Gary Fong Lightsphere Universal

[CxThree]

Just out of curiosity... How many people own the Gary Fong Lightsphere? I bought one months ago and have not really played with it that much. I am going to take it out for some shots this weekend. Just curious to what others think about it.

 

[Big Mike]

I don't own one but I shoot with photographers that use them.

Personally, I'm not a big fan. Sure, it's great when you use it in situations that are ideal for it...small rooms with nice bounce surfaces....but I often see photographers using them in situations that don't make a lot of sense to me.
The problem is that it throws light out in all directions. So when you are in a large room without good bounce surfaces or outdoors...it wastes all the light that isn't going right to the subject.

Also, many people seem to think that by simply putting a translucent material in front of a light, the light will get softer (ie better)...and that simply isn't true. The only way to make light softer, is to enlarge the source or move it closer to the subject. Sure, the 'Fong Dong' does increase the size of the light source over a bare flash head...but only slightly. If your subjects are more than a couple feet away, the size difference is too small to make any real difference in the light quality....plus it's still wasting all that light and the translucent material eats up some of it as well.

 

[Green Li]

Just out of curiosity... How many people own the Gary Fong Lightsphere? I bought one months ago and have not really played with it that much. I am going to take it out for some shots this weekend. Just curious to what others think about it.

It works good in a rather narrow range of situations. Make sure you use your Lightsphere indoors. It'll be almost useless if you go out.

 

[bdavison]

I know there are some that sware by them, but they dont make much sense to me either. You can get the same effect by rubberbanding a 3x5 card over your flash....and its much cheaper.

 

[Big Mike]

The one thing that I do like about these things. Is that if you are shooting in a smaller room, the light wraps around very well, so it's easy to switch between portrait and landscape without worrying about side shadows.

 

[CxThree]

Cool. Great feedback.

I got the kit, so I have all kinds of things to play with. I will say that the "chrome dome" insert seems to throw the light to thr front very well. I'm still trying to decide between which one I like the best. The clear or clousd version. I will try to get some tests done with them this weekend and then get them posted to my smugmug site so we can all see it.

If you have some suggestions for good test situations for it, let me know so I can try to set them up.