Need flash help

wellman

For indoor photography (family snaps, etc.), I'm pretty much "Mr. Bounce." Problem is, we've moved into a home with a wooden ceiling in the family room, as you can see below. The wood just soaks up the flash, even with compensation set to +2. Any advice on using the flash successfully without that "direct flash" look? Do I need to be looking into a diffuser of some sort? Thanks.

Art Scott

Well Man you can still be Mr. Bounce......just use an easy to find white index card as one of the diy threads said and just raise your flash up (not totally vertical ) and use the card (rubber banded to your flash head) as the
bouncer:D or as Ziggy53 has mentioned many times there are several DIY types of diffusers and such......me I do not have the time nor patience to try and design or build a diffuser do I bought a Lumniquest large soft box type and use it when necessary......................

Icebear

I certainly think you have enough power. You might want to pay real close attention to your white balance though, coming off that wood.

Oh, and I was wondering, does the other side say "Please to Turb?"

wellman

Art Scott wrote:

Well Man you can still be Mr. Bounce......just use an easy to find white index card as one of the diy threads said and just raise your flash up (not totally vertical ) and use the card (rubber banded to your flash head) as the
bouncer:D or as Ziggy53 has mentioned many times there are several DIY types of diffusers and such......me I do not have the time nor patience to try and design or build a diffuser do I bought a Lumniquest large soft box type and use it when necessary......................

Lumiquest looks like they have some good stuff. Thanks for the pointer.

wellman

Icebear wrote:

I certainly think you have enough power. You might want to pay real close attention to your white balance though, coming off that wood.

Oh, and I was wondering, does the other side say "Please to Turb?"

That photo above had the flash directed to the ceiling, and the ceiling was the subject. I guess I chose sort of a poor example for the light I normally get. When I'm taking candids of the kids (and when bouncing), I end up with almost all the light being soaked up by the wood, and very little left for the people.

Good point on the WB.

I'm thinking one of the Lumiquest products is in my future... Now to figure out which.

As to your turbing question, I don't remember!

Art Scott

wellman wrote:

That photo above had the flash directed to the ceiling, and the ceiling was the subject. I guess I chose sort of a poor example for the light I normally get. When I'm taking candids of the kids (and when bouncing), I end up with almost all the light being soaked up by the wood, and very little left for the people.

Good point on the WB.

I'm thinking one of the Lumiquest products is in my future... Now to figure out which.

As to your turbing question, I don't remember!

This is the Lumiquest Softbox I use.....but if you're looking at the bounce products then I would search out Ziggy53's DIY information......my reason for going with this was the light loss of only 1 1/4 stops.....most other's had at least 2-3 stops loss......just couldn't live with that for wedding photography....and at thetime of purchase it was cheap......at around $25+tax.........1/2 the price of a Fong Sphere and almost no weight at all to it...........................

pathfinder

California Sunbounce makes a great flash reflector that can be stand mounted or handheld by a voice actuated humanoid light stand ( eg: SO )

Maybe a little more than you had in mind, but it looks like a great product to create soft Rembrandt window light, anytime, and anywhere, you need soft window light. I really need one of these myself

SloYerRoll

Icebear wrote:

I certainly think you have enough power. You might want to pay real close attention to your white balance though, coming off that wood.

especially if you have your strobe firing where direct light spill will hit the subjects.

ziggy53

You can create your own light modifiers (DIY). A couple that I can recommend are:

http://www.fototime.com/inv/908195739C4C0D3

http://abetterbouncecard.com/

Joe Demb also makes an interesting device for sale (reasonable):

http://www.dembflashproducts.com/flipit/

I own a FlipIt product and it works well and is very well made.