First Look: Honl Speed Grids
UPDATE: David has a blog post about them here, with more info.Here's what I will be playing with this weekend: Just got me a set of the not-yet-released Honl Speed Grids.
I'll be down at Western Kentucky University on Saturday, teaching an in-house lighting day for the PJ students. And we will definitely have to give these a test drive.
One more pic, showing the mounting system more clearly, after the jump.
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It mounts via a Speed Strap velcro system (or sticky velcro if you must) and is sized to fit all flashes up to the honker Vivitar 285HV size. (Fits the Viv almost perfectly, and the tension mount is sufficient to keep it in place on anything else.)First impressions: Solid, nice falloff at the edges, come in two flavors - 1/4 and 1/8. (This is the 1/8.) As always, click the pix for bigger views. I left them open in case you want to embed them anywhere.
More pix coming when I have a chance to play...
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Posted at 8:09 PM.
28 Comments:
Very cool. Now let's just see about that price...
FYI - info and purchasing info through: http://www.honlphoto.com/
Is the event at WKU open to the public, or just for PJ students?
Oh no! What am I gonna do with all this cardboard I've been stockpiling? And the black straws!
This looks like a nice product, especially if they offer it in a 3 pack with varying degrees and the grids cost about $10 each.
I can't imagine that happening though.
You ought to come an hour further south and hit up Nashville!
Very cool. I have been waiting for these for a couple months - just babbling to my girlfriend about 'speed grids' this weekend whilst out at lunch. They look quite promising, and decent design, too.
I want. I want. I've been taping my 7 inch studio grids to sb800s.
Want. When. How much.
Tim - I just posted a blog entry for how I attach my 7" grid spots to my SB 600:
http://maxwendtphotography.com/blog/?p=7
If you already have the gear, a simple adapter will make it work.
These look good can you connect multiple ones together to create a longer "snoot"?
A few weeks I was on a flight, and got up to walk about and saw some nice little honeycomb grids on the lights near the rear galley of the Boeing 777. The fittings look loose and I was tempted to help my self but thought better of it in the end. Now i have an option.
Nealle
Hello David and thank you for all your posts. I follow your blog on regular basis through rss feed and find it very intresting.
I'm not a PRO photograph, i'm just a "student", and sometimes i feel so newbie when you write about gizmos i don't even know what are they for.
Could you please add some informations for newbies like me? Something like "with this tool, you can achieve this result [...]".
Thanks in advance!
Luca Gervasi
According to their site that Nathan put up, they will be $24.95 each when released. Pretty good if you ask me...
The Honl Speed Grids are selling for $25 each and require the additional purchase of the $10 Speed Strap.
Here are the links:
http://www.honlphoto.com/servlet/the-22/HonlPhoto-1-fdsh-4-Speed-Grid/Detail
http://www.honlphoto.com/servlet/the-23/HonlPhoto-1-fdsh-8-Speed-Grid/Detail
http://www.honlphoto.com/servlet/the-8/strobist-speedlight-strobe-flash/Detail
I think I'll stick with my DIY cardboard and black straw grids till the price drops or they offer a cheaper package deal. For me, $60 would be better spent on another lightstand with umbrella and adapter.
I agree Andrew, I don't see why those should be $25 each. I mean, how much would it cost to make something like that, anyway?!
You'd be surprised, actually. Doing a mold is going be mid-five-digits, to start. There are a lot of up-front costs involved.
Al you need to do is to read one of the annual reports of one of the injection molding subcontract manufacturers to see it would be something you would not want to do unless you thought you could sell quite a few copies.
DtM
Interesting, it's always good to have a professionally made choice versus DIY.
I've never held any of the Honl gear in my hand. Does it feel well made?
I got some Honl gear yesterday in the mail and it is great. I got the speedstraps, globos, and barndoors fropm Honl. They are well made and definately hold up better than cornbread boxes or copier paper. You can shove them in your camera bag and pull them out for a shoot and know they'll work well and look more professional then a clumpy mess of gaffer's tape.
Yes It's good gear:
I bought some of the flags and speedstraps and snoots a few months back: I just figured "would I miss the money much; compared to how embaressed I'll be each time I pull out coco-pops and the coco monkey and tell people this is serious lighting equipment?"
Clearly there is always the place for DIY: often financialy motivated; sometimes for other reasons -- people get a kick out of fashioning stuff. I certainly do when you can't buy something or I'm trying to innovate, but strangely I don't want to know if you can buy something that does the job.
Well: the Honl kit is really nice; feels professional, looks professional and just works. I'd highly recomend it, if you don't want the coco monkey clambering over your flash guns.
Jonathan Histed
I have some Holn gear and for what it is- it's first rate. Snoots, gels, gobos...
This is good news for the stakeholders of Panera Bread -- where large numbers of black straws are stolen constantly by photogs on a regular basis.
Oh Dear... Bought an Elinchrom Honeycomb off eBay for a mere £5.00.
Chopped it up (very slowly and carefully) and made it into 2 normal grids and one double-depth grid to fit an SB-26 perfectly. (so it'll fit an SB-800 too...) And it attaches to the speedlight by... Velcro..
Come on guys, stop buying ready made strobist gear, half the fun is making your own virtually free that works perfectly.
GO HILLTOPPERS!
It' would be really nice if Strobist readers could have a promotion code to use when buying this nice products.
I would love to see some sample photos taken with the 1/4 and 1/8 Speed Grids.
I've purchased every other product from Honl Photo, so I suspect these will likewise be great. I just need to see some sample photos so I can figure out which one of these grids will do the best job replacing my current (much bulkier grid).
I don't think I need both and the product description alone doesn't give me a good enough idea of how these grids impact the speedlight.
How in the world do you find time to find all this stuff?
Is this grid something you would use
on a flash used as a hair light
Jim
I went out and got the 1/4" Honl Grid. It concentrates the output into a fairly tight circle shape with absolutely no spill from the sides or back. I'm very impressed with the performance of this grid on my SB-800s.
Well, someone told me once, the honeycomb holes have to be hexagon shaped or the light won't be optimal, i see those are round. any imput on that? anyone?
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