New Gear: Westcott Omega Reflector Lets You Shoot Through The Middle Of It

Reflectors are an awesome piece of photo gear because they’re relatively cheap, very versatile, and can be used by everyone from beginners to high-end pros. Westcott’s new Omega Reflector has a little window directly in the center of it so you can shoot through and reflect light back from all directions.

If the idea looks a bit familiar, David Hobby (the man behind the excellent Strobist website) posted about a similar homemade gadget last year. The idea is to take strong back light and use it to your advantage, even acting as a key on your subject.

Despite the window in the middle of the reflector, it’s still a 5-in-1 arrangement, which means it has white, silver, sunlight (a mixture of silver and gold), and black surfaces, as well as a translucent scrim mode with no cover to reduce light by one stop.

Since you can use it with the center panel in place, it also acts like a traditional reflector if the shoot-through configuration doesn’t make sense.