I'd go for the dome. But still i think the lighting's too harsh - a bit straight forward. Well, that's just my opinion

Your experiment is a big insight for me ^^

haha.. interesting discovery. btw, this plastic card board.. must it be transparent? or white colour also can?

Can you tell me how to fix it? I am still trying it out.

Commonly a plain white card will be used, as it reflects most light.

try putting an A4 sheet right in front of the direction of the flash is shooting.

You mean wrap the light in front?

Bounce all up and diffuse some forward?

Wont that be like a bounce cap?

dont wrap it. Find a way to like "hang" it at a distance. Something like this...

Here are some shots using Alucard today, during my college's International Cultural Night.













I shot with my flash at an angle of 60 degrees.

Sorry for the quality. Have to resize so that it wont take too long to load here.

This post has been edited by calvin_gsc: Jul 12 2007, 12:48 AM

background still dark a bit....
but i think better than without ur alucard.....
what iso is it??

I used ISO 400.

good attempt, why don't try to push iso till 800. D80 noise reduction very good.

Is it? I would try that next time. Hehe...

IMHO this isn't the right time to use your bounce card.

You don't get to bounce as there are no surfaces, and any effect of flash area expansion due to the card is made negligible due to your distance from the subject. Thus, there is no tangible gain in quality of light, yet you lose a lot of flash output while using this thing.

I bounce front with this card so that the flash wont be as harsh as opposed to direct 90 degree forward flash.

I agree it loses a lot of flash output, but I hope by doing so, shadows wont be as harsh.

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Added on July 14, 2007, 1:22 pmMy new softbox.





This post has been edited by calvin_gsc: Jul 14 2007, 01:22 PM

I second this. The problem of the dark backgrounds is not due to the experimental bounce card.
It's due to insufficient proportion of light from the backgrounds vs the light from the subjects.
Either take slower shots (up till min of 1/f rule) or increase ISO if you cam does it cleanly.

Large halls with high roofs is no place of bounce flash... you need a diffuser. I just use the one in-built onto my flash but I've seen a very simply DIY design whereby a section of a clear soft-drink bottle was slit and its surface roughened by sandpaper. The slit section grips onto the flash's head. Can't recall the link to that DIY diffuser though and haven't tried it yet.

Thanks for your advice. I really appreciate it.

Would ISO800 be sufficient for an outdoor event which is at night?

When you're as far as you were from your subjects, I can't see how that thing can make any tangible improvement. You can go on and believe that it helps though

Well, i am quite close to my objects, as I go close to stage to take my shots.

Depends on how dark your area of interest is. Forget about the darkness of the overall scene.
If there is any street light already illuminating your subject, and you meter for only that section, you can get away with ISO800 or even lesser.

Example shown below (actually, with Image Stabilisation, I can use ISO400 and 1/20sec instead of ISO800, 1/40 sec, if I decided to):



100% crop of one of the guys' shoe to see the amount of detail still there:



Anyhow, I rarely use ISO1600 on my cams (E-330 and E-510) because of an inherent banding image defect they have and can be obvious on that ISO level. IS at ISO800 is almost like having ISO3200 capability for me... (2 stops advantage above ISO800).


This post has been edited by cjtune: Jul 15 2007, 10:18 PM

Thanks for your feedback, but I am more concerned on shots of people's face/ or people in action.

OK... same general exposure rules apply... not that I'm showing you to shoot at ppl's legs.