What do you think abou GARY FONG lightsprhere?

SFzip said:

The Demb works fine and you don’t need to seek angles as you claim. All you need is set the card to vertical to send some fill light forward and the rest to bounce off the ceiling. About the only time you need to flip the card forward is to send key light forward.

The Presslite works the same way, but you can operate the unit with one hand. Using the Presslite off camera at arm’s length has been a delight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4VUEX-l6o

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Zee Char said:

SFzip said:

The Demb works fine and you don’t need to seek angles as you claim. All you need is set the card to vertical to send some fill light forward and the rest to bounce off the ceiling. About the only time you need to flip the card forward is to send key light forward.

The Presslite works the same way, but you can operate the unit with one hand. Using the Presslite off camera at arm’s length has been a delight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4VUEX-l6o

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I guess the same thing can be achieved wiht the built in reflector card in my flash which I have used. It is just smaller.

--
The solution is always simple. Getting there is the hard part.

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T3 said:

The Lightsphere works well. The concept is simple: rather than having a single cone of light directed in one direction or towards one surface, you spray the light omnidirectionally, 360 degrees, allowing the light to bounce off of every surface. This creates the effect of having a giant light source because the entire room (walls, ceilings, all surfaces) becomes the light source, in addition to the light emanating directly from the Lightsphere towards your subject. Oftentimes, images look like you used several very large light boxes, even though you were actually only using a single hotshoe flash. I find it makes flash photography look very natural, almost as if you hadn't used flash at all. And the nice thing about the Lightsphere is that it works well even when using the camera in vertical orientation since the omnidirectional nature of the light fills in or lightens the side shadows that typically occur when using shooting in vertical orientation is a hotshoe flash. I've posted some images below that I did with a Lightsphere, including close-in shots and vertical orientation shots so you can get an idea of the results you get.

There are a few caveats, though. Firstly, the Lightsphere is basically useless outdoors because the Lightsphere needs surrounding surfaces to bounce the light off of. Secondly, the Lightsphere consumes more battery power since the light is bouncing everywhere. Thirdly, if you're a control freak, you really can't control where the light goes because the Lightsphere simply radiates the light everwhere. (However, having said that, you can still point it in any direction, to somewhat modify its output, as well as removing the top cap.) But on the positive side, the Lightsphere is extremely easy to use, you don't have to think about it, and the results are typically so good that I don't feel the need to control or fiddle with it at all.

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T3 said:

You can see that, depending on where you point the Lightsphere, you can somewhat modify where and how any side shadows fall or are filled in. That's why the image below looks slightly different from the image above. I played around with where I was pointing the Lightsphere. Not a whole lot of control, but whatever you do, you still get a very nice wrap-around quality of light.



This image was shot from very close range, very close to the ground (subject is a very small child, after all) with a dark red carpet below and a greenish curtain behind, and a white table cloth to the left...in other words, a whole bunch of different surrounding surface colors. All I did was frame, focus, and shoot because the subject was moving quickly towards me. Even though the camera is in vertical orientation, with the flash off to the side and the Lightsphere pointed straight up, you can see the softness of the light, and the softening of the side shadows.



Overall, I really love the Lightsphere. It works well indoors, is very easy to use, is virtually indestructible, you don't have to spend any time and effort constantly adjusting it, and it gives the effect of a very large, open, wrap-around light. I've played with a lot of flash light modifiers, including a few that I've made myself, but when I just want hassle-free, soft, wrap-around light, I just stick the Lightsphere on my flash.

bgbs said:

I read someones blog that it's a joke. Really?

Does anyone have a first hand experience with it and let me know if I should invest in one.
Thanks
-Ben

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T3 said:

almari said:

T3 said:

BTW, others mentioned the Joe Demb Flip-it. A colleague of mine just got one and I borrowed it to try it out. While it is a good product, one fundamental difference (and limitation, at least for me) with the Flip-it is that it does not spread the light omnidirectionally. You're basically bouncing the flash light off of a single large bounce card, which means that the light is still mainly coming from one single surface....

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You're missing one HUGE feature of the Flip-it. The ability to mix the bounce off the card AND bounce off the ceiling or a wall or anything else in the area.

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No, I didn't miss that point. As I had said in a previous post, that gets you back to a fundamental limitation of bouncing a flash: that you can only point it in one direction at a time. You can do the same with the Lightsphere too. You can remove the top cap of the Lightsphere and point the flash head at any surface you want, or you can keep the cap on and point the head any any surface you want (for a bit more diffusion). But the benefit is that you have those deep sidewalls of the Lightsphere's bowl which radiate the light laterally for a wider spread, something that is lacking from the Flip-it set-up.

T3 said:

Since the card is so adjustable - you can mix EXACTLY how much light you want to throw forward from the card and how much light you want to bounce off the ceiling.

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Yes, but you have no throw backwards and hardly any to the sides. That's why I said that the Flip-it generally results in more directional light, whereas the Lightsphere produces a broader spread of scattered light. For example, in the same room, a Lightsphere would also be bouncing light off of a wall that is behind you, we well as bouncing light off of walls to either side of you. There are pros and cons to this, of course. The Flip-it produces more directional light from a smaller surface, but is more efficient with light, while the Lightsphere produces softer, less-directional light from more surfaces, including lateral and anterior surfaces, but consumes more battery power.

T3 said:

The lack of flexibility is the biggest drawback on the Fong domes.

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Yes, I mentioned this. The Fong is less adjustable and tweakable. But the flip-side to this is that, without any adjustment, the Lightsphere produces a certain quality of light as-is. It's like if you were using a shoot-through umbrella: there's not a whole lot of "flexibility" with adjusting that umbrella, but if it gives you the quality of light that you want, then is there really a problem? Does the lack of "flexibility" and adjustability of the shoot-through umbrella negate its utility, even if it produces the quality of light that you want? Of course not. Or it's like a lens. I mainly shoot portaits with an 85/1.8. Sure, the "biggest drawback" of this lens is its lack of flexibility (especially compared to a zoom lens like a 70-200). But it gives be gorgeous results, especially wide open at f/1.8, so the lack of flexibility does not negate its utility. At the end of the day, it's the results that count.

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