The test includes:
Demb Flash Diffuser
Demb Big Flipit!
Demb Mega Flip-it!
SpectraLight
PRESSlite Vertex
Honl Bounce Card
Honld Reflector
Hanson Skin Glow!
DiffuseiT
LumiQuest Softbox
LumiQuest Softbox III
LumiQuest Big Bounce
LumiQuest Quik Bounce
LumiQuest ProMax System
F16 P45A-001
Gary Fong whaleTail Studio
p.1 #2 · Tested 16 flash diffusers. What's good for wide angle?
It might be useful if, for each configuration, you took meter readings at three locations: direct center, then maybe your -50 and -18 points. While the images are helpful to demonstrate the falloff pattern, raw numbers would really illustrate the impact it has on lighting a scene.
I'd also love to see a test like this measuring the falloff over distance, rather than laterally, at a consistent power setting. I'm sure that a lot of photographers using hotshoe flash diffusers are concerned with the depth from the source that they can reasonably illuminate and how much output power it'll take to get the results they need.
p.1 #3 · Tested 16 flash diffusers. What's good for wide angle?
+1 on metering at a couple of spots. There was a youtube video of somebody doing
this with that new parabolic reflector from Paul Buff - quite enlightening (no pun
intended).
It would also be interesting to see how Chuck Gardner's foam bowls do when stacked
up against these as well...
p.1 #8 · Tested 16 flash diffusers. What's good for wide angle?
FWIW - Here are a couple shots taken at 10mm on a 1.6 crop 20D with and without the foam diffuser for comparison which are on the page with the template: http://super.nova.org/DPR/DIY01/ along with some other more examples of typical results.
Its also worth noting that I usually use the diffuser with two flashes in an key / fill configuration and getting even lighting into the four corners of a room or flat wall is near the bottom of my priority list. I'm more concerned with the lighting on the foreground and more often than not darken and soften the corners of my image to create contrast with the sharper, brighter stuff in the middle.
Sep 25, 2009 at 02:36 AM