Pro Light Mods: Take Your Softbox To The Next Level

Our colleague professional sports photographer James Quantz Jr. created an interesting new product line called Pro Light Mods based on his experience at shooting sports talents with softboxes. If you always wanted the look of sports field projectors in your frame this simple softbox add-on will do just that.

Hollywood Styled Light Banks in a snap

If you ever wanted to create the look of stadium lights or those high-end Hollywood light banks Quantz Jr. has a solution for you. It is very difficult to find and use those large banks of lights (which are usually very expensive and big) – in stadiums, you do not always have control over these lights and they are typically placed high up on the sides of the court so you need to shoot at a very specific angle to include them in the frame.

Pro Light Mods demo (credit: James Quantz Jr.)

But what if you could use your existing softbox in a way that will create a realistic light bank look? This was exactly Quantz Jr.’s idea and created a product that is essentially a softbox dark fabric with holes.

This sounds pretty simple but making such a solution in a way that will actually prevent spill proved more difficult than you might think initially. He tested different fabrics and different ways of cutting and eventually ended up with a specialized fabric that is both opaque, wrinkle-resistant, and durable.

To get those hard circles that really look like round light banks he added laser-cut edges on the fabric for a super clean cut and 1.5″ of velcro across the fabric for a tight seal that will prevent any chance of light spilling out from the sides.

Since Quantz Jr. travels a lot to different locations and needs to have his gear as portable as possible he also made the Pro Light Mods portable and you can easily roll them and take them anywhere you need.

Quantz Jr. promises to have some important updates about the Pro Light Mods soon with a video showing how to assemble them and a list of supported softboxes that he tried with the Pro light modes (we will update this article when those will become available).

Pro Light Mods demo from Navy uniform shot (credit: James Quantz Jr.)

Pricing and availability

There are currently 5 Pro Light Mods available for pre-order – 1:3 ($90); 1:4 ($100); 2X3 ($100); 3X3 ($110); 3X4 ($120). Quantz Jr. believes that the first units should be available around February 2022.

For more on sports photography please check out our special sports photography subsection here on LensVid. As always, you can find many more behind-the-scenes videos on the BTS section here on LensVid as well as more BTS videos by Quantz Jr.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.