Basically... Sometimes.
I suppose it depends what use or benefit you have in mind. (It's been a while since I did a whole lot of work with serious flash, but I've used a number of different things, often someone else's stuff I was using for the occasion. Which isn't a bad way to find out what's useful to you, if you know someone with some things.
Failing that, you could try something relatively-inexpensive to you and observe your own reactions: it probably won't be just right, but it might give you some clues what *would* be.
Often, I find such things to be in the category of a 'necessary encumbrance,' mostly a matter of holding the rig up.
One of my favorite things to do is actually to shoot free-hand with the flash on a coiley cord, (This obviously works best with a tripod or a camera that you can actually handle well with one hand. (This does not add up to very many cameras for me, these days, but K-Xes are small.
) Kind of a natural combination with autofocus, really, but I never had that.
) That way, you can put the flash anywhere you can reach. (For this reason, that cord rarely leaves my old 285, even if I'm shooting with the flash on camera. )
Stroboframes are kind of the old standard, ..tend to be pretty heavy and bulky, (I suppose they're named 'frames' for a reason,
) but they work well in general. (edit: Actually, the one Jason mentions looks pretty good.
(Now that Ari mentions it, I see a fair number of those Lightspheres around, considering, ...can't recall seeing anyone troubling to add a bracket to one of those. )
Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 02-25-2010 at 10:27 AM.