[reivax]

It seems like every time I see a picture of a group of photographers, that are using flashes (non-studio work), they're all using a different modifier. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



Some use bounce cards, others use omni-bounce modifiers (stoffen), others using the Gary Fong stuff, and some even go bare (oh my!). There really seems to be no consistency with what modifiers people use. I guess a lot of this is just personal preference, but some modifiers have to work better than others under certain situations.

Is there a site, or even a book, that discusses which modifiers work best under specific conditions? I own a lot of different types of modifiers and I never know which one would work best. It would be nice to have a guide. Up until now, I've been pretty lucky and everything has worked out, but I've always got that doubt in the back of my mind that is making me wonder if I used the right modifier. Any personal experiences would also help. Thanks.

[Thingo]

I find simply bouncing the light from an appropriate surface (wall, ceiling, etc.) works best for stills. If no surface, then use the largest reflector, or diffuser available.

That's why the AF360FGZ mk2 flash is so useful: twist in addition to tilt.

[abmj]

You can find a lot of general information on flash use on the Strobist site. Strobist

His "Lighting 101" ought to be required reading for new photographers.

[dcBear78]

I own a lot of different types of modifiers and I never know which one would work best. It would be nice to have a guide. Up until now, I've been pretty lucky and everything has worked out, but I've always got that doubt in the back of my mind that is making me wonder if I used the right modifier. Any personal experiences would also help. Thanks.

Sounds like you've got all you need to test and make up for own mind? Maybe you can share your thoughts with us?

[geru2000]

This video demonstrates the results of several flash modifiers and techniques. Hope it helps/

You Tube

You Tube

[reivax]

You can find a lot of general information on flash use on the Strobist site. Strobist

His "Lighting 101" ought to be required reading for new photographers.

Strobist is good, but I've never seen an article that covers what I'm asking. If I remember correctly, they did have a pretty good article that explained the benefits of using different types of umbrellas and softboxes.

[reivax]

This video demonstrates the results of several flash modifiers and techniques. Hope it helps/

Flash Lighting Techniques and Modifiers

Thanks for the video. The guy does a good job some of the differences between different types of umbrellas and softboxes. I am looking for something that focuses more on the "portable" types of modifiers.

[maxfield_photo]

Don't worry about what you see everyone else doing, because very few of them actually understand why they're doing it. They just mimic what they see their fellow photographers doing, unfortunately those guys don't have a clue either. Somewhere way back at the beginning of the chain, someone actually observed someone who DID know what they were doing, but never bothered to ask him for the rationale behind it.

All you need to know is this: relative size in relation to your subject is all that matters. It's having the source of light coming from oblique angles that softens it because it naturally gradates across three dimensional surfaces. Some think that distance affects it, and that's kind of right, but it's really relative size, that is, absolute size of the modifier/distance to the subject.

If you understand the principle behind it, you don't need a guide to evaluate light modifiers. Just ask yourself: "Do I want a hard or a soft light for this subject?" then ask "How big will this modifier make my light source?"

In the case of a stofen for example, if it's used indoors near a white wall, and with a low ceiling, the answer is it makes the light source huge. The wall and the ceiling act as the light source, and if you draw lines from the corners of the room to your subject, you'll see that the rays of light are coming from every direction, hence, soft light.

Now take the same stofen outdoors in the middle of a field, and shoot the same subject, and it's worthless. It's worse than worthless. All the rays are coming from the same size source as if you had a bare flash head, except about 75% of the rays aren't being redirected back at your subject. They're just flying of into space, wasting your flash's power, and possibly causing lens flare and ghosting.

When you get more advanced you can start to worry about directionality of the light. So in the first example, although the stofen may give you soft light, you may prefer the shape that a directional light source gives to your subject. So you switch out the stofen for a softbox. Now the light it a bit harder (but still pretty soft) because the softbox is smaller than the wall and ceiling, but now you can create the impression of form because you have shadows.

It's actually pretty simple, but many who don't understand the physics behind it take the cookie cutter approach to lighting.

[reivax]

Don't worry about what you see everyone else doing, because very few of them actually understand why they're doing it. They just mimic what they see their fellow photographers doing, unfortunately those guys don't have a clue either. Somewhere way back at the beginning of the chain, someone actually observed someone who DID know what they were doing, but never bothered to ask him for the rationale behind it.

All you need to know is this: relative size in relation to your subject is all that matters. It's having the source of light coming from oblique angles that softens it because it naturally gradates across three dimensional surfaces. Some think that distance affects it, and that's kind of right, but it's really relative size, that is, absolute size of the modifier/distance to the subject.

If you understand the principle behind it, you don't need a guide to evaluate light modifiers. Just ask yourself: "Do I want a hard or a soft light for this subject?" then ask "How big will this modifier make my light source?"

In the case of a stofen for example, if it's used indoors near a white wall, and with a low ceiling, the answer is it makes the light source huge. The wall and the ceiling act as the light source, and if you draw lines from the corners of the room to your subject, you'll see that the rays of light are coming from every direction, hence, soft light.

Now take the same stofen outdoors in the middle of a field, and shoot the same subject, and it's worthless. It's worse than worthless. All the rays are coming from the same size source as if you had a bare flash head, except about 75% of the rays aren't being redirected back at your subject. They're just flying of into space, wasting your flash's power, and possibly causing lens flare and ghosting.

When you get more advanced you can start to worry about directionality of the light. So in the first example, although the stofen may give you soft light, you may prefer the shape that a directional light source gives to your subject. So you switch out the stofen for a softbox. Now the light it a bit harder (but still pretty soft) because the softbox is smaller than the wall and ceiling, but now you can create the impression of form because you have shadows.

It's actually pretty simple, but many who don't understand the physics behind it take the cookie cutter approach to lighting.

Thank you for that explanation. So what modifier, if any, would you recommend in either of these situations (with flash mounted on camera):

1) Room with a very tall ceiling (like a gym, hall, etc)
a) subject(s) nearby (less than 10 ft away)
b) subject(s) faraway (more than 10 ft away)
2) Outdoors (field, etc. no celing)
a) subject(s) nearby (less that 10 ft away)
b) subject(s) faraway (more than 10 ft away)

Any advice on positioning of the flash would also be helpful (bounce off ceiling, direct, etc.)

[maxfield_photo]

If I had to pick one modifier to for every situation, it would be something like the
LumiQuest Quik Bounce - LumiQuest or LumiQuest ProMax System - LumiQuest
Both devices are well made, and most importantly, well thought out, BUT, it still helps to understand when to use them in one configuration or the other.

In a room with tall ceilings, it's always worth a test shot to see if the flash puts out enough light to illuminate your subject(s) with a bounce off the ceiling. In manual mode on your camera, set your aperture and ISO to what you want to use (shutter speed just controls the ambient light), point the flash at the ceiling, set it to full power, and take a shot. If the shot isn't underexposed, congratulations, you can bounce off the ceiling, and if you're using something like the lumiquest devices I linked, you can put it in "ceiling mode". If the test shot overexposed, that's ok , it just means you have some extra wiggle room. If it's properly exposed, you'll know that you're at the max ceiling height that your flash can handle. If that's the case, make sure you're waiting for it to recycle between shots, maybe 3 to 6 seconds. If your test shot is underexposed, close the doors and fire away in your exposure mode of choice.

Now that works fine for subjects less than 10 feet away, and it works fine for subjects more than 10 feet away, as long as they aren't so far that the flash can't reach them (here you might bump up your ISO for extra reach)

BUT, if you have subjects both near and far in the same frame, you are in a world of hurt with an on-camera flash. Why? Because of the inverse square law. No light modifier, no matter how fancy can get around the inverse square law, it's just how light wants to behave. If you have for example a subject 6 feet away from the camera, and another subject 12 feet from the camera, you will never get proper exposure on both of them simultaneously using an on camera flash. If you're using direct flash, the distant subject will always be two stops under the exposure of the closer subject. If you're using a ceiling bounce, it may be slightly better, but probably still noticeable. That's one of the many reasons I dislike on-camera flash.

For pictures in a field, obviously don't try to bounce the light of objects that aren't there, so no stofens. You'll want either a traditional bounce device (nun's hood), or an on-camera softbox. To be honest, there's not much difference in the two. The light source will still be small in relation to your subject, but it's better than bare bulb flash. It's only when the relative size of your light source is about a quarter of the size of your subject or larger that you'll start to see appreciable changes in the quality of the light.

[devorama]

I used to investigate all kinds of lighting modifiers. First I bought a Sto-Fen omnibounce. But after a while I decided I didn't like the ratio of bounce to forward fill light. I tried an interesting contraption which is an transparent shelf liner covered in little bubbles that act like lenses. That was decent for no-bounce situations, but it was huge an unwieldy. Once I started using off camera lighting, I was totally spoiled. I have to kinda chuckle when I see these "mini-softboxes" that attach to your flash that are like 4"x6". The softness of the light is not really that different for a subject more than a few inches away from your light.

So now when I shoot flash, it's usually just bounce of a ceiling or wall with a bounce card. Alternatively, if I know I'll be in a room with a dark ceiling or high ceiling, I have the Quik-bounce that maxfield_photo suggested. That is decent in making the flash source larger and also getting it higher above your flash. That helps with red-eye. The beauty of the Quik-bounce is that it's easy to convert on the fly if you have a bounce-able surface to one that bounces 80% of the light.

[mrNewt]

Something that I have just recently got and seems perfect as a portable kit to carry with you - you have pretty much everything for a very good price:

Falcon Eyes flash kit:


As for how and what, maxfield_photo explains very well.

Keep in mind though... most of the times you get better pictures with the flash off camera. Even if you just keep it with one hand and take picture with the other - trigger flashes help in that situation (or for even less, optical ones).

All flash modifiers works in the same way no matter the size, the only difference is the size of the area they can affect - taking in consideration the environment as well.

[Class A]

I'd stay away from Stofen and Gary Fong stuff. Overpriced and either ineffective or hard to control.

An interesting modifier is the Wing Light. For its size, it is quite nice. Most of the time, just bouncing of large surfaces is best, though.

[mrNewt]

I'd stay away from Stofen and Gary Fong stuff. Overpriced and either ineffective or hard to control.

An interesting modifier is the Wing Light. For its size, it is quite nice. Most of the time, just bouncing of large surfaces is best, though.

That's an interesting thing... seems overpriced a little though... but interesting.

[reivax]

It looks like Gary Fong did all of the work for me. Would you guys say he did a fair test? It seems like the lumiquest was used incorrectly... Also, the Rogue looks like it gave the best results. I do have to admit, the Lightsphere does look really nice too.

You Tube

You Tube