recommendations for on-camera speedlight modifiers

Tom Pinchenzo

Tom Pinchenzo

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Tom
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I'm shooting a wedding for a friend and so I'm looking for a modifier for an on-camera speedlight, I'm particularly thinking about dancefloor shots where I can't bounce the flash, so something to make the direct flash usable. I've seen great reviews for MagMod but it's an american company and it's around £75 for the adapter and modifier. Just wondered if that was a reasonable price or if there were other options that don't have to be imported!

Cheers,
Tom
 
Tom Pinchenzo said:
I'm shooting a wedding for a friend and so I'm looking for a modifier for an on-camera speedlight, I'm particularly thinking about dancefloor shots where I can't bounce the flash, so something to make the direct flash usable. I've seen great reviews for MagMod but it's an american company and it's around £75 for the adapter and modifier. Just wondered if that was a reasonable price or if there were other options that don't have to be imported!

Cheers,
Tom
Click to expand...
None, the only modifier worth a damn for an on-camera speedlight is a bounce panel/flag... everything else is just a gimmick (some worse than others, but none particularly good).

If you can't bounce it then just crank the ISO as required and use the flash as fill.
 
As above, although I do sometimes use a Lumiquest QuikBounce, which is better than anything else I’ve tried, but first choice is to handhold the flash using a radio trigger.

That way I can zoom in to make an interesting pool of light or to bounce without indiscriminately lighting everything.

1st choice for on camera flash was to stand with my back to a wall and turn the flash head round so it bounced from where the wall hits the ceiling, again though, zoom in.

Most people when bouncing flash use a wide angle and create a lower powered floodlight. Helped along with a modifier that sprays light in all directions (this doesn’t soften light in a large room*), it just lights everything badly.

At no point would anyone who understands light ever choose to light a subject in that way, but they have seen others do it, so they think it must be OK.

*even worse, I’ve seen ‘event photographers’ use a stofen pointed up to bounce a flash off the sky.
 
Phil V said:
I’ve seen ‘event photographers’ use a stofen pointed up to bounce a flash off the sky.
Click to expand...


If we can be bothered, we go to the top of the hill to look at things like lunar eclipses. As do some university students, who almost without exception use their flashes (on cameras as well as phones) to shoot the occasion... We're doomed - all doomed!!!
 
I use a Lumiquest QuikBounce too for social events, not because it's an amazing solution to difficult situations but because it's very versatile, usually does something beneficial, and is fast and easy. Bounce-fill is effective, it works indoors and out, doesn't waste light, works for verticals too and folds away flat. With the flaps open, you can moderate the bounce-fill ratio by zooming the flash head. It's more about putting some light where there isn't any than studio quality results. https://lumiquest.com/collections/bounce-devices/products/lumiquest-quik-bounce

The basic problem is that even a big light source like an umbrella/softbox quickly becomes effectively very small when used at a distance of a few metres. The QuikBounce adds a little softening for solo portraits and couples from close range, but thereafter it's more about spreading light around than shaping it attractively. On the other hand, if the choice is between a bright and well-exposed image that captures the moment and a finely crafted shot of people looking bored with the photographer, then it's brilliant.
 
This comes up often enough I decided to make a quick drawing to show the results when there is nothing for the light to bounce off of...
as far as what the subject sees, it's the same. At best the result will look less "flashy" because you run out of power due to all of the waste/spill.

speedlightDiffusion.jpg
 
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I have a couple of 12" square soft boxes that slide over the end of speedlites, and a couple of the religious Nun shaped modifiers for my speedlites. I also have one of those 12" square speedlite modifiers that you can bend to shape. The soft boxes work sort-of OK if the flash is off camera, but tend to be in the way if used on camera. The Nun versions were included in several speedlite purchases and might help in inside crowded space work, but I have never used them. I think I've only used the soft boxes once and they didn't work all that well. I think they were mostly just not big enough to spread the soft light enough, but then I didn't have the time to experiment and just bounce flashed the speedlites off the white ceiling with the plastic diffusers on them. The 12" square shapeable speedlite reflector has worked best for me with the speedlite on camera and pointed mostly up but with a slight (30 deg) to get more noticeable catchlights in my subjects eyes, and for a little fill lighting. I have only used it a few times in probably a year and a half. So, for me, none of these have really been worth using, so far, but I'm doing most of my photography in my studio since COVID and I only rarely use my speedlites in the studio.

I guess I'm trying to say that I have several versions of these and have tried them on my speedlites a few times, but not enough to really develop a like or dislike for them. Maybe you should ask me this question again after COVID and after I have done more shooting using them.

Charley
 
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