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  • 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.

Hi, I'm Tony Northrup and for chapter 3 of my book Stunning Digital Photography,

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