While I started out with umbrellas when I first started shooting, I have a saying, "Umbrellas are only good when it rains, and besides, it's bad-luck to open one indoors."
With that said, ever wonder why so many brands of lighting companies
give away umbrellas with their kits? An umbrella is the hardest thing you can use to learn to master light with, first, it scatters light everywhere for nice flat images. Now you mentioned you shoot through them, well that's a better way to use them for what you are doing, but still to specular to your subject.
The reason people with knowledge in photography tell you to go with softboxes over umbrellas is because you can control the light very easy with a softbox and it's more difficult with an umbrella. Again, umbrellas scatter light everywhere like when rain drops hit their tops--boxes do not, think of a soft box as a "window" of light, a beam of light. Window light is always better than the open sky.
I recommend you go to a softbox. If you can afford a Chimera go for it, if not Larson, if not PhotoFlex. Ideally you will find that at least a 3-foot by 4-foot box is the best way to go for average home studios and even commercial studios. If you can afford a 4- x 6-foot one, the better, because the quality of light for glamour is sweeter as the light source becomes larger in relation to the subject. See this article on
softboxes.
That article should help. First though, by one box and learn how to use it properly. Worry about grids later, girds often cost as much as a good box as almost all grids are made by Lighttools® regardless what brand of box you have. After you get that one box and feel comfortable with it, invest in a set of 48-inch strip lights, this is where you'd like to put grids eventually and you can take some serious fine-art photos with two strips and grids.
While it is about using the right tool for the right job, it's also about "building" your lighting gear. Buy the best you can possibily afford, even if it's one piece at time. Great lighting gear should last 12-20 years! If you buy cheap you get stuff that will normally not last but the period of their warranty.
Now even though I made fun at umbrellas, I will use them to light a background scene if I want a scatter of light to emulate the outdoors, that's about it for me and umbrellas, haven't used one in years and I have about 10 of the darn things that came free with all my lighting kits if not more--perhaps I should sell them on E-bay? Not, why make photography hard for someone else.
Thanks and thanks for being a part of the G1 family and community. Happy Holidays, rg sends!
(Photo shot with one 4-x6-foot Chimera Pro Plus softbox, that's it!)
Umbrellas are great when it rains..
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