A cool idea for soft light I thought I'd share.

anubis404 · Feb 9, 2009

I discovered this after building a a bounce card following the instructions on abetterbouncecard.com. After being dissatisfied with the direct light from the bounce card, I reversed it and discovered the light is much softer diffused through the paper. I used matte paper instead of the cosco print paper (the website called for cosco inkjet paper) and I cranked the power up quite a bit to get through the paper. Heres a pic:

The resulsts from this setup have been softer than both a bounce card and bouncing off a ceiling.

JerryPH · Feb 9, 2009

If you lowered the power of the flash and used transluscent drawing paper, you would save a lot on the batteries, without loss of softness.

Joves · Feb 9, 2009

You can also shoot through a coffee filter.

kyle9128 · Feb 9, 2009

yeah ive been doing that with my pop up flash for a long time, cheaper than buying a separate flash and still looks decent...kinda

Garbz · Feb 9, 2009

Actually the added softness would come from a change in the bounce to direct flash ratio. Outside the pictures would be indistinguishable from each other until the batteries die. That said I use this trick all the time with my bounce card

JerryPH · Feb 10, 2009

kyle9128 said:
yeah ive been doing that with my pop up flash for a long time, cheaper than buying a separate flash and still looks decent...kinda

Exactly... though it works (kinda), you will never experience truly soft light until you push that flash's light through an umbrella that is 1-2 feet away from your subject. Talk about diffused, soft light... that's it!

AlexColeman · Feb 10, 2009

I just have a flash softbox. I really feel that that is fine for family and stuff, you could just never shoot an actual paid shoot with that.

ksmattfish · Feb 10, 2009

AlexColeman said:
...you could just never shoot an actual paid shoot with that.

Shhhh... don't tell my clients. Before people realized photogs will spend insane amounts on money on gear rubber banding paper to the flash was common practice for bounce flash.

Stick another piece of paper on the back, and you got yourself a genuine DIY Fong-dome (and it won't look quite as dorky as the real deal). Take Jerry's suggestion of transluscent paper on the front, and put something more opaque on the back to make more light bounce forward.

anubis404 · Feb 10, 2009

How do wedding photogs achieve such soft light? Obviously they're not using umbrellas.

jcolman · Feb 11, 2009

anubis404 said:
How do wedding photogs achieve such soft light? Obviously they're not using umbrellas.

They simply aim the strobe behind behind or to the side of the camera and bounce off of whatever is there. Try it sometime.

Outside I use a bounce card or off-camera light shot thru a beauty dish or softbox.

Garbz · Feb 11, 2009

AlexColeman said:
Iyou could just never shoot an actual paid shoot with that.

Really? I have on many occasions. Works much better than other diffusers, and is much more customisable. Why not make it look professional. Mine is velcroed to my flash. My clients may ask stupid questions like why do you have a piece of paper on your flash, but then they love the results:

anubis404 said:
How do wedding photogs achieve such soft light? Obviously they're not using umbrellas.

I have seen one other professional use this locally, not counting the wedding photographer who published this tip on the net originally.

ksmattfish · Feb 12, 2009

anubis404 said:
How do wedding photogs achieve such soft light?

I love a low, white ceiling.

When I walk into a reception hall and see that I'm like "This is gonna be easy." There's one place I shoot a lot of receptions at that's a remodeled barb-wire factory. It's a really cool space, but the ceiling are 50+' up and painted flat black. I really have to work when shooting there.