Cheapo eBay Bowens to Elinchrom mount adapter review
I bought into the Elinchrom system a little while ago when I found a used Quadra kit for an insanely low price. Despite the little head on that kit being as powerful as it is, it can’t do everything and like any light, needs modifiers to get the most out of it. The problem is that Elinchrom modifiers are relatively expensive and I already had a bunch of Bowens/S-Fit accessories lying around which would work equally well if I could just connect them to the Quadra head.
Lucky for me I came across a suitable adapter on eBay (Hong Kong seller / US seller) which I promptly ordered and put to the test. Here it is alone:
The adapter is essentially a circular piece of metal with the Bowens mount on one side and the Elinchrom mount on the other. In order to attach the mount to the Quadra head, you first need the EL-RQ adapter which allows you to fit full size Elinchrom accessories to the Quadra:
Once the EL-RQ adapter is fitted onto the Quadra head, you can connect the Bowens-Elinchrom adapter:
With the whole lot mounted on top of a light stand, you now have a fairly well balanced and durable mount to connect any Bowens/S-Fit accessory to the Quadra head. Here you can see my generic S-fit beauty dish mounted onto the adapter:
The combination is fairly sturdy although once you mount a heavy modifier like the beauty dish shown above, the adapter does droop a little bit, but not enough to cause any concern. With any large modifier I would recommend putting some kind of weight on the stand (sandbags, or hanging the Quadra pack off it).
So if you’ve just entered the Elinchrom world and are finding that the price of modifiers is a little high, this can make a good substitute.
