Diffusor or DIY

[matty]

I can make a tracing paper diffusor for my flash gun, would that be ok or is there something special Sto-Fen diffusors do?

[fingerz]

A friend of mine said he uses masking tape stuck over the onboard flash. I decided to test it and took two identical shots - one with masking tape, one without.

The only difference was that the one with masking tape was darker. Once I brought it back up to the correct exposure in RawShooter it looked identical to the other shot. Make of that what you will.

[CT]

The trouble with Sto-Fen type diffusers which cover the flash head, is that the flash is still coming from a small, highly concentrated source and you still get the ugly hard shadows on walls etc. They may be slightly diffused, but there's not much in it. They will though, somewhat reduce the impact of the harsh flash on skin tones.

By far the best thing to do with flash is bounce it from a wall or ceiling for a much softer more natural light without the ugly shadows, but of course it isn't always possible. For wedding interiors I finally came up with a lightweight flash umbrella as being the best solution, but good results can be obtained using any portable white reflective surface.

[matty]

i think i may have a play about with it then!

[fingerz]

Push people outdoors and quickly take a picture before they can run back inside.

[CT]

i think i may have a play about with it then!

You'll be amazed how much easier this is than it used to be. One of the problems is that if you bounce the flash of a ceiling or wall coloured anything else but white, the bounced flash picks up that colour and puts a cast all over your subjects in that colour, particularly nasty on skin tones and disastrous on a bride's white dress.

Shooting in RAW though, you can now bounce the flash off any old colour you like and sort out the white balance in processing with one mouse click in RSE etc.

You'll have to give flash exposure compensation obviously for the extra effective distance the flash light has to travel, and some light loss due to the large amount of diffusion, but it's easily sorted out by checking the preview screen between exposures till you get a good result.

Using bounced flash is also the best argument for getting the most powerful flashgun you can - you can never have too much power, only too little. :)