FourSquare Back In Stock

Matt Brown and beach volleyball player Michelle Moriarty during a portrait shoot using the LightwareDirect FourSquare.

I have received a lot of emails and comments from photographers (especially students) wanting to know more about the FourSquare, a new speedlight softbox/speedring from Lightware Direct.

Unfortunately when my initial review in the Sports Shooter Newsletter was published, the first run of the FourSquare was completely sold out.

But according to LightwareDirect’s website, the FourSquare is back in stock! Hurrah!

($249 includes the speedring that can mount up to 4 speedlights, a well-designed softbox and carrying bag.)

This cool lighting control system is something anyone that has a couple of speedlights should considering investing in. While the large 30 x 30-inch softbox produces an even soft light for portraits, the glory of this system is the ability to fully use your speedlight’s built-in features … namely full TTL and high shutter-speed sync.

Contact LightwareDirect — yes this is Paul Peregrin’s company, the same guy who makes the wonderful Lightware cases and bags — and order yours soonest.

Before they are sold out. Again!

(Tell ’em The Kahuna sent you!)

More About The FourSquare

Limiting depth of field outdoors: AVP player Kayley Thurlby shot with the Lightware Direct FourSquare --- Photo left 130mm, 1/800 @ f/2.8; photo right 130mm, 1/250 @ f/11.

Just a few comments and details about the new FourSquare from Lightware Direct I wrote about in this month’s Sports Shooter Newsletter Photographers’ Toy Box column

So why not make good use — or rather BETTER use of your speedlights or go deep in your closet and dig out those Vivitar 285s you’ve got stashed in a grungy Domke Bag and have forgetten about or are too sentimental about them to just give them away to a starving student. (Ok, ok, that’s me…)

I first saw the FourSquare at last April’s Sports Shooter Academy VI where Lightware founder Paul Peregrine was showing it to faculty members Dave Black, Lucas Gilman and Matt Brown. Like I said in the write up, I LOVE gadgets, but I wondered where the FourSquare could fit into my arsenal…heck for that matter where t would fit into my garage.

But then I saw Paul break down the softbox poles and that it fit in a small 18-inch stuff sack, well my “gadget sense” —to borrow and adapt a Spiderman expression — was tingling.

Yes the D.Y.I. crowd certainly could use a drill, 4-1/4-20 bolts, 4 cold shoes and make a FourSquare knockoff  so you can position speedlights around the outside of a speedring. In the case of my good buddy Bob Deutsch, it was a “ThreeSquare — he had only 3 cold shoes!

BUT you could not make the softbox mounting ring 6-inches-square (verses over 12-inches for a standard ring) and you would not have the collapsible poles. Yes, size IS everything in this case.

The FourSquare is a fraction of the size of a Chimera (left) and PhotoFlex speedrings.

Now to a few things I left out of the Photographers’ Toy Box column due to space:

– In my test shoots, to obtain the FP (high-shutter speed) functionality of the Nikon SB-800 speedlights I used an SU-800 Commander

– To insure the SU-800 would trigger the 4-SB-800s, I had it tethered the light stand that held the FourSquare via two SC-17 off-camera cords. (It was an extremely bright morning at Hermosa Beach where we did the test shoots.)

– The SU-800 was clamped near the cluster of 4 speedlights on the FourSquare with a Bogen Justin Clamp (everyone should have at least one of these in their “lighting-in-a-bag” kit

– I used my new “best friend” (sorry Bob, Myung, Matt and Ronal) a Lastolite TriGrip — a triangular collapsible reflector — for fill opposite the FourSquare

– I did not use a lightmeter (students are now asking “What’s that?” — the same ones that we had to explain what a PC cord is at last Fall’s Sports Shooter Lighting Boot Camp). The FP mode does not allow use of a flash meter. So “metering” was done by Chimping — as much as I hate to admit it.

– I wish I had a THIRD SC-17 cord to give me a bit more length on the tether to the SU-800. (I am trusting Dave Hobby’s comment in his blog where he said that you can connect up to three TTL cords and maintain communication between the cameras and speedlights. I am hoping to have a 25-foot custom-made off-camera cord made sometime soon —HINT HINT Shawn Cullen!)

– The four speedlights were powered by a Dyna-Light Jackrabbit and a Digital Camera Battery.

– Yes having the SU-800 tethered to the light stand took away from of the versatility that it affords. To change modes or compensation I had to go to the light stand to do it …if the Commander is on the hotshoe of the camera you have it right in front of your nose.

– And my final observation: A day after the shoot I realized that I could have bypassed using the SU-800 altogether by connecting the SC-17 cord to one of the speedlights in the FourSquare and have that in Commander Mode to trigger the other three speedlights. DUH!

Yes I’m a geek when it comes to gear but the new FourSquare from Lightware Direct (http://www.lightwaredirect.com/) is wonderfully designed and engineered and if you want to get more use out of your speedlights — or those vintage 285s sitting in your closet or garage it is worth the investment. I cannot remember when a new piece of gear has me so excited to go out and find excuses to shoot and use it.

The FourSquare gets the Big Kahuna’s Seal Of Approval.

Thanks AVP players Cayley Thurlby, Diane Copenhagen and Michelle Moriarty. Special thanks to Matt Brown for coming up to assist!

Tech Notes:

– Camera: Nikon D3

– Lenses: 70-200 f/2.8 and 24-70 f/2.8

– RAW (ISO 100 – 200)

– Lighting with Lightware Direct FourSquare with 4 Nikon SB-800 speedlights; 2 SC-17 off-camera TTL cords, SU-800 Commander; powered by Dyna-LiteJackrabbit and Digital Camera Battery; Lastolite TriGrip reflector used for fill

AVP player Cayley Thurlby and photographer Matt Brown --- who is folding up the front diffusion panel from the FourSquare.