Anyone ever cut their umbrella rod?

[jorgemonkey]

Sorry if this is a basic/obvious answer question, but on my umbrellas, the metal rod sticks way out past the clamp, and it gets in the way quite often. Does anyone ever cut that rod so its not sticking out so far?

[Asylum Steve]

Does anyone ever cut that rod so its not sticking out so far?

No, I never have. But I'm curious: what could the sticking out rod possible get in the way of? I mean, unless maybe you're shooting macro, your lights shouldn't really be that close to your subject. Certainly not close enough where the protruding rod may touch them.

For me, the rod length is important, as sometimes I want the umbrella to be farther away from the flash head...

[drg]

Sorry if this is a basic/obvious answer question, but on my umbrellas, the metal rod sticks way out past the clamp, and it gets in the way quite often. Does anyone ever cut that rod so its not sticking out so far?

No. There are occasions where I've had to be quite creative to get the strobe head far enough away in fact. When strobing through the umbrella as opposed to bouncing it has often been the case where I've had to make several adjustment to make the light work as needed. The more variation available, the better.

There are formulas for some types of lights and umbrellas that use to be more important prior to TTL (and variants) flash control. They depend upon the ability to change the distance from flash head to prime reflective or transmission layer (translucent, transparent, opaque, etc.) based on known power levels.

If the pole is getting in the way, are you shooting close to it? There are some setups for mounting the umbrella right to your tripod that have a different mounting mechanism that might be worth investigating if that is an issue. SOFF (I think they are still in business) has made some interesting brackets and arms for these applications.

I would not cut the pole. Keep all possibility for control available.