Lindsay Adler recently teamed up with Westcott to develop the Westcott Optical Spot. In this video, she shows what’s possible.
She uses a Profoto D2 as her key light that fits the optical spot, but you can get one for Bowens, Broncolor, Elinchrom, and Balcar lights too. To enhance the overall shot, she uses a secondary light as a backlight to give the image some color. I can imagine this being used for product photography, still life photography, and fashion, but I’m sure there are many other use cases that can be thought of.
Overall, I was impressed with the sharpness of the light edges she was able to get with the Spot and what she was able to get from it. In my opinion, photography is all about the light you let in through the lens, and with this tool, it’s possible to be very specific about your choices.
I would be keen to know if someone will develop a third-party adapter so it can go onto constant lights too. Shooting video with this will open up a lot of new ways to portray a certain setting or mood.
Do you use an optical spot or are you interested in getting one? Let us know in the comments and share your images.
Broncolor has its own version of an optical spot. The price: over $3000! So, I tried the Westcott offering and it works pretty well for far less! I like the ability to use EF lenses with it. Though, if you're not a Canon shooter, you're out of luck in this regard. The 150mm lens that comes with it throws a pretty small projection which means you'd have to back it up pretty far for larger projections. Using a smaller focal length gives you larger projections in a smaller space. Another up side is that they take other compatible gobos.
We are currently working on other wider lenses, which will come out in 2022 I hope! And yes, the Broncolor one is great but soooo expensive but you need the pack/head to make it work plus the modifier!
I love the optical spot it's just fantastic and very useful the ability to focus or defocus gobo projections using the lens is awesome, here I used it slightly defocused to get that noir look
Glad you enjoy it!!!
This is very easily duplicatable, by using a program called Optics it is a stand-alone or plugin for Photoshop. Trust me this works very well, with far more control than an Optical projection unit. Also at a far lesser price. Optics is marketed through Boris Effects. They have a Free trial period also.
Cool program! Though to be fair If you look at my instagram I am sure you will see a lot of effects that would be very difficult to recreate in photoshop. YES, anything can be done in photoshop but for a ton of work so the trade off is time as always. A $500 modifier but saving you hours of time each shot may be worth it, and for others maybe not!
To answer the author's question, the base mount of this modifier can be swapped out for Broncolor, Balcar, Bowens, Elinchrom or Profoto-- when you purchase you pick the mount you want and you can buy different mounts. So yes, this will work with constant lights. I use it on Godox Bowen's mount constant etc.
Are the gobos the standard size that are used for gobos in entertainment lighting?