Playing with lighting modifiers

Anyone who tells you that an umbrella or a softbox or a beauty dish (or any other particular modifier) are the only modifier you need is, quite frankly, talking out of their rear end. (That said, the modifier linked below is the one I take if I'm only taking one to any particular shoot)

I was playing with modifiers the other night just to see what lighting they would give me. This particular time, I had a McGillicuddy 36" multi-modifier configured as a vertical stripbox as my main/key light and a gridded flashgun as the hairlight.

This is the result of having the stripbox to one side at same height as the head and tilted down a tiny bit:

 

Contrast the above to the following image where a reflector umbrella was used (feathered heavily around) to light the face with no second light to highlight the hair:

Things to note are the shape of the catchlights in the eyes and the way the light falls off. 

I wouldn't be without the McGillicuddy modifier (I have 2 of them) now, but it's by no means the only one I own or use.

The conclusion is that no matter how portable/light/convenient a particular modifier is, if it isn't the right one to give you an effect for a particular image, it doesn't matter how portable or light or convenient it is.