LightSphere or Flip-It or Stofen?

jmphotocraft

comments welcome!

Best diffuser for weddings?

Gary Fong LightSphere, Joe Demb Flip-It, or the ol' Stofen OmniBounce? Other?

Qarik

jmphotocraft wrote:

comments welcome!

Best diffuser for weddings?

Gary Fong LightSphere, Joe Demb Flip-It, or the ol' Stofen OmniBounce? Other?

never tried the flip it but sphere is quite nice. The stofen? I don't think that is a serious contender..it doesn't shoot enough light forward and is a rather small light source compared to larger surfaces of the flip it or sphere.

Scott_Quier

Stofen is a non-contender for the reasons already outlined. And, if you want to have a good chuckle, watch some of the professionals use this thing outdoors. It's amazing what a lack of understand of the physics of light (combined with marketing) will induce some to do.

The GF LS has it place - it's useful indoors and some have made it work outdoors.

If you are looking at the Flip-It, take a look at the Better Bounce Card. It's cheaper, lighter, more flexible (literally and in terms of usefulness), and produces the same light. I know. I have one and have compared them next to each other.

bendruckerphoto

As mentioned, Stofen is for suckers. Doesn't do anything. I use the GF LS and a David Honl speed snoot.

JohnBiggs

bendruckerphoto wrote:

As mentioned, Stofen is for suckers. Doesn't do anything. I use the GF LS and a David Honl speed snoot.

I'd like to see some snoot photos. Do you have any to share? I'm primarily interested in pictures of on camera use for weddings.

JohnBiggs

Scott_Quier wrote:

Stofen is a non-contender for the reasons already outlined. And, if you want to have a good chuckle, watch some of the professionals use this thing outdoors. It's amazing what a lack of understand of the physics of light (combined with marketing) will induce some to do.

The GF LS has it place - it's useful indoors and some have made it work outdoors.

If you are looking at the Flip-It, take a look at the Better Bounce Card. It's cheaper, lighter, more flexible (literally and in terms of usefulness), and produces the same light. I know. I have one and have compared them next to each other.

The flip-it is cheaper and not heavy at all.

Also I have not used BBC, but I don't see how that is more flexible (in terms of lighting) than the flip-it. I like the ability to fold the flip-it forward for more direct light in demanding situations.

zoomer

The Flip it is hard to beat for versatility.
Having said that I took the flip it part off and only use the demb diffuser now.

bendruckerphoto

JohnBiggs wrote:

I'd like to see some snoot photos. Do you have any to share? I'm primarily interested in pictures of on camera use for weddings.

I don't have any stuff right now that I can post. I'll try to get some stuff up. If you want to see the Honl system in action, look at a lot of David Maynard's work. He did a video for Scott Kelby's blog in which he shows the same way I use it.

Blurmore

I'll chime in as an omni-bounce user (but not on my primary flash) when I'm doing off-camera hand held flash work, the omni is on the handheld flash unit.

JohnBiggs

bendruckerphoto wrote:

I don't have any stuff right now that I can post. I'll try to get some stuff up. If you want to see the Honl system in action, look at a lot of David Maynard's work. He did a video for Scott Kelby's blog in which he shows the same way I use it.

That seems more studio related. But yeah, I can see the snoot being used in a similar fashion to a BBC. So I guess that would be the same.

I have the complete honl kit and I've used gobos for my flashes at the reception but not the snoot on the camera which is why I was curious.

Matthew Saville

Just as I replied in the other thread on diffusers, I cannot stress how good it is to just get out there, meet up with people and try out the various tools before you buy.

And personally, I just bounce most of the time. Bouncing whenever possible is 100x better than ANY gizmo you can put on your flash. And when you need just a liiiitle bit of fill, a better bounce card works just fine and costs less than $2.

Either that, or, for important portraits that need flash it almost always goes OFF-camera...





=Matt=

ziggy53

I use a light scoop most of the time, and then either a simple bounce card or a Flip-It Jr. when it makes sense. The scoop is more efficient with high ceilings and gives faster flash recycling and/or lower ISOs. It also works better for shots that require angling up or down since it doesn't rely on ceiling bounce.

This was shot with a single flash, using the scoop, and sunlight was coming in through a window behind, to the side and above the bride. I was up some stairs, shooting down on the couple. Bounce devices would not have worked as well.



This ring shot was also using the scoop (on a bracket as well):

Tim Kamppinen

Matthew Saville wrote:

Bouncing whenever possible is 100x better than ANY gizmo you can put on your flash.

+1... I bounce whenever possible. You just have to make sure to bounce back over your shoulder, or off a wall, etc. and not straight up into the ceiling above you. If you do that you'll end up with raccoon eyes on your subject. Angle it toward a spot on the ceiling behind you or off to one side, however, and you'll get great soft light (and directional if you want it to be... and you can zoom the flash head to control the size of the light source) coming in at a low angle and filling in the eye sockets. And no, you don't need a white ceiling/walls to do it. I've done it in a log-cabin style building with dark wooden surfaces everywhere. Some custom WB is all that's required (and probably a higher ISO, but to me the great light is worth it.)

Matthew Saville

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

+1... I bounce whenever possible. You just have to make sure to bounce back over your shoulder, or off a wall, etc. and not straight up into the ceiling above you. If you do that you'll end up with raccoon eyes on your subject. Angle it toward a spot on the ceiling behind you or off to one side, however, and you'll get great soft light (and directional if you want it to be... and you can zoom the flash head to control the size of the light source) coming in at a low angle and filling in the eye sockets. And no, you don't need a white ceiling/walls to do it. I've done it in a log-cabin style building with dark wooden surfaces everywhere. Some custom WB is all that's required (and probably a higher ISO, but to me the great light is worth it.)

HE HAS RELEASED THE SECRET FORMULA!!!! Amen, Tim. That's *EXACTLY* what I do...

=Matt=

David Manning

Call me a sucker. I prefer the stofen for it's durability and simplicity, plus it's easy to gel. I'm primarily a natural light shooter, but the stofen comes in handy in the right conditions. And yes, using it outside is extremely ineffective! The Gary Fong products might just be the best on the market, but you won't catch me putting that stuff on my camera. The flip-it works pretty well, but I gave mine away.

David (sucker) Manning

bendruckerphoto

The Stofen works fine as a filter holder. It also works nicely for protecting your flash head from being cracked on impact. Other than that though, it really just steals some power from your flash.

jmphotocraft

why won't the darn results show? Thanks to all for responding.

cdonovan

I was told by someone that I should bounce behind me on here, well I tried to twist my flash to bounce behind me and I couldn't get it to go, I figured, great, now I'll need a new flash.... then I decided to clean my equipment the other day and twisted the darn thing around backwards, when I realized what I'd done, I couldn't wait to try it out....i got a chance at a wedding the next day, it was awesome!



Yeah for behind the back bounce! lol