Lightsphere
Flash Diffusers
by J. Ramon Palacios

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2nd session

Not in the best of moods, my youngest granddaughter decided for the dining room to inspect the Magic Kingdom castle. With incredible dexterity she pulled from the rear box each and all of the diminute characters and was set to create her own story, fully focused, completely oblivious to my presence, even with the monster flash attachment to my camera. The perfect model.

SB-800's shown with is own little cloud dome and with the big Cloud Lightsphere II

Diffused flash, using a single SB-800 with its own dome for comparison with the Lightsphere II CLEAR and CLOUD.

This series was made with the Nikon D2X but, assuming more subject mobility the lens was changed for a 35-70mm f/2.8D AF and ISO was pumped up to 200. Apertures changed from f/2.8 to f/4.8 in this better and more uniformly lit room. Flash was optimistically set to i-TTL BL. Once more, images presented below, except the last one have no correction of levels and curves.

SB-800 with its own cloudy diffuser The left side image was shot with the light bounced from the ceiling at 90° The right hand side one, with speedlight at 60° into the subject to avoid shadows.
SB-800 with Lightsphere II CLEAR Left: Bounced upwards with no inverted dome Right: Forward at 0° with inverted dome on
SB-800 with Lightsphere II CLOUD Left: Bounced upwards at 90° with no inverted dome Right: Forward with inverted dome on, at 0° from the lens axis
Image with adjusted levels and curves, made with CLOUD Lightsphere, without dome, straight up at 90° "Mommy, do we REALLY have to leave?"