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.