Bounce flash zoom

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morsing

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Name
Henrik
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Hi,

I bought a Nikon SB-900, 14-200mm zoom flash. When you attach a diffuser, it goes permanently to 10mm, clever :thumbs: It also knows when it's used for bounce as the display changes, however, the zoom head still follows the lens...

Is that the best thing to do when bouncing? Wouldn't a fixed setting of a wide angle be best, depending on what you bounce on?

If I run around with my 18-55mm, bounce flashing, what zoom should I set the flash at?

Thanks

P.S. Perhaps this should have been in the lighting section, which I just noticed... Mods?
 
It is annoying that Nikon flashes zoom in when bounced, but I guess doesn't make much difference.

If the flash is zoomed all the way to 200mm you are going to get reduced diffusion when it bounces obviously.

Either switch it to manual zoom or pop out the diffuser.

Personally I think the diffuser spreads the light too much for bouncing, which is a shame as it takes longer to change to manual zoom than it does to pop the diffuser out.
 
When you bounce flash you need to be able to control the place it is bouncing from. With the wide angle diffuser you will have light spilling all over the place and bouncing back from all kinds of surfaces.

The zoom limits the spread of the flash and means you can point it to an appropriate surface.
 
AndyB said:
When you bounce flash you need to be able to control the place it is bouncing from. With the wide angle diffuser you will have light spilling all over the place and bouncing back from all kinds of surfaces.

The zoom limits the spread of the flash and means you can point it to an appropriate surface.
Click to expand...

:plusone: I've just spent 30 minutes trying to find the perfect image to illustrate the use of zoom bounce flash that I viewed about a week ago but can't for the life of me remember enough about the site to find it again.
 
Bounce flash uses a lot of power, so to avoid the flash maxing out unnecessarily, you should taylor the pool of light according to the height of the ceiling, the area you want illuminated, and the distance.

In this respect, if you are using a longer focal length then it's quite likely that you only want a small pool of light and the chances are that the subject is going to be further away than with a wider lens. So the zoom kind of makes sense in that respect.
 
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