All photographers know that using direct flash is a big no-no -- it is absolutely the last resort, no-other-trick-up-our-sleeves kind of light. It produces harsh shadows and the typical washed out colors associated with flash photography.
Strobist.com is a great resource for off-camera flash and strobe techniques. However in this post we at
IDIC Photo explore the next best thing to off-camera flash -- bounce flash. Most external flashes provide the ability to change the angle of the flash lamp so that it can be bounced off the ceiling or a wall (white ceilings and walls work best for obvious reasons). Even the excellent $100
Nikon SB-400
can be used in bounce mode. In this post we present various shots taken with the
Nikon SB-600 with direct flash, bounce flash at different angles, and then bounce flash with a
Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce attached to diffuse light.
First, the setup: a doll and stuffed toy serve as our subjects. Nikon D40 mounted on a Manfrotto tripod. All shots were taken with the
Nikon 18-200mm VR at 65mm in Apperture-priority mode (F5) and Auto-ISO. There was some tungsten-ambient light in the room but not much.
1. Direct Flash. Notice the washed-out colors and harsh shadows. The second photo below is with the Omni-bounce and even with direct flash it manages to diffuse the light and reduces the shadows to produces a more pleasing image.
SB-600 Direct flash (head facing forward
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SB-600 Direct flash with Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce (head facing forward)
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2. SB-600 head at 45 degrees
SB-600 Bounced 45 degrees |
SB-600 Bounced 45 degrees with Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce
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3. SB-600 head at 75 degrees
SB-600 Bounced 75 degrees |
SB-600 Bounced 75 degrees with Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce
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All images are straight out of the camera. It is clear that even though bouncing the light produces a very good result, the Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce improves that further by 1) diffusing the light even more, and 2) bouncing some light straight-back (a bounce-card effect). What I did not compare was the difference in light thrown by a bounce card vs Sto-fen. Perhaps in a future post.
3 comments:
Hey great Job with the tests! I wish I had the imagination to come up with some better looking models when I did my bounce tests (ask for a Flickr guest pass and I'll share them with you).
I have used various flash diffusers including the stofen, what works best surprisingly are two techniques used in pair.
1) A better bounce card (abetterbouncecard.com) with the wide-angle diffuser panel pulled over the flash head. This card is just a piece of white foam you can make for about $1
2) A technique called dragging the shutter (http://tinyurl.com/3xxnvg)
Nice blog :)
Thanks for the tips Faraz. Yes, comparison with a bounce-card is definitely on the cards(!). I'll check out your flickr stream.
what great tips. i think im gonna buy the SB-600 for my D60...
pv
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