Hi, I'm Tony Northrup and for chapter 3 of my book Stunning Digital Photography,
I'd like to show you
different flash modifiers and the effects that they'll have
on your pictures. Our model Chelsea Lipp has volunteered to pose for a little
while. So the first thing I'll do is take a picture with direct
on camera external flash, no modifiers.
Now that's not bad but that catch light is dead center in her eye.
And the on-camera flash here caused really harsh
shadow under her chin. It could certainly be a lot more flattering
Now I could bounce the flash in this particular room, but bounce flash doesn't
work if you have high ceilings or colored ceilings, or if you're outside.
So in those situations, you'll want to add a light modifier.
So I'll add a real simple light modifier first
and this I think we're calling the the defuser
cap thing. Thank you Chelsea Northrop.
So once I get this cap on
what it's going to do is bounce the light
all over the room like a diffuser. But it's specially designed to bounce some of the
light straight forward. And that'll just give Chelsea a nice catch light in her eye.
So I'll take another picture with this.
You can see this flash modifier just completely changed the lighting in a picture.
The catch light is still there but it's very different
and the shadow under her chin is much more pleasing now.
So this is still acting like a bounce flash though. I wouldn't want to use this
outside. You'd see a little bit of the light going forward
but your flash would be sending most of it's light off into space and that wastes
batteries and makes a lot of noise.
So generally you'd want to use direct light instead of bounce light so
I'll give this back to my beautiful wife here
and Chelsea, if you'd have me the small soft box
Now you can get a wide variety of accessories that attach directly to your flash
and this particular one you see it has little straps around it and just goes
over the end of the flash and it's designed to work with
just about any type of flash because its size is adjustable.
I wouldn't bounce this off the ceiling, instead I would point it
directly forward. So I'll take a picture with this direct flash
So that's way better
than direct flash. What we did was just made the light source bigger.
This is just reflecting some of the light around and instead of having
the light source the size of the flash head, now it's that much bigger.
But all the light still going directly forward, so I'm not wasting it all by
bouncing it off the ceiling or sending it off into space.
And therefore I'll be able to take more flashes faster. I won't be going through as many
batteries.
But we can go bigger yet, we can get even more pleasing with a bigger light source.
So I'll swap this out.
And Chelsea if you could
hand me the medium soft box. There you go so you can leave it on that flash.
I'll trade flashes with you. Now the reason I'm trading flashes with Chelsea is the
other flash didn't have
the velcro on it. And this flash does. You can see
some these flash modifiers use Velcro to attach
and you have to stick some
Velcro on your flash. Sometimes it's with adhesives and sometimes it's just a
stretchy band that goes over it.
Either way it's kind of a pain. It's really nice when you don't have to use
that, especially if you're taking it off and on a lot.
But this Lumiquest Promax soft box does require that, so put this flash on my
camera and give it a shot.
Bigger light sources, generally better light for portraits.
The downside is they get more clumsy. That's why this one had to use velcro
it's a little too heavy to just
strap on there with friction. And the clumsier it gets, the more challenge
you're going to have attaching it and the harder it's going to be to move around and to carry.
And if you're working an event and moving in tight quarters
well, this one's okay but any bigger and it could be a problem. We actually do have a
bigger softbox and I just
love the light from it, but it's such a pain to use. And I'm gonna make you watch me
try to attach it. So Chels, if you could just hand me that big
soft box there.
It is big. Yes, it's big and difficult.
Gonna need both hands. So, this particular bounce flash
actually I need to point the flash up and then it will redirect the light forward.
And like the other softbox, it
uses velcro. So I'll move my flash up there
and now I need to attach all these velcro surfaces.
Ohhh so convenient. Alright, so.
Now it's pretty well stuck on there.
But... it looks ridiculous
and it's actually quite clumsy.
But I'll take a sample picture so we can see the effect that it has on the light.
So you can see this one
even better. Bigger light source. But you know what? I had to adjust my flash. It was
working a lot harder, you might have been able to hear it.
And everybody here is making fun of me for having this ridiculous thing on my
flash and that means
if you're working a wedding or shooting an event that everything is gonna be
talking about their ridiculous thing you have on your flash, you just give up
any kind of subtlety whatsoever and if you're trying to carry its gonna be
bouncing into things, that happens all the time and this thing will come loose
and just flop over on you at the worst moment. So,
this is the Lumiquest Big Bounce, you can find other manufacturers that make
something similar.
I love the light that it makes. If I have to use an on-camera flash
this is the best light quality that i'm gonna be able to get
but it's also just such a pain that I'd find I don't go to it all that often.
Now Chelsea has another
more convenient option for me there. I'l'll bend it for you too.
Yeah, you know what? nd trade flashes for me to. Go back to that Yonguo.
Thank you
This is a Rogue flash bender and attaches to the top without
Velcro or anything, just using a strap. And it gives you this kind of
large, white surface that you can bend. It's got some
metal in here that allows it to hold its shape.
So I think one of the most versatile ways to use it is just to have it pointing up
like this.
And that's going to allow a lot of the light to bounce up and kind of bounce around the room
if you're indoors.
But some of the light will be reflected forward. So I'll take another shot
of Chelsea with this.
What nice light! And because I didn't bend it down
some of the light bounced up and went off the ceiling. You can see two catch lights in her eye.
One from this direct flash being bounced forward and
and the other from the light that was bounced around the ceiling.
Now, if I'm outdoors or I just want to avoid the bounce flash, all I have to do is
bend this forward and
now most of the light will be bounced forward. It's changing the shape
of the light surface a little bit though. So I'll take another picture now.
So if you look closely at the shadows in the catch light, you can see that just a little
bend
did change the light. There's no more catch light from the ceiling
almost everything is being bounced straight forward
and it's using the flash much more efficiantly now because it doesn't have
to light up the whole room.
This is what I would want if I were working outside maybe. You want a little bit
of bounce flash and a little bit of direct flash.
It's really easy with the Rogue, you can just bend this up like this.
Now, I feel like I should say because I'm saying so many nice things about this,
they're not a sponsor or anything I just paid for this out of pocket, I just happen
to like the product.
I also feel like it gives you most of the effect of
the large softbox with a lot more convenience.
And none of the kinda like, sticky adhesive and Velcro that I had to deal with.
Now I do wanna show you one more accessory and that is a flash bracket.
So if you can hand me that bracket there, Chels.
Now the way a flash bracket works is you can attach it
to the tripod mount in your flash and then it just
moves the flash a little bit farther away from the camera lens.
And generally with portrait lighting, especially the farther you can move the
light source away from the lens,
the more pleasing it's going to be. And this particular
bracket has a handle built right into it and it will still allow me to hit the shutter
button.
I have an off-camera shoe cord attached here, you can get generic ones
for like 10-15 bucks. Don't buy a brand name one.
And this just attaches right to the camera. It just allows the camera to
communicate to the lens who have
full TTL and all those automatic settings. You don't have to worry about
changing light conditions or anything.
So, if you can hand that big flash back to me.
Thank you.
I'll bend this down again a little bit
and take another sample shot.
So, I feel like my flash get-up here is starting look pretty ridiculous again,
certainly not discreet. So the bracket
moves the flash away from the lens even further and allows you to go vertical while
keeping the light up above the eyes. I hope you found this video useful.
If you have any questions just leave a comment below. If you want to see more free videos like
this,
go ahead and subscribe to my channel. If you like the video also click
like just to show your support. I have a book and DVD series out. The book is
Stunning Digital Photography, the number-one photography book in the world
and it has more than seven hours of video just like this,
commercial-free, most which you can't get anywhere else. And you can get the ebook for
9 dollars super cheap, right? If you are not a book person you can check out our
video training series, that's
also available on Amazon, or you can go to
sdp.io/store, just check the description for the links.
And again, leave me a comment below if you have any questions. Thanks.