I purchased ExpoImaging’s Rogue Grid a while back to solve a need in my lighting equipment. I have many bounce cards and diffusers for my shoe-mounted flashes, but no grids to narrow my beam. The Rogue Grid looked like it would be a good solution, and I liked the price at just under $50.
The Rogue Grid comes complete with the Rogue Tension Strap that attaches to your flash, the Rogue Grid Bezel, a 45-degree grid, a 25-degree grid, and a handy carrying case. The beauty of the system is that the 25 and 45-degree grids can be combined in the bezel to form a 16-degree grid.
The Rogue Grid is extremely easy to use, well made, looks nice, and functions as advertised. That’s not to say there weren’t some minor issues.
First, I use the smallish Nikon SB-600 flash. Once the Rogue Tension Strap is attached to the flash and the loop for the bezel is formed, the loop sits too low on the flash head. The top of the loop is even with the top of the flash and the bottom of the loop is about an inch below. There are stiffeners on the top of the Tension Strap, but I couldn’t get them to hold the loop any higher. Since this is a grid system, and the idea is concentrating the light, I was seeing a definite hot spot at the top of the circle of light. My solution…put something between the tension strap and the top of the flash. I found that a AA battery worked nicely to center the flash head in the bezel loop.
Second, since the Rogue Grid attaches to a shoe-mounted flash, the light source is rectangular which is noticeable in the image when using the 25 and 45-degree grids independently. Together as a 16-degree grid, the problem pretty well eliminates itself. The grid does sit about two inches away from the flash head and the interior of the loop is white, so that helps soften the effect some. I also found that pulling out the SB-600’s wide flash diffuser helped quite a bit. I plan on experimenting more with this later to see if I can get a nice even circle of light.
Despite these couple of minor issues, I do highly recommend the Rogue Grid. I think it will prove to be a handy little tool to control light for tabletop photography and portraiture. But the primary reason I can recommend the Rogue Grid is because of ExpoImaging’s fantastic customer service. This company stands behind their products and goes above and beyond to make their customers happy.
When my Rogue Grid first arrived, I quickly discovered a little manufacturing glitch. The tension strap uses Velcro, and the manufacturer had accidentally used two pieces of loop material…no hooks. Lizzy Vosseler over at ExpoImaging responded to my support request within a few hours and worked with me to quickly replace the defective strap. Even though the defect was totally out of her control, Lizzy took it very personally that the product was not up to their standards. It’s always great to meet people who care.