Building ‘A Better Bounce Card’
Posted in Gadgets, Music, Photography, Review |Today, as usual, I was hunting around on the internet on ways for improving my photography and came across the whole concept of flash diffusers. I was quite happy with bouncing my flash off the ceiling and walls but I thought that I’d probably take a look anyway. I had already read before that hard light i.e direct light from the flash is quite undesirable unless you want that effect.The all time classic solution to this problem is to diffuse the light. And the rule is that ‘the bigger the light source, the softer the light’ which means that we have to use a large diffuser as the size of the flash head is fixed.
Indoors, this is quite simple, as with a swivel-and-tilt flash, you can easily bounce the flash off the ceiling and walls, and effectively making them the source of light. As they are quite large, the usually give a nice and soft light. Then what’s the problem you may ask, and this was my doubt too. The bounce method may not work when working in places with high ceilings like churches, and outdoors too. And also having some diffused flash directly onto the subject enhances the photograph.
The method by which many photographers continue to swear by is to use a simple bounce card, which is basically a 3×5 index card strapped onto the head of the flash, while having the flash pointing upwards. The card will reflect some amount of light directly onto the subject which supposedly enhances the photograph.
There have been several newer alternatives to the bounce card like the Sto-fen Bounce, Flip-It, the Lightsphere, several products by Lumiquest and so on. You could find about a hundred different types of flash diffusers with a quick Google search but I’ve only listed the well known ones here.
All these various diffusers have the common objective of softening the light from a flash. Personally, I have never used these but after a lot of looking around, I found many posts and discussions relating to the same topic. There were several arguments about the most effective diffuser and many never reached a conclusion. I didn’t know whether I even needed a flash diffused so I thought that I might make myself one just to try it out.
I came across ABetterBounceCard.com which has detailed videos on how to make your own better bounce card, which is an enhanced version of the classic bounce card. The instructions are well described and easy to follow. After watching the video, I decided to get some foam sheet since he recommended using it. He also said that you could use a sheet of photo paper but I, being the perfectionist I am, decided to buy some foam paper.
We went to several stores and spent about 2 - 3 hours before finally coming across a craft store which had the foam sheets. I bought 3, just in case I messed up the first one. It didn’t take long to make the better bounce cards, just simple measuring and cutting. I also made a couple of modifications so that it would fit the flash head better.
However, my first impression of the better bounce card wasn’t too good but maybe I just don’t know how to us it properly. After a few attempts to use it, I realized that it isn’t too useful for me and ditched it. I found that having flash directly onto the subject didnt produce a desirable effect. But I only had the chance to try it out on bags, so I’ll give it a go tomorrow with some portraits and see how it works out.
I had a bonus though, since the foam sheets which I bought were great as backgrounds and I used it for today’s photo of the day. I plan on going and getting some additional colors tomorrow.
And in unrelated news, I have started listening to several songs by ‘The Kinks‘ and a song by Peter Sarstedt called ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’ after watching ‘The Darjeeling Limited‘ as they both were featured prominently in the film.
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