Trying to be a strobist...

[danalec99]

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/1427850

That looks similar to 'A Better Bounce Card'.

 

[Mike_E]

It is, it's just a bit more of a refined design. It also has about twice the surface area making it more effective, plus you can modify it to go from some ceiling/wall bounce to practically no bounce for more distant subjects.

Remember that the light from a flash is a single point light and follows the inverse square law, once it's reflected off of something it then reverts to simple optical laws. In other words not only is this softer than a direct flash, you don't loose as much power as you would with something in the way like a semi-transparent diffuser. The diffuser in this case does not effect the light source and the inverse square law is still in effect with them.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

When I use my SB-600 off camera, I ALWAYS set the flash to manual and start at 1/4 power, and than go from there. That way, it's more like studio strobes. i-TTL sometimes complicates things by metering every time, and although it's consistent, I lose that much control everytime. It's also not that big of a deal to shoot in manual because I can control the flash power from my camera.

So, with the total control I can get from my camera, putting the flash at a distance where the inverse square law works to my advantage, I can get great results.

This for example was done with one SB-600. The 600 was the key light, and I used the sun as a kicker, even though it looks like it was another strobe, it wasn't!



I put my SB-600 to 1/2 power, and my camera to 80mm, f/4, ISO 200, 1/500th. At half power, I was able to get my strobe far enough away to where the lighting was even all across her body and still provide enough light for a proper exposure, with f/4 I still got nice DOF, and my ISO at the lowest to be clean. 1/500th is my max flash sync.

All of this was done using Nikon's i-TTL system, no pocket wizards, no radio anything, just the flash on my tripod, 8 feet away, and my D70's flash popped up as a commander.

This is why I encourage off camera flash as much as possible, it gives amazing results with ease when you learn it.