The BAT Cave

Huh? What?

Magmods

I recently bought the Magmods system for attaching small modifiers to a speedlite-type flash. I used the v2 version of Magmods that just recently came out that has some enhancements over the original. Below are the results of these tests.

The main advantage of Magmods is that they use magnets to attach modifiers like grids and gels to the front of a speedlite, so they are very easy to attach and remove. Many people still use ghetto systems like Scotch taping flimsy gels to their flash head, which does work but it's so inconvenient that gels don't really get swapped out much. With Magmods, you can attach a grid, a gel, or any combination of grids and gels in an instant simply with magnetic attraction. It seems quite convenient.

My main issue with the Magmods system is one I have had with other thick black plastic grids, they are thick enough to cast a shadow onto your subject in the shape of the grid, this can be extremely annoying if you're going for a pure smooth look on a constant-tone surface, the grid shadows are obvious. Fortunately by manually zooming the flash head, I was able to minimize this effect at 85mm zoom, so I think the system is usable.

Test done with a Nikon D7100 and Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 lens, manual exposure at 1/250 second f/4, ISO 250. One Nikon SB-900 flash was five feet from the wall, with the Magmods system attached. Flash exposure was TTL, 0 compensation in all shots.

Test conducted October 19, 2014.

Bare 17mm flash zoom

Bare flash:

17mm 18mm 20mm 24mm 28mm 35mm 50mm 70mm 85mm 105mm 120mm 135mm 180mm 200mm

With Magmods grid:

17mm 18mm 20mm 24mm 28mm 35mm 50mm 70mm 85mm 105mm 120mm 135mm 180mm 200mm

With Magmods grid and creative gels, 85mm:

Purple Yellow Aqua Red Blue Pink Orange Green

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