Flash Brackets

[troutfisher]

I wonder if someone could give me a little help and guidance please.
I will be taking photos of my daughter in law at her graduation ceremony ( capped, gowned and all the rest ) but the area I have indoors is a bit limited for space so I will not be able to use OCF with light stands etc ( I am not sure if they will be permitted anyway ).
That restricts me to on camera flash with a bounce card or similar. I a wondering if a simple flash bracket which puts the flash off to one side of the camera would be an improvement over mounting the flash on the hot shoe.
I can nock one up which will get the flash about 6" away from the body , again using a bounce card.
Any thoughts or ideas will be appreciated.

 

[TimHughes]

All depends. I quite like the small brackets to the side as they bring the flash close to the lens axis so less shadows. The bracket I use most lifts the flash a bit higher and keeps it in the same place whether shooting landscape or portrait.

for something outdoors where you want the smallest possible profile for some fill flash I’d go for the small bracket on the side.

 

[Garry Edwards]

How close can you get? When I went to one of my own daughter's graduation ceremony I was about 2 miles away (or at least it seemed that far ) and flash wouldn't have had any effect, so I just got the guy in front of me to volunteer his shoulder as a lens rest and managed without flash . . .

Getting the flash a short distance further away from the lens may help a bit if you're close enough, but if possible it's usually much better to bounce the flash from the ceiling. The light source then becomes the ceiling and a small difference in the placement of the original light source won't make much if any difference.