Flash with lenses wider than 35mm

[Ken Nadvornick]

I'm not much of an on-camera flash guy, but I have clients I hate to say "no" to and so do the occasional "event" shoot...

This diffuser is the best I've ever used, and it's nineteen bucks. It's for upright flashes though.

Just sticking diffusion on the flash won't help a lot - you need to get the source as large as is reasonable.

That's a really interesting item. Is it that same shape all the way around? Would you know the degree of attenuation? Meaning, how many stops does it reduce the output?

Ken

 

[M Carter]

Ken, I couldn't tell you… and the nature of the beast makes it feel a little moot to me - if you measured directly, you'd see a drop of at least a stop I'm sure, but then you get more spread-out, soft light in the overall scene. Plus, I can't remember a time when on-camera flash didn't have enough oomph for me, even in the film days, shooting EPP at 80 iso. But for, say, a wedding guy or someone who does a ton of events, I'm sure there's a more thought-out approach. I use this for meet & greet, minor celebs in town kind gigs, and I'll likely whip it out at a party or two - all digital though.

It's essentially like those $60 Gary Phong tupperware-looking things, just a lot cheaper and seems to spread the light much more. It is the same all around… I've thought about putting foil against the back interior of it, but I don't do enough on-camera stuff to need to play with it too much. $19 and Amazon's return policies, maybe worth a try if you're not psyched with your current approach. I used a lumiquest reflector-thing and a rubber band for the last 15 years, so for me, huge improvement.

Just gutted a Speedotron head to put my Speedo reflectors on a Vivitar 285 - MUCH more excited about that, with a radio slave it's a cheap & portable deal for more of a beauty dish look, but I'm sure it could take a good sized strip box or softbox.