use of lightsphere in room?

Kathleen · Sep 4, 2008

I just got a lightsphere - clear & so far I've got to say that I love it for fill flash. But I do have a question. In a dimly lit room, with no place to bounce (no white walls or ceilings) can I use the lightsphere and aim it directly at my subject (inverted dome in place/or not?)

JerryPH · Sep 4, 2008

A lightsphere is nothing more than a gorified piece of tupperware with an incredibly over-inflated price (besides, I see no reason to light the room *behind* me where the camera cannot see anyways). Use a bounce card for better effects/control.

I've tried them (lightspheres), and find all that they do is make the flash work harder, shortening bulb and battery life uselessly. A bounce card is way better.

Visit www.abetterbouncecard.com for a couple of cheaper and superior performing ideas.

keith204 · Sep 4, 2008

in a large gym for unplanned basketball portraits (kindergarteners), I just pointed the lightsphere straight ahead. Yeah it wasted a lot of light, but it worked. Definitely, there are better solutions, but do what you need to.

Mike_E · Sep 4, 2008

Google "a better bounce card".

Big Mike · Sep 5, 2008

The softness of light is dependent on two things. The size of the light source and the distance to the subject.

When you bounce the light off of walls or a ceiling, the size of the source in increased dramatically, which softens the light. The Fong Dong works by spreading the light all around and hoping that there is something to bounce off of and send the light back to the subject. With walls and a ceiling, it works well. When there are no good bounce surfaces, it wastes an awful lot of light.

So you could point it forward...and with the dome on, it will soften the light only a little bit because the size of the dome is only slightly bigger than the flash. However, the dome will block/absorb some of the light and spread a lot of it around, in directions that are useless to you. So it's quite wasteful. IMO, you would be better off shooting the flash directly.

A bounce card does work well, when you are bouncing the light but won't do anything for you if there is nothing to bounce off of.

With any of these flash accessories, the key is to know when & where they will be effective and when they wont. A good understanding of light is much better than any accessory.

JerryPH · Sep 5, 2008

I disagree that the bounce card is useless unless there is an object like a wall or ceiling to bounce off of... the card itself *is* the object that it bounces off of. It increases apparent size of light, dispersing it far more effectively in the direction that is beneficial to the shot better than any lightsphere could.

Pointing a strobe forward with a lightsphere on it... all it does is eat a ton of energy to disperse light. Does it soften the light? Yes, by eating all the power wasted. A better way to do the same thing is to just lower the power of the flash a LOT and use a bounce card to get the same ending results.

Finally, I do agree that knowledge is power.

Big Mike · Sep 5, 2008

I disagree that the bounce card is useless unless there is an object like a wall or ceiling to bounce off of... the card itself *is* the object that it bounces off of. It increases apparent size of light, dispersing it far more effectively in the direction that is beneficial to the shot better than any lightsphere could.

Whether or not a bounce card (by itself) will make the light any softer, depends entirely on the size of the card. It would have to be significantly bigger than the flash head to soften the light. And unless you bend the card to 45 degrees or more, some of the light is wasted by going straight up (out of the flash head).

The real benefit of a bounce card, is that when you are bouncing the majority of the light (off the ceiling for example), the card will redirect some of the light forward to fill in shadows caused by the light coming down from the ceiling. Other accesories do this as well; the Omnibounce, the 80-20 etc. But the bounce card works really well and can be dirt cheap. Myself, I've been using the Demb Flip-It Pro, which is basically a cool bounce card.

Bifurcator · Sep 5, 2008

Yup, it's all about the size of the card used in relation to the subject distance. A 6x8 card is awesome for something very small and 6 inches from the lens/bounce card. The same card has almost no affect on a person 3 or 4 meters from the bounce card. At 5 or 6 meters there is like, zero "noticeable" difference.

Subject size, zoom, and cropping also have an affect but that gets complicated to explain.

Kathleen · Sep 5, 2008

Excuse me?? Six inches from the lens?? Are you saying the bounce card is only good if the subject is 6 inches away? Did I misunderstand, if not what's the use of using it?

Big Mike · Sep 6, 2008

Excuse me?? Six inches from the lens?? Are you saying the bounce card is only good if the subject is 6 inches away? Did I misunderstand, if not what's the use of using it?

What he meant (I'm pretty sure) is that the difference between using direct flash and a bounce card only (no bouncing off of the ceiling) won't be noticeable unless you are very close to the subject. If you are bouncing off of a wall or ceiling, then a bounce card works great most of the time.

Bifurcator · Sep 6, 2008

Yup, that's pretty much it.

You can draw (in your imagination) the lines that will define the size/amount of the shadow softness (aka shadow falloff).

Top View

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Bifurcator · Sep 6, 2008

Here's what Mike is talking about:

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Joves · Sep 6, 2008

I have an omnibounce for certain situations and, I have my better bounce card for other times. I have played with trying to get the bounce card to fill better when there is no nice white ceiling to bounce off of. It still doesnt quite do the job. Then I use direct or semi direct lighting. The omnibounce is like $12 as opposed to the sphere which is a fair bit more.

Kathleen · Sep 9, 2008

Thank you all for for all of your help.

I compared the lightsphere against the better bounce card, honestly I can't see a difference. My subject matter is a bit lacking & a little out of focus so forgive me for these shortcomings. It was only for testing purposes. The one thing that it did convince me of is "not to use auto wb". For anyone that might be interested, I thought I'd share my results.
http://picasaweb.google.com/phototreasury/BounceCardVersusLightsphere#

Big Mike · Sep 9, 2008

Great diagrams Bifurcator...I'll have to remember this thread to link to.

Great demonstration Kathleen. The slight difference between the LS (with dome) and the bounce card, is that the shadows are ever so slightly, softer and lighter with the dome...but not by much. I don't see any benefit to using the LS without the dome...I don't think it's meant to be used that way at all. (although I've seen more than a couple photographers doing it that way).

As for auto WB...just shoot in RAW and adjust it later. Although, part of the problem here is the color of the wall & book etc. which is probably throwing off the auto.