As some of you will know when I'm not taking photographs I go dancing modern jive -
see me on youtube. Well last night I went to a new venue opening. I'd said to the organisers that I would take my camera and take a few snaps for their website/facebook etc. rather than use the on camera flash, I took my Metz CT45-4 along with the idea that I could bounce off the ceiling and use the forward facing inbuilt slave for infill. I thought the results I got were a bit disappointing. Fortunately I was shooting in RAW and these have had fairly heavy doses of "fill light" applied in Lightroom but the shadows, particularly in the background, are still much harsher than I would have liked.
I think the problem was that the ceiling was quite a high dome so I wasn't getting much bounce, and too much in fill from the slave (the power of which is not adjustable) I did try a few shots with the slave off but these just tended to be a bit under exposed. I've had this problem before as ceilings in dance halls tend to be high.
This got me thinking about diffuser attachments, and reading the threads here the Stofen seems to get a lot of mentions. I'm just not sure how much benefit that it would give in the sort of rooms that I will be shooting in without much ceiling bounce factor. The alternative would appear to be something from the Lumiquest range but their products don't seem to have as much a following.
The comparison that Foxy posted
Quote:
Originally Posted by Canis Vulpes
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is quite instructive but he is working a a room with a low ceiling so not that comparable to my situation.
I've had a go at mocking up something like the Lumiquest midi bouncer and will post pics and results in the next post but has anyone any thoughts on which way I should go?