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.