Bowens Wafer (100x75cm) Softbox

manda

manda

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Amanda Herbert
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Hi all,

I bought a second hand Bowens Wafer (100x75cm) Softbox off eBay and am really excited to try it.

I'm curious about it's background and what it use to be popular for?

I'm guessing it's discontinued now and will replicate window light catch lights.

What's with the waffel? Is it just the same as every other 3 by 4 softbox? Or will ppl remember whether it suited X style of portraits.

Thanks, Mandy
 
Fascinating, if it's still in good condition (if the white materials haven't yellowed) it's a great find.

It's raison d'etre was that it was extremely shallow for its size - good softboxes normally need to have a certain size/depth ratio, otherwise the light is very uneven, but Bowens overcame this by using a very clever design that made the very best of the limited space, and they also used excellent materials. This one will probably be at least 25 years old and was discontinued many years before Bowens went out of business.

But, it sold badly. ALL Bowens softboxes were, IMO, far too expensive, this one was much more expensive than the others and probably only the best photographers would appreciate its qualities, and these people generally didn't need very shallow softboxes because they had large professional studios where space wasn't at a premium.

As for its uses, it does exactly the same job as any other softbox of that size and shape.
 
manda said:
Hi all,

I bought a second hand Bowens Wafer (100x75cm) Softbox off eBay and am really excited to try it.

I'm curious about it's background and what it use to be popular for?

I'm guessing it's discontinued now and will replicate window light catch lights.

What's with the waffel? Is it just the same as every other 3 by 4 softbox? Or will ppl remember whether it suited X style of portraits.

Thanks, Mandy
Click to expand...

Have you also got one, or both, of the special internal diffusion panels that come with it? They're really key to the effectiveness of the shallow design.

I nearly bought a Wafer from eBay last year. I think it was from a studio liquidation sale or something but it came without any diffusion panels and it was clear the seller had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to source those separately, but no luck with the size I needed.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies.

One of the reasons I was tempted was the shallow design but I thought it might be my eyes playing tricks with the eBay photo.

I've got both waffel diffuses and put in the frosted dome on my elichroms for today's session. Probably overkill.

The front diffusion is a bit yellow.

But I'm shooting in my living room with blue walls + a red rug or my shed with pine walls. So I've learnt to colour correct these barriers.

It felt brand new as I unpacked it.

Thanks so much for the insights, I knew you'd help out.

If I'm able, I'll report back after the shoot!

Mandy
 
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manda said:
The front diffusion is a bit yellow.

But I'm shooting in my living room with blue walls + a red rug or my shed with pine walls. So I've learnt to colour correct these barriers.
Click to expand...
That kind of PP correction is the wrong approach, as well as being incredibly time-consuming.
See how you get on with it, but if the discoloured front diffuser does turn out to be a problem then you can overcome it with a TINY amount of blue paint spray on the inside of the softbox walls - but it's much easier to add more blue than to take it away, so do it very slowly over a period of time.
 
Thanks. The struggle is real.

I have been meaning to look into gels to colour correct I. E. If I shot with a blue gel over the entire scene and return to neutral with a grey card, would that remove the colour casts?

Something I've been meaning to test out.

Done the shoot and looking at the back of the camera, I love the results.

Rectangle boxes give me more control in a small space.... Learnt from one of your Lencarta posts!

Thanks again Gary!
 
manda said:
Thanks. The struggle is real.

I have been meaning to look into gels to colour correct I. E. If I shot with a blue gel over the entire scene and return to neutral with a grey card, would that remove the colour casts?

Something I've been meaning to test out.
Click to expand...
No. All that that would do is to filter out the red end of the spectrum at the point of capture, and then filter out the blue end in PP:( A lot of people just don't get PP colour correction. Within limits, everything is possible and there are usually several different ways of doing things but . . .
It's easy with natural light, for example a sunlit landscape scene, because although the colour will vary at different times of the day, the colour makes little difference, it all comes from a single source (that big light 93,000,000 miles away) so it can be adjusted with a single click.

It's when we light a scene with light sources of different colours that we have a problem, because we have to correct the colour from each affected light individually, and that's a waste of life.

Now, up to a point, different flashes usually produce different colours, unless we're using one of the better IGBT flashes, which tend to be very accurate and very consistent throughout the power setting range (because IGBT flashes always fire at the same power irrespective of the power setting). The older/cheaper "conventional technology" flashes always get warmer when the power is reduced, which is why it pays to get the better ones which have less colour shift. But different modifiers affect the colour even more, so the easiest and best workaround is always to correct any error at source, as I suggested earlier. In a perfect world, it nearly always pays to get the shot as near-perfect in camera as possible, and leave Photoshop for improvements rather than for rescue, correcting faults that shouldn't exist because they can be corrected at source.
 
You can still buy Wafer softboxes from https://www.plumelimited.com/ as they weren't actually made by Bowens but they are extremely expensive, the prices when they were sold by Bowens were only very expensive! They have a small paragraph:

"Due to the recent demise of our very long time international licensee, Bowens International, in the UK, we have returned to our original Colorado fabrication using all Connecticut sailcloths. We have restored some of our original features as well - ripstop polyester black/silver fabric, an oversized rear closure cowl, exterior suspension loops and our oversized travel duffle - room for two Wafers or a Wafer with a lightstand. Our unique graduated inner baffles continues to be created by our original Ipswich UK silkscreen printing company."

I've pulled completely unused Wafers out of their packaging only to find the diffuser has discoloured heavily, not sure what starts the process off but it is a nuisance.
 
simonbarker said:
You can still buy Wafer softboxes from https://www.plumelimited.com/ as they weren't actually made by Bowens but they are extremely expensive, the prices when they were sold by Bowens were only very expensive! They have a small paragraph:

"Due to the recent demise of our very long time international licensee, Bowens International, in the UK, we have returned to our original Colorado fabrication using all Connecticut sailcloths. We have restored some of our original features as well - ripstop polyester black/silver fabric, an oversized rear closure cowl, exterior suspension loops and our oversized travel duffle - room for two Wafers or a Wafer with a lightstand. Our unique graduated inner baffles continues to be created by our original Ipswich UK silkscreen printing company."

I've pulled completely unused Wafers out of their packaging only to find the diffuser has discoloured heavily, not sure what starts the process off but it is a nuisance.
Click to expand...

That's a lot of downsides just for a slightly slimmer softbox...
 
simonbarker said:
You can still buy Wafer softboxes from https://www.plumelimited.com/ as they weren't actually made by Bowens but they are extremely expensive, the prices when they were sold by Bowens were only very expensive! They have a small paragraph:

"Due to the recent demise of our very long time international licensee, Bowens International, in the UK, we have returned to our original Colorado fabrication using all Connecticut sailcloths. We have restored some of our original features as well - ripstop polyester black/silver fabric, an oversized rear closure cowl, exterior suspension loops and our oversized travel duffle - room for two Wafers or a Wafer with a lightstand. Our unique graduated inner baffles continues to be created by our original Ipswich UK silkscreen printing company."

I've pulled completely unused Wafers out of their packaging only to find the diffuser has discoloured heavily, not sure what starts the process off but it is a nuisance.
Click to expand...
Thanks SO much for this! I'm going to take a look.

When I took it to the shed I could see it was hardly discoloured. I have another shoot today and I'll be able to share the results later.
 
I was tempted by that Wafer on eBay too, but decided not to buy a single unit as it was unlikely to balance with the my existing kit. Couldn't help but notice that the manufacturing company (Plume) is based in a tiny town in Colorado with a population of... 170!!!

Anyway, it looks like replacement diffusers and other parts are readily available from the mothership, although the listed EU distributor (presumably appointed following Bowen's demise) isn't showing any wafer products on its website.
 
learningtofly said:
I was tempted by that Wafer on eBay too, but decided not to buy a single unit as it was unlikely to balance with the my existing kit. Couldn't help but notice that the manufacturing company (Plume) is based in a tiny town in Colorado with a population of... 170!!!

Anyway, it looks like replacement diffusers and other parts are readily available from the mothership, although the listed EU distributor (presumably appointed following Bowen's demise) isn't showing any wafer products on its website.
Click to expand...
I'm enjoying this geeky conversation.

Balance in what way? Colour balance different modifiers? Any insights help because I hadn't considered this.

I'm mainly a 1 light photographer so haven't had to battle colour contamination this way. Mandy
 
manda said:
I'm enjoying this geeky conversation.

Balance in what way? Colour balance different modifiers? Any insights help because I hadn't considered this.

I'm mainly a 1 light photographer so haven't had to battle colour contamination this way. Mandy
Click to expand...
Yes, that’s what I was referring to; particularly if the diffuser is discoloured (although I wouldn’t have known that from the eBay listing).

I suppose it is all a bit geeky :)
 
It's funny, I have a few Wafers and this one always knocks me out when I use it. Yes it's old and yes it yellowed but yes I can re-balance it in Lightroom. I can't post links yet so you'll have to hunt out my Facebook page (in Profile) to see it in action.
 
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