"Peifer, William [OCDUS]" wrote: > > Hi Tom, > > This is a good trick, and I ~usually~ keep a piece of a 3"x5" card and a > rubber band around the head of one of my flashes (didn't have it on this > particular day, unfortunately). I always figured it would work well only > for landscape orientation of the camera body, since the flash would be > sitting "upright" in the hotshoe, and I'd have a three-inch wide section of > card behind the flash head to direct light at the subject. I never figured > it would work as well for portrait orientation of the camera body, because > it that case, the flash is now "sideways", and with the flash head swiveled > up toward the ceiling, I'd only have about a 1.5"-wide piece of card > reflecting light toward the subject. If I understand you correctly, it > sounds like this would still work pretty well. Or am I missing something? > Would it be better, for vertical shots, to mount the flash off-camera on a > bracket?
Well, it's always better on a bracket because of red-eye, plus when vertical the flash is centered over the lens. With the flash in the shoe and the camera in the vertical position, a 3x5 card will give some obvious side-lighting which may be unpleasant - *but* - if most of your flash is coming off the bounce, that's ok since it will dominate. The card is just acting to add a little fill - you can think of the bounce as your main light. 80% bounce, 20% fill from the card, or something like that. Bounce will sometimes cause eye sockets to go too dark, especially if you're close to the subject (bouncing close to 180 degrees) or if they're looking down. You just need a little fill from the card...a full-on 3x5 might even be too much. I little 1x2 works fine for me, and gives me the same amount of fill both vertically and horizontally. It's really a matter of taste, I guess. I think full bounce at a pretty steep angle looks kind of cool, but the eyes often look too dark. It's a matter of how much you want to fill in the eyes that determines how big your card is. The bigger the card is, the less "bouncy" and more "frontal" the lighting will look. Of course, if you're not shooting people, this may not apply. I saw a guy using a white plastic spoon once. Looked goofy, but I bet it worked. tv - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
