flash diffusers
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topcatproduction
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As far as I know they take the harshness away from an uncovered flash- so you dont get sharp reflections etc and the light is much softer. Makes a big difference!
Kaouthia
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If you're talking about a Stofen type diffuser, no, it doesn't really soften anything. The only way to make a light source softer is by making it larger relative to the size of the subject (putting it in a bix softbox, for example, or moving the light source closer to a subject - although with the size of a speedlight head, moving the light closer probably isn't going to have much of a softening effect as it's a small light source).
A diffuser, by definition, simply spreads out the light in all directions, rather than being a more direct and punchy light.
Any appearance of softening you see is simply light reflecting back off nearby objects (that are now being illuminated due to the wider spread of light eminating from the flash).
There's only two occasions I really use them. One is on the end of a speedlight sitting inside an umbrella/softbox or behind a diffusion panel, like a lastolite trigrip, in order to spread the light around a little more before it comes out of the diffusion panel at the front, giving it a bit of a more even spread. The other time is when I have absolutely no choice whatsoever but to use on-camera flash, and I have appropriately coloured walls and/or ceiling from which that light can bounce back to the subject to fill in the shadows (although, more often than not, if I'm forced into that situation, I'll use a Lumiquest 80-20 bouncer rather than a stofen).
A diffuser, by definition, simply spreads out the light in all directions, rather than being a more direct and punchy light.
Any appearance of softening you see is simply light reflecting back off nearby objects (that are now being illuminated due to the wider spread of light eminating from the flash).
There's only two occasions I really use them. One is on the end of a speedlight sitting inside an umbrella/softbox or behind a diffusion panel, like a lastolite trigrip, in order to spread the light around a little more before it comes out of the diffusion panel at the front, giving it a bit of a more even spread. The other time is when I have absolutely no choice whatsoever but to use on-camera flash, and I have appropriately coloured walls and/or ceiling from which that light can bounce back to the subject to fill in the shadows (although, more often than not, if I'm forced into that situation, I'll use a Lumiquest 80-20 bouncer rather than a stofen).
PickleB
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So, no softening of the light source but all that bouncing light does take the hard edge of shadows on the face etc - so I always use one for fill-in flash (and very often for bounce flash). I'm not sure what this is called, if not softening, but it is quite effective, in my opinion.
Flash In The Pan
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I always chuckle when I see people with stoffens mounted outdoors, trying to bouncelight off the clouds...
I always double diffuse (stofen + umbrella) or even triple diffuse (stofen in softbox with an internal diffuser) it fairly knocks the stuffing out of a wee hotshoe flash though....
stevedunster
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Garden party implies outdoors...
Why was he using it? Inexperience, if there was nothing for the light to bounce off.
Sadly I have a painful experience that causes me to disagree...
Once upon a time I would have agreed with the physics of your assertion that stofens are pointless when there is nothing to bounce off...I made that mistake once when I told my wife she didn't need her stofen because she had a 580 (with a catch light card). I kept my stofen on because I have a 430 with no catchlight card.
...but when we compared my direct flash (on camera) shots with hers, mine were immeasureably better. On that discovery we checked every setting on both cameras on the same subject and the only thing that made the difference was the stofen.
I don't know why it is so much better, but I wonder if perhaps it is thicker in the centre of the beam and perhaps evens out the light.
...but I do have experience and it tells me to use a stofen if ever forced into shooting direct on camera flash outside.
Sadly this experience is one that my wife won't let me forget. Oddly, she double checks any "advice" I give her now...that's 25 years of marriage for you!
Kaouthia
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It eats 1-2 stops of light, and makes your flash head *maybe* an extra 1cm wider in each direction. It's still a small hard light source when there's nothing for it to bounce off.
I've really seen no difference on the hot-shoe between having the stofen on or off outdoors.
I've really seen no difference on the hot-shoe between having the stofen on or off outdoors.
Denyerec
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You are going to get a little bounce off the ground that might help, but you'll also potentially be shooting with slightly less power , and potentially slightly warmer. Both those things make a difference.
I suspect in any case you'll do much better, with much less power wasted, using a large bounce card.
I suspect in any case you'll do much better, with much less power wasted, using a large bounce card.
HoppyUK
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Steve, you've mentioned this before and at the time I concluded that you were getting some bounce off the floor, walls behind, other people and surroundings etc. For example, if you fire it at the subject, light will bounce off them, back on to you and back on to the subject again. If both you and the subject are wearing white tops then there's going to be quite a lot of bounce getting back to the subject that way. But since we've never seen the pics it's hard to know
Without anything for the Stofen to bounce off it's impossible for it to have any softening effect, but they do spread light pretty much everywhere and the chances are there will be something for it to pick up on.
Bottom line I think is that a Stofen cannot do any harm and the worst outcome is that it will add nothing. They are brilliant inside, really good, but even outside the worst that can happen is that they just waste light and power and increase recycle times.
The motto is, wear a white shirt and turn yourself into the bounce surface
In those pics you mention shot side by side with your missus, what were you both wearing? There's got to be a reason why the Stofen was working even outside.
stevedunster
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The motto is, wear a white shirt and turn yourself into the bounce surface
No, we always where dark clothes where we can in case we end up getting reflected in a subject (hate the current trend for dayglo-wearing photogs at reportage events)...but the camera body and lens would have blocked most reflection off my shirt anyway.
I don't think it is the attenuation effect that gives the benefit because we are quite aggressive on the Flash Exposure Compensation, usually shooting at -2 stops...and changing my FEC and my wife's FEC was one of our experiments. Surely if it was just say 1 stop attenuation then my wife dialling one stop less on her FEC to mine would have made both our shots look similar - which it didn't.
What do you think about the possibility of the stofen being thicker in the middle of the beam perhaps, and making the light more even across the frame?
It's a mystery.
Steve
HoppyUK
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We would have to see the pics Steve. I know you might be reluctant to publish client shots on here though.
All I know is that if I shoot with a Stofen outside, at night, when there is nothing light coloured anywhere near for it to bounce off, the light it gives is exactly as if direct flash had ben used. As you'd expect I guess.
But since that last thread I have tried the Stofen outside, in circumstances where you wouldn't expect it to make any difference, but I could make it work a bit when I shot from a crouching position and it produced quite a lot of reflection from a light coloured patio (which filled-in under the chin and eyes) and maybe from a brick wall that was a couple of yards away. I was also wearing a white T-shirt which can't have done any harm.
It's that sort of thing that the Stofen will pick up on. I don't think it's anything to do with the thickness of the diffuser, exposure compensation or anything like that. There is extra light coming from somewhere, and it's not directly from the flash head.
Kaouthia
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huh?
The Lumiquest 80-20 bouncer splits it up, 20% gets bounced back directly, 80% goes through it to get bounced off the ceiling.
The stofen is supposed to evenly distribute the light in a full hemisphere in front of the flash (how accurately it manages to do this all really depends on the flash being used, it's "zoom" position, etc).
The Lumiquest 80-20 bouncer splits it up, 20% gets bounced back directly, 80% goes through it to get bounced off the ceiling.
The stofen is supposed to evenly distribute the light in a full hemisphere in front of the flash (how accurately it manages to do this all really depends on the flash being used, it's "zoom" position, etc).
unclened
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I read on TP a while ago (Link to thread) that the stofen throws most of its light up and some forward when in the upright position. Whether there its an 80/20 split is debateable, but a split must surely exist?
Kaouthia
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It's not a split, it's a spread. It increases the "field of view" of the flash.
In theory it should throw it evenly in all directions in front of the flash. In practise, if you've got it on the end of a flash zoomed to 200mm, then most of the light is going to be blasted forward. That's why some speedlights, such as the SB-900 automatically bring the flash head to the 11mm wide position to get as much spread as possible.
It also depends on the make of the diffuser. There are Stofens, and then there are many other manufacturers making similar products (some worse, some as good, some better), and some flashes (again, I'm picking on the SB-900 because it's what I primarily use) come with one supplied from the flash manufacturer.
When the head is angled at 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees, it just means that more light can bounce off the ceiling rather than the floor. If the flash is pointed straight up, half the light is being wasted as it's going behind the photographer (assuming it doesn't bounce back off something behind the photographer).
In theory it should throw it evenly in all directions in front of the flash. In practise, if you've got it on the end of a flash zoomed to 200mm, then most of the light is going to be blasted forward. That's why some speedlights, such as the SB-900 automatically bring the flash head to the 11mm wide position to get as much spread as possible.
It also depends on the make of the diffuser. There are Stofens, and then there are many other manufacturers making similar products (some worse, some as good, some better), and some flashes (again, I'm picking on the SB-900 because it's what I primarily use) come with one supplied from the flash manufacturer.
When the head is angled at 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees, it just means that more light can bounce off the ceiling rather than the floor. If the flash is pointed straight up, half the light is being wasted as it's going behind the photographer (assuming it doesn't bounce back off something behind the photographer).
stevedunster
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Lumiquest 80/20 gets my vote for bounce
HoppyUK
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It's not a split, it's a spread. It increases the "field of view" of the flash.
In theory it should throw it evenly in all directions in front of the flash. In practise, if you've got it on the end of a flash zoomed to 200mm, then most of the light is going to be blasted forward. That's why some speedlights, such as the SB-900 automatically bring the flash head to the 11mm wide position to get as much spread as possible.
It also depends on the make of the diffuser. There are Stofens, and then there are many other manufacturers making similar products (some worse, some as good, some better), and some flashes (again, I'm picking on the SB-900 because it's what I primarily use) come with one supplied from the flash manufacturer.
When the head is angled at 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees, it just means that more light can bounce off the ceiling rather than the floor. If the flash is pointed straight up, half the light is being wasted as it's going behind the photographer (assuming it doesn't bounce back off something behind the photographer).
Building on John's daigram, I just did a few quick tests with a flash meter and 580EX plus Stofen (original). They're a bit rough and rounded but I tried to eliminate the influence of any surroundings by doing it outside, pointing the Stofen straight up, and holding the flash meter close only 0.5m from the head. They shouldn't be far out.
Taking the reading directly in front of the centre of the Stofen as a standard, flash head set to widest 24mm, moving 45 degrees away from that dropped the light by 1.2 stops, and at 90 degrees (bottom of the arc in John's diagram) it was 2.5 stops below the centre. Readings from the sides and rear were about 0.5 stops lower than from the front, which fits if you look at the shape of it.
Kind of what you'd expect, but it's also worth noting that there was still quite a lot of useful light being projected beyond the 180 degrees of John's arc, effectively 'behind' the flash head.
What surprised me a little is that by zooing the flash head to max 105mm didn't make as much difference as I thought it would. I got an extra 0.3 stops out of the centre, and the front/sides dropped by the same amount. The combined effect of 0.6 stops is handy to alter the bounce/fill ratio a bit, but not massive relative to all the other variables you find in practice.
If I get a minute tonight, when it's dark, I'll maybe shoot a few comparison pics with/without the Stofen and see what we get in pictorial terms.
jj_glos
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Buying Stofen and slavishly using it (indoors) eventually led me to getting a bit disheartened with my camera/lens, it was only when I went back to bouncing that I really got the results I wanted. I'm still new to this game though and learning all the time, what I learnt here though is that there is no magic fix to softening your flash!
Kaouthia
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No there isn't. Every possibly solution to softening your flash is situational, whether it be direct bouncing, a stofen, a softbox, a brolly, a beauty dish or whatever. It's a judgement call which you use (and how many of 'em) based upon the conditions and allowances of each individual job.
stevedunster
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