Fong Flash (lightsphere 2)

Plenty of people love those, many other people think they are silly.
In certain situations, they do their job well...in other situations...they are wasteful.

The lightsphere sends out light in 360 degrees...so if you are in a small room, the light will bounce all around and create nice soft light. If, however, you are not in a small room...a fair bit of light is wasted. Wasting light means that you will use more flash power...which will cause longer recycle times and faster battery consumption.
 
There are so many different 'flash' accessories...it's hard to choose. Many people use the Stofen Omnibounce...but again, some people think it's just silly.

Lumiquest makes plenty of flash modifiers. The softbox looks pretty good...as does their Promax system.

Some guy is selling a bit of foam rubber and an elastic band...and calling it the better bounce card. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNCmuExlHvM"]Here[/ame] is his video on how to make it.

IMO, it's still best to bounce the flash if you can...and a lot of these accessories are most useful when you are bouncing the light. The trick is that when you are bouncing (off the ceiling, for example) the light is coming down, creating shadows in the face of your subject...so you want to bounce as well as throw some light forward. That's what most of these things do...just throw some light forward when bouncing.

If you are shooting something like a wedding, especially with uncertain walls/ceilings for bounce...the best accessory is a flash bracket and off camera cord. The advantage of this, is that you can turn the camera to portrait orientation and still keep the flash high above the camera.
 
I've made my own out of a 1 quart won-ton soup container. It works great and costs about $1.99. If you don't want the light coming out 360 degrees, then put some tin foil or white paper on the inside in a half circle at the back of it.
 
yes matt...that is what i was also thinking...make one out of those soup container from restaurant and put tin foil to cover areas which i dont need or want reflection on.....i'm just wondering how effect it is for indoor photography?....with your experience......hwat effective/useful is this kind of diffuser "wonton flash diffuser"
 
precise enough.....haha...is this the only modification you use on your flash...or do you also use other attachments as well?...do you mind show me a pic of your little gadgets?
 
I only use my won-ton soup diffuser. I just broke it actually the other day. It was in the back seat of my car and I didn't realize and threw something heavy on it :p

Guess I'll have to make another.
 
i see......i guess i'll try to make something like that with a bit of tin foil wrapped (not sure what would be a good location for tin foil yet though)
 
You are always going to have the unit facing up ward, or toward the subject (light coming stright out of the flash and straight out of the container). Most the former I'm sure, whcih gives the most diffused light, so put the foil, or white paper (will give softer light) around the back half, from top of container to bottom. I didn't have paper in mine and it worked fine. That was something I was going to add.
 
when would you use it "straight" at the subject?....and when you do that.....do you need to put the "lit" on....
 
If you point it straight at the subject, you'll get more power and less spread. It's up to you when you want to do that. If by "lit" you mean "lid", then you always have the lid on. The lid is on the bottom, with the hole in it to fit over the flash.
 

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