Using a Stofen outside?

Richard

Richard

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In the last wedding I went to I noticed the official tog had a stofen omnibounce on his flash for all the outside shots, with the flash pointed straight up.

It was a fairly bright day so he was obviously using it for fill in flash, but why would he have it pointed upwards? The stofen cuts out 1 stop of light anyway (I think) so having the flash at that angle would have cut out even more I guess. Surely that's just a waste of power?

Is there any point in using a stofen outside or is it more for indoor photography?

:thinking:
 
I dunno. :shrug:

I will await a comment from one of our experts, as I would like to know the answer to that myself. :thinking:
 
It depends really. First off I'd almost always use a fill flash out of doors on bright days, and a diffuser pointing directly at the subject just helps to give a softer light to the flash.

Using the Fong Lightsphere as an example, it's a zonking great white diffuser which can either be pointed at the subject directly or upwards- usually to bounce off a ceiling, when it gives a lot of light spread from the ceiling but also the body of the diffuser is still large enough to throw enough light directly in the direction of the subject and it can give great results like that from a single flash unit. Out of doors the Fong would still throw some light in the direction of the subject then, even if it was pointing upwards. I have to say though that personally I'd just point it directly at the subject out of doors.

I wouldn't have thought that the Stofen omni bounce had a large enough body to throw much light at all in the direction of the subject once it's pointed in the air so I'm a bit mystified as to what advantage there'd be in that at all. :thinking:
 
I use it outside too, however, I dont point it straight up.

I tend to (usually) point it at 45 degrees or so.
 
The most likey explanation is far less techical. If you don't turn the flash off, you wont forget to turn it on again.

I know a few snappers that do this as they have big battery packs and it's just easier. Baffled me too until I asked Jim Gainsford at the Castle Combe Race School why he was firing a flash at a car 200 feet away. :)
 
There you go - makes sense straight away. :lol:
 
Marcel said:
I use it outside too, however, I dont point it straight up.

I tend to (usually) point it at 45 degrees or so.
Click to expand...

Forgot to say....but then again I have no idea what I'm doing, and just wing it :D


Edit : There you go a likely answer!
 
The front of the diffuser knocks off one stop of light reflecting quite a lot of light back.
So where do you think this light goes?
Out through the sides ;)

Its a very good technique for macro photography too.
 
A combination of the above is probably true.

I think he will be just generating catch lights for eyes. I took 800 shots last weekend with my 550 set to 1/8 or 1/16 and used only one set of AA's.
 
dazzajl said:
Baffled me too until I asked Jim Gainsford at the Castle Combe Race School why he was firing a flash at a car 200 feet away. :)
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Ahh, so that's who was giving me evil looks when I went along to photograph my ex g/f doing her race school! He didn't look best pleased that I was there taking shots of her!
 
Interesting stuff :)

I've been doing a bit of research today and there seems to be many theories, most of which you've come up with here.:thumbs:

The only missing one seems to be that it enables you to get your light source slightly higher, which is better for getting rid of any shadows. I suppose it might help a bit if you were close to the subject but can't seen what it'd do at any distance :shrug:
 
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