Has anyone tried this combo? I also have a Nissen Di466 but sometimes you don't want to carry around an external flash. I want something to soften the harsh flash for portraits and this solution didn't really work on the GF2 due to the overcast shadow over the lens but I'm wondering how the combo works on the G3.
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Gary Fong Puffer with the Panasonic G3?
- Thread starter Eric C
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grapher
Veteran Member
This combo does not work for me. I lose too much light from an already weak flash, and it still looks like a direct flash.
jeffharris
Veteran Member
I rarely use flash, but I've used it on my GH2's pop-up flash and it seems to add a weird haze to images. I tweaked the levels a tiny bit in Photoshop and it was fine. It does help soften harsh flash effects. It could just be operator error, too, since I never use a flash.
Don't waste your money on the Gary Fong Puffer. http://www.dinodirect.com sells exactly the same thing, with 3 colored diffusers (white, blue, orange), for UNDER $4, including shipping!
Michael L NYC 99
Veteran Member
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I purchased the Gary Fong Puffer to use with my G3 and it does not fit in the hotshoe. I can slide it in about a quarter inch and then it gets too tight. I didn't want to force it, so I left it like that to try it out.
Here's a photo using the flash without the Puffer:
and here's a photo using the flash with the Puffer:
Both images were processed with the same settings in Camera Raw and Elements. There's not a big difference in the images, but it does reduce the amount of light from the flash. I kept the Puffer despite the poor fit because I plan to use it with the camera on a tripod and it should stay in place under such use.
Here's a photo using the flash without the Puffer:
and here's a photo using the flash with the Puffer:
Both images were processed with the same settings in Camera Raw and Elements. There's not a big difference in the images, but it does reduce the amount of light from the flash. I kept the Puffer despite the poor fit because I plan to use it with the camera on a tripod and it should stay in place under such use.
andix
Well-known member
Get an external flash and a proper diffuser.
These tupperwarish monstrosities are a sad joke. A few companies capitalize on people being gullible or not acquiring enough knowledge about lighting in photography. Above all, don't believe the ads and before forking the money, cut yourselves some pieces of plastic and cardboard and experiment. Then, if your purpose justifies the expense, go purchase the real things (those mentioned by the OP not being them.) And remember, no matter the brand, they're all plastic at the end of the day. There's nothing magic in them, no microparticles to diffuse the light, no elves at work, no tiny mirrors to reflect the photons where we forgot to light.
Juuust good old plastic.
--
indecision may or may not be my problem...
http://www.americandusk.com
facebook.com/americandusk
These tupperwarish monstrosities are a sad joke. A few companies capitalize on people being gullible or not acquiring enough knowledge about lighting in photography. Above all, don't believe the ads and before forking the money, cut yourselves some pieces of plastic and cardboard and experiment. Then, if your purpose justifies the expense, go purchase the real things (those mentioned by the OP not being them.) And remember, no matter the brand, they're all plastic at the end of the day. There's nothing magic in them, no microparticles to diffuse the light, no elves at work, no tiny mirrors to reflect the photons where we forgot to light.
Juuust good old plastic.--
indecision may or may not be my problem...
http://www.americandusk.com
facebook.com/americandusk
jeffharris
Veteran Member
Nah, there's no way I'd ever lug a flash around. I use fast lenses to shoot in low light.
Maybe so, but for the few times I actually use a flash, the pop-up flash is perfectly serviceable and $4 is just about right in terms of cash outlay in order to improve the output a bit.
There's an even cheaper, homegrown solution. (I love doing stuff like this! ;-))
Get a couple of translucent 35mm film canisters.
Chop the bottom off one.
Cut a slot from one side of the other, just big enough to fit over the pop-up flash.
Get some polyethylene adhesive (Loctite Plastics Bonding System) and glue them together.
Voilá! A slick, totally green and oh-so-retro flash diffuser. ;-)
It works better than the DinoDirect or Puffer thing.
Neither Wammo, nor Popeil couldn't do it better! ;-)
andix
Well-known member
you got my idea.
kudos for the film canister. a classic.
--
indecision may or may not be my problem...
http://www.americandusk.com
facebook.com/americandusk
kudos for the film canister. a classic.
--
indecision may or may not be my problem...
http://www.americandusk.com
facebook.com/americandusk
Dan Wajnman
Forum Enthusiast
I bought the Puffer for my GF1. It does not do anything, quite useless.
The plastic film canister doesn't work either.
Dan
The plastic film canister doesn't work either.
Dan
inlawbiker
Veteran Member
Well yeah but, sometimes that's not enough. I'm kinda new to this whole photography thing but the two best things I ever bought were external flashes. One for my old DSLR and one for the G3.
All I know is it turns my slow kit zoom into a usable lens in low light. If I play with the bounce and diffuse it gets only better. And they save camera battery, which as you know on the G3 is tiny.
I am a fan of external flash.
jeffharris
Veteran Member
Sure, I'm well aware of the utility of a good external flash. I even have one that someone gave me, stashed in a drawer somewhere. My preference is to shoot with available light... along with both the simplicity and the challenge of working that way.
Now thats clever for the built in flash, nice idea Jeff and that would actually work quite well.Nah, there's no way I'd ever lug a flash around. I use fast lenses to shoot in low light.
Maybe so, but for the few times I actually use a flash, the pop-up flash is perfectly serviceable and $4 is just about right in terms of cash outlay in order to improve the output a bit.
There's an even cheaper, homegrown solution. (I love doing stuff like this! ;-))
Get a couple of translucent 35mm film canisters.
Chop the bottom off one.
Cut a slot from one side of the other, just big enough to fit over the pop-up flash.
Get some polyethylene adhesive (Loctite Plastics Bonding System) and glue them together.
Voilá! A slick, totally green and oh-so-retro flash diffuser. ;-)
It works better than the DinoDirect or Puffer thing.
Neither Wammo, nor Popeil couldn't do it better! ;-)
All the best Jeff and love thinking like this, great stuff.
Danny.
...........................
m4/3 Birds and legacy teles. Still learning.
http://www.macrophotos.com/avian/avian.html
m4/3 macro
http://www.macrophotos.com/g2macro
Worry about the image that comes out of the box, rather than the box itself.
jeffharris
Veteran Member
Thanks Danny. Messing around with stuff like this is fun. (being a bit of a cheapskate helps ;-)) I did finish carpentry for years, so we have sort of a common mindset.
It's fun to push more than just pixels around!
osage_archer
Leading Member
The DinoDirect diffuser works and fits fine with first my G2 and now with my G3. For less than $5 it was an easy decision to try it and I'm glad I did.
I'm with jeffharris - there are heaps of unbranded puffers that work just as well.
I can't remember whether I bought mine from DinoDirect in the end, but I do remember it costing less than $5 with free shipping.
I've found it works pretty well for the financial outlay. The secret into getting decent results is to make sure that you sit the puffer in the correct fitting - mine has five steps . Sitting is too high or too low will mean that it doesn't diffuse and will just cast a weird shadow.
Its not a replacement for a proper flash, but if you want to travel light or don't want to spend the money yet, it will get you by.
You can DIY, but I figure my time is worth money. I'm happy to wait for something if I don't have to make it and I can concentrate on other things e.g. posting in forums.
I can't remember whether I bought mine from DinoDirect in the end, but I do remember it costing less than $5 with free shipping.
I've found it works pretty well for the financial outlay. The secret into getting decent results is to make sure that you sit the puffer in the correct fitting - mine has five steps . Sitting is too high or too low will mean that it doesn't diffuse and will just cast a weird shadow.
Its not a replacement for a proper flash, but if you want to travel light or don't want to spend the money yet, it will get you by.
You can DIY, but I figure my time is worth money. I'm happy to wait for something if I don't have to make it and I can concentrate on other things e.g. posting in forums.
SF Photo Gal
Veteran Member
I bought a Puffer for both my GH1 and GF1 and was a bit disappointed. But there is only so much you can do with a built in flash. I do regularly use his Lightsphere Collapsible with my larger (Canon 580 and Olympus FL50) flash units and it works great.
SF Photo Gal aka Queer Chick
Canon 1DsIII & 5DII/Panasonic GH1-GF1-LX3
SF Photo Gal aka Queer Chick
Canon 1DsIII & 5DII/Panasonic GH1-GF1-LX3
GARY FONG INC
Well-known member
Hi everybody.
I had to chime in here, because I'd like to express my view on counterfeit products.
When I made the Puffer, the hard hard thing was to find some way to disactivate the pop up flash. When an SLR has anything in the hotshoe, of course it does not want the popup flash to spring up at the same time, so we had to look in the shoe to find some type of "key" to enable us to put an attachment in there yet disable the lock-down mechanism.
Once we figured it out, we did tests and we had a product that really helped tone down harsh blowout flash. And then I patented it. It costs anywhere between $25-$100,000 to patent a product, and you hope that a patent will protect you from infringers. I then had to create tooling, etc. and "hope" that the product would be accepted in the marketplace. Sometimes my products are well-received, some are not as well-received but each one is entrepreneurship pure and simple. You take a personal risk in hoping that your idea will turn into sales.
Now let's take the counterfeiter's situation. There is no risk for them. They don't make copies of anything unless they know it is popular. So rather than invent or create any new idea, they take one that somebody else dreamt up, they simply copy to the last detail. It is very inexpensive to do this. There's no risk, and there's no inventing. And it's hard to enforce because it is often a chinese company that loads it in a truck somewhere, and takes it to market. So even if we have a patent, it's hard to enforce all of them.
What if this were you? What if you came up with an idea, thought about it night after night, and then put it out to market, only to find that somebody, somewhere made an exact copy of your thing and profited on your idea? How would you feel? I'm not alone, I just saw that there are counterfeit copies of Gibson guitars, and that is really sad because Gibson is an American icon.
When you support counterfeit products, little by little you discourage inventiveness and risk.
Lastly, I'll leave you with this thought to consider. Imagine your best photograph, one that you are most proud of. Now imagine that somebody took your photo off of the web and put it on their website, calling it their own and then selling copies of it for cheap. How would you feel? Hurt? Violated? Sad? Probably.
OK I feel better having said this. Thank you for reading this far!
--
Gary Fong
http://www.garyfong.com
I had to chime in here, because I'd like to express my view on counterfeit products.
When I made the Puffer, the hard hard thing was to find some way to disactivate the pop up flash. When an SLR has anything in the hotshoe, of course it does not want the popup flash to spring up at the same time, so we had to look in the shoe to find some type of "key" to enable us to put an attachment in there yet disable the lock-down mechanism.
Once we figured it out, we did tests and we had a product that really helped tone down harsh blowout flash. And then I patented it. It costs anywhere between $25-$100,000 to patent a product, and you hope that a patent will protect you from infringers. I then had to create tooling, etc. and "hope" that the product would be accepted in the marketplace. Sometimes my products are well-received, some are not as well-received but each one is entrepreneurship pure and simple. You take a personal risk in hoping that your idea will turn into sales.
Now let's take the counterfeiter's situation. There is no risk for them. They don't make copies of anything unless they know it is popular. So rather than invent or create any new idea, they take one that somebody else dreamt up, they simply copy to the last detail. It is very inexpensive to do this. There's no risk, and there's no inventing. And it's hard to enforce because it is often a chinese company that loads it in a truck somewhere, and takes it to market. So even if we have a patent, it's hard to enforce all of them.
What if this were you? What if you came up with an idea, thought about it night after night, and then put it out to market, only to find that somebody, somewhere made an exact copy of your thing and profited on your idea? How would you feel? I'm not alone, I just saw that there are counterfeit copies of Gibson guitars, and that is really sad because Gibson is an American icon.
When you support counterfeit products, little by little you discourage inventiveness and risk.
Lastly, I'll leave you with this thought to consider. Imagine your best photograph, one that you are most proud of. Now imagine that somebody took your photo off of the web and put it on their website, calling it their own and then selling copies of it for cheap. How would you feel? Hurt? Violated? Sad? Probably.
OK I feel better having said this. Thank you for reading this far!
--
Gary Fong
http://www.garyfong.com
Well, you know what they say, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." It sucks but it happens. Android is a shameless ripoff of the iPhone for example. Do you happen to use one?
As for putting photos on the web, I like what Trey Ratcliff had to say:
Five Reasons Why I Don't Care if My Stuff is Pirated - A New Way of Thinking
https://plus.google.com/105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq
As for putting photos on the web, I like what Trey Ratcliff had to say:
Five Reasons Why I Don't Care if My Stuff is Pirated - A New Way of Thinking
https://plus.google.com/105237212888595777019/posts/Da1wjfvrLxq
jrmcvey
Active member
Thanks to Gary for innovative products and reminding us we do need to support the original product and not the "knock-offs". I got the genuine Puffer for Christmas and I'm pleased with it on my GF1.
and $25K for a patent is on the cheap side...
While we may argue that patent and copyright system is broken, it is still true that Individual ingenuity is worth something and worth protecting....
While we may argue that patent and copyright system is broken, it is still true that Individual ingenuity is worth something and worth protecting....
I can understand if you were disappointed. It probably only does enough to get rid of some harshness and for $5, I can't complain. I certainly can't expect a miracle at that price.
For anyone who pays $30, I can certainly see more of a reason to be disappointed. Ultimately, you'll get better results with a proper flash, if you're indoors you can bounce, otherwise the appropriate diffuser.
For me, it does what it needs to in a pinch.
For anyone who pays $30, I can certainly see more of a reason to be disappointed. Ultimately, you'll get better results with a proper flash, if you're indoors you can bounce, otherwise the appropriate diffuser.
For me, it does what it needs to in a pinch.
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