Profoto Barndoor

It might sound a bit strange that even though I’ve had my Profoto B10 lights for some time I have not tried to see how well the barndoors cut light.

As you can see, they don’t cut light very well. There is a lot of spill coming from all the gaps.

When I got the Profoto OCF II barndoor I said that I liked the previous version because it had cut outs for sheet gels and diffusion. And it is true that the disadvantage of this is that they are a source for light to leak.

No matter how hard I try I don’t seem to be able to get a really good clean cut from either version of these doors. Blocking the gaps with my hands does seem to stop some of the spill, so getting black cinefoil might work. But I do wish these doors were better designed, especially at the price you have to pay for them.

1 March 2022 My Profoto OCF II barndoor is broken. One of the doors have come off because the plastic hinge has snapped.

To be fair, Profoto gave me a full refund a few weeks after I purchased it. In the email from the retailer I purchased it from I was told this:

Information about the recently launched 101127 OCF II Barndoor.

Unfortunately, we have identified that the quality of this product does not live up to normal high Profoto standards.

So be aware if you see any secondhand versions that you aren’t getting one of the very early batch.