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Flash Softener Thing

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spiffy

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I should have the Pentax AF-540FGZ in a few days. What general purpose flash softener device do you suggest? I will be using it for the occasional wedding/funeral, but usually outdoors.

Regards,
Spiffytexan
--

They who think they know, will not know, but they who think they do not know, will know.
 
First, the best flash diffuser is to simply bounce the flash off the ceiling or another wall. But as you said most of your photos are taken outdoors so you'll be forced to use direct head-on flash.

In that case, I have found that simply using the built-in flash diffuser panel that pulls out of the flash head does just as good a job as the stofen or whatever else you might use. The AF540 seems to be a pretty intelligent flash and seems to know how much flash to use so that faces or close objects aren't washed out.
spiffy said:
I should have the Pentax AF-540FGZ in a few days. What general
purpose flash softener device do you suggest? I will be using it for
the occasional wedding/funeral, but usually outdoors.
Click to expand...
--
Allan in Colorado, USA
 
spiffy said:
I should have the Pentax AF-540FGZ in a few days. What general
purpose flash softener device do you suggest? I will be using it for
the occasional wedding/funeral, but usually outdoors.

Regards,
Spiffytexan
--
They who think they know, will not know, but they who think they do
not know, will know.
Click to expand...
I had posted this thread not long ago and it had many responses. Also, Lance B posted the results he got from his Gary Fong Lightsphere that he ordered and also received many responses.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&thread=31112662

Regards, Jim
 
I like the Demb Flash Diffuser Pro too. Often I use a Stofen together with the Demb flip-it flash card instead of the diffuser that Demb provides. I have tried both clear and cloudy lightspheres as well and far prefer the Demb+Stofen combo. I find Demb+Stofen is MUCH more portable and gives me more options.

I've had some really good results with a stofen on my 540FGZ mounted to my K10D, pointing the flash head up and behind me, and having the flash card up between the flash head and the subject. In many indoor rooms this causes the light to bounce quite evenly from the rear wall and ceiling, avoiding any harsh direct light and reducing neck shadows compared to ceiling bounce alone. Outdoors, I can just fold the flip card down and use a stofen aimed directly at the subject.

In my experience with lightspheres, people at least comment and usually laugh when I whip out a lightsphere. No such problem with Demb or Stofen. I find my lightspheres also weigh down my 540FGZ a lot often causing my 540FGZ to tilt down when I don't want it to.
 
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