This is before the umbrella mod, I even had a stofen diffuser on the end. You can see it doesn't fill the entire umbrella well. The bottom is in the dark cause the flash sits so high up.
I took my umbrella down to my local welder and for about 20 bucks he did 4 of them. Pretty simple, I just cut a spare umbrella into 4 pieces each about 5 inches. and he welded that steel flat piece on.
Be careful to make sure it still closes
Basically, All I did was stick the umbrella in normally with my flash and I measured from the umbrella to the bottom of my flash head on my smallest flash(sb-600) and I had a about 4.5 inches. So my welder cut the plate 4 inches, lifting the umbrella up almost in line with my flash head.
And in the end you get this. Look how much more it's centered with a bare flash head
Then just flip your flash wide angle diffuser out and like magic, you get a great full spread, even on this 43" umbrella.
