Gary Fong diffuser anyone? Or other recommendations

[iamacyborg]

For club photography, I've had perfectly fine results just using the built on flash on my D50, you just need to use a good shutter speed. 1/8th worked fine for me. Obviously it depends on how the photos are going to be shown. If they're just going to be low res images on the 'net, you don't need to worry too much about quality, especially if, like a lot of people, myself included, you're not getting paid for the photos.

Are you serious?? Don't mean to be mean but the onboard flash looks like sh*t... It is VERY obvious when you are using the built in flash. It even sometimes looks bad with a good external pointed directly at the subject...

Don't worry about being mean, I'm a big boy, I can take a verbal beating every now and again.
Here's a set of photos I took at a club, with said D50, kit lens and onboard flash, so you can judge the images for yourself. the arches - a set on Flickr

 

[Tiberius47]

I gotta point out that a Stoffen or a lightsphere won't diffuse the light by itself. it spreads the light out in more directions (like the wide angle panels on many flashes), but that's all. Unless there is something to bounce the light off, there won't be any improvement. You'll just be wasting light and making your flash work harder.

To get proper difusion, you need to make the light source significantly larger. This is why softboxes and umbrellas work, because they are much larger than the bare flash. The omnibounce or lightsphere works by bouncing off the walls - it redirects the light to make the wall the larger light source. But without the wall or ceiling, they do nothing.

 

[DScience]

I gotta point out that a Stoffen or a lightsphere won't diffuse the light by itself. it spreads the light out in more directions (like the wide angle panels on many flashes), but that's all. Unless there is something to bounce the light off, there won't be any improvement. You'll just be wasting light and making your flash work harder.

To get proper difusion, you need to make the light source significantly larger. This is why softboxes and umbrellas work, because they are much larger than the bare flash. The omnibounce or lightsphere works by bouncing off the walls - it redirects the light to make the wall the larger light source. But without the wall or ceiling, they do nothing.

I'm sorry but this is just not true. I have experimented with my GF diffuser and it 100% softens the light. I've gone into a pitch black room and shot random objects up very close with the diffuser pointed directly at them, and the light comes out VERY soft.

 

[Overread]

I'm sorry but this is just not true. I have experimented with my GF diffuser and it 100% softens the light. I've gone into a pitch black room and shot random objects up very close with the diffuser pointed directly at them, and the light comes out VERY soft.

Distance also has a part to play in things as well as the size of the light source. The closer the flash is to the subject, and also the smaller the subject the bigger the light source is reletive to the subject - ergo softer lighting will result. Its why small lights such as macro twinlights can work well without having to have the large diffusion boxes and such.

The stofen alone will cause some diffusion agreed, but its effect will be far less than that of a softbox - and as the softbox size increases so to does the diffusion of the light.

 

[Tiberius47]

I'm sorry but this is just not true. I have experimented with my GF diffuser and it 100% softens the light. I've gone into a pitch black room and shot random objects up very close with the diffuser pointed directly at them, and the light comes out VERY soft.

Yeah, because you are inside. The light is being bounced off the walls. Try the same thing outside in the middle of the night, and you'll get results that aren't much different than bare flash.

A diffuser dome only works if there are surfaces to bounce the light off. It gives you better bounce flash, but that's it.