# Reco for on flash diffuser



## RGF (Jan 21, 2014)

Looking to buys diffuser for my 600-ex flash. I have looked at the lumiquest and honl and there seems to be a lot of to choose from. Like most products, reviews are mixed with some people pointing out the diffusers slip and other to mentioning a problem.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jan 21, 2014)

Here are some comparisons I did a while back. Flash is 5 feet from the wall, dots on the wall are 1 foot apart.

First up is the bare flash. The 14mm setting is the built-in pull-out diffusion panel.





The Sto-Fen provides a pretty even distribution of light, and is able to effectively diffuse even the 200mm zoom setting.





The Honl Heavy Frost diffuser (part of the Color Effects Gels kit) is weaker than the Sto-Fen, and has some fall-off at the higher head zoom settings.


----------



## surapon (Jan 21, 2014)

neuroanatomist said:


> Here are some comparisons I did a while back. Flash is 5 feet from the wall, dots on the wall are 1 foot apart.
> 
> First up is the bare flash. The 14mm setting is the built-in pull-out diffusion panel.
> 
> ...




Thousand thanks, Dear Teacher , Mr. neuroanatomist.
Thanks for your time , to test these Diffusers, and very clear that which one we should use for our best flashed photos.
Have a great day, Sir.
Surapon


----------



## joshmurrah (Jan 21, 2014)

Depending on the size/girth you want to deal with, I can heartily recommend the Rogue Flashbender products... the small size is good for on-camera diffusion, and I actually have two of the XL kits for on-stand work.

Hopefully this link will work for everyone, this was a wedding I did last fall, the reception (towards the bottom) was in a non-bouncable ceiling, so were all with a 5D3/600 combo and a small Flashbender plus diffuser front attached, flash running in TTL mode. It's a bit bulky/non-discreete, but that might not be a bad thing depending... and the light quality was very good.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10200126131149530&type=1&l=f9c21c1265


----------



## JustMeOregon (Jan 21, 2014)

Neuro, thank you as always for the insightful response. Your valuable input, and that of all the other CR-gurus, is why I finally joined the forum after all this time... Now hopefully this (sincere) "brown-nosing" will allow me to safely question your testing-method with regards to the Sto-Fen OmniBounce....

Did you mask-off the sides of the Sto-Fen? I can certainly be wrong (CYA qualifying preface), but I always thought that the Sto-Fen was meant to scatter light laterally so it bounces off the walls & ceiling of a room. Thereby "filling the room" with light and enveloping the subject with soft fill, kind'a like a shoot-thru umbrella or one of those Gary Fong things... And so the amount of diffusion & quality of fill-light of a Sto-Fen is very dependent upon the size of the room, subject placement within the room, and things like that... It therefore seems to me that you really can't directly compare that type of room-filling dispersed lighting with more directional lighting such as straight-flash, the Honl Heavy Frost, or on-camera bounce-diffusers.


----------



## neuroanatomist (Jan 22, 2014)

JustMeOregon said:


> Did you mask-off the sides of the Sto-Fen? I can certainly be wrong (CYA qualifying preface), but I always thought that the Sto-Fen was meant to scatter light laterally so it bounces off the walls & ceiling of a room. Thereby "filling the room" with light and enveloping the subject with soft fill, kind'a like a shoot-thru umbrella or one of those Gary Fong things... And so the amount of diffusion & quality of fill-light of a Sto-Fen is very dependent upon the size of the room, subject placement within the room, and things like that... It therefore seems to me that you really can't directly compare that type of room-filling dispersed lighting with more directional lighting such as straight-flash, the Honl Heavy Frost, or on-camera bounce-diffusers.



No, I didn't mask off the sides. You're correct in that I wasn't using the StoFen as intended. In fact, the OmniBounce is supposed to be used with the flash head at a 45° angle, bouncing off the ceiling. If the ceiling is dark or too high, the StoFen doesn't really work as intended (that's why event shooters often use an 'on camera' softbox like the Lastolite Ezybox Speedlite or a bouncer like the Rogue Flashbender). 

I wouldn't say the StoFen 'fills the room' with light (it's a nice marketing slogan, though!). Rather, I think what it does is let most of the light go up for bounce, but send some forward for a little direct light and a catchlight that you don't get when bouncing. When I used a pair of 430EX II's, I used a StoFen on each, and I have one for each of my 600EX-RTs (three of them). But...at some point a while back, I compared a 600EX-RT bare bounced flash at 45° vs. StoFen at 45° vs. bare flash at 90° with the catchlight panel, and I found that the bare 600EX at 90° with the catchlight panel gave the best result (better quality of main light, better catchlight).


----------



## JustMeOregon (Jan 22, 2014)

I agree with you completely Neuro, the Sto-Fen OmniBounce might well be _the_ most misunderstood small piece of plastic on the planet... Unless they're using them for "catch lights" (in the eyes) I've always _wondered_ about the folks I see using them outdoors...


----------



## gshocked (Jan 23, 2014)

Hi,

I recently purchased the Lumiquest Event kit and have been using the Quick Bounce a lot.
Its great if you are shooting out doors and on a sunny day and want a bit of fill light to light up the subjects face. Also works well when you don't have a roof low enough to bounce off. Hence, why I went with this and not a Gary Fong Lightsphere..

The quick bounce also allows you to open up these little barn doors, which claims to let 80% of light out and then you get 20% of light reflected at you subject. I also have tried closing just one of the doors, which is suppose to bounce 40% of light.

I found this nice review on it, which I'll post up when I find it again.

This is one of the few English videos on youtube about this product. Its biased as he owns the company, I think, but at least it gives you an idea on how it works:

http://youtu.be/gjG96-MVoi0


----------



## bholliman (Jan 23, 2014)

gshocked said:


> Hi,
> 
> I recently purchased the Lumiquest Event kit and have been using the Quick Bounce a lot.
> Its great if you are shooting out doors and on a sunny day and want a bit of fill light to light up the subjects face. Also works well when you don't have a roof low enough to bounce off. Hence, why I went with this and not a Gary Fong Lightsphere..
> ...



This looks like a nice option! I often use an 8" soft box on my speedlite at events, but there are times I want to bounce flash off a wall or the ceiling. Taking the soft box on and off with the Velcro attachments can be inconvenient at times. I think I'll get one of these.


----------

