 3 panels that are Sunfire and silver and stand. Sunfire is a gold and silver stripe.  The kit, less the stand, folds away into a convenient bag provided. Originally it did not have a stand provided and its often shown with one as a promotion, although their current catalogue now shows it with the stand provided.

Optional sets of panels are available as silver/white, gold/white, and with translucent material.

The stand provided appears at first to be a standard lighting stand, and is too tall to use as shown in illustrations, with a person sat on a chair. It could be used with someone sitting on a high stool. I have found that with a low level stand (not a Lastolite product) but more useful for general use with the TriFlector. The Lastolite stand has a lighting spigot and larger than normal screw on the end that I presume connects to other Lastolite products like background support bars. I have two Lastolite Ezybox's and bought one in a kit with the same stand, but was using a standard lighting stand for the other, so I have been able to reallocate the stand that came with the TriFlector so that I now have two Ezybox's with stands as a kit. At some point I will research what else can be connected to these stands, and perhaps find other uses for them. The lighting spigot is standard and allows items like the Cool-Lites  or a Lastolite mains flash to be used.

The TriFlector is a very efficient way to produce glamorous images, so perhaps makeover shots or product photos for makeup, but is restrictive in that the person or model has to stay still.

If you view it simply as three reflectors on a stand that can be individually adjusted then there is no reason why you cannot use it for a far wider range of applications, where it would be useful to be able to hold between one and three reflectors or diffusers. One of the areas I would like to experiment with is flower photography, this is often improved by using reflectors and having these and the ability to angle them individually may open up more possibilities. Product and food photography are other areas where being able to have a number of reflectors in use may be useful. I think therefore we should consider the TriFlector to be a piece of useful equipment that we can use in a range of situations and not just for glamorous head shots, although it does justify the purchase for this use alone.

One of the larger jobs I have coming up is to do a lot of head shots of potential models that may be involved in the design and development of Girlequins. The first selection criteria is the face, and giving all the models an equally glamorous image that shows them to their best would seem to be the beat approach. The TriFlector will be really useful in this task.

 

^ Above items as removed from bag << left the TriFlector in its bag Model used is a Girlequin, a life sized mannequin. These are ideal for practicing with lighting, as they stay exactly where you put them and you can vary lighting and see the results. It is one of five used by Camera Images to teach photographic lighting techniques.  The lighting source was 1 Cool-Lite softbox.  It is ideal for this type of application where you want to see the direct effect of moving the reflector panels. These lights are daylight in colour and can be mixed with flash.

See Also:-

Introduction to Studio and Flash Lighting

Lastolite Ezybox's

Cool-Lites 

Lastolite KickerLite

Lastolite UpLite

There are many articles on flash, lighting and reflectors in the Lighting and Reflectors Section.