Steven Lippis

While playing around practicing with flashes, I thought I’d do some test shots to show the effects of different modifiers.

But for comparison, here’s a direct flash shot.

There’s shadows on the wall, on the dog from its tongue, it’s hard and unflattering, and can be a lot worse with a person.

When using a speedlight one of the easiest solutions is to bounce it.

It’s pretty much eliminated the wall shadows, softened the light as a whole, but there’s still shadows underneath the mouth from the light bouncing down off the ceiling.

To fill in the shadows on the subject you can combine bouncing the flash off the ceiling with a bounce card. A business card held on with an elastic band will get the job done, and some flashes have them built in.

This is the built in card on the SB900

It’s reduced shadows in the subject, introduced a catchlight in the eye, but has also once more added a slight shadow to the wall behind. Nowhere near as bad as the direct flash.

You can buy products such as the Lumiquest Pocketbouncer. These work on the same principal as a bounce card but are much larger.
The pocket bouncer stops light bouncing off the ceiling and just directs it to the subject. You can get all sorts of types, including those with holes to filter some light through to the ceiling.

This is the pocketbouncer, but there’s a whole range of different items available.

It’s gives a lot more direct light than bouncing, but like direct flash, it’s got more noticable shadows, though not as pronounced.

You’ll have seen flashes with what looks like a bit of tupperware on top.
These diffusers are my favourite.

This came with my SB900 but you can buy them to fit most any speedlight for around $20-30

Pointed up or at an angle it’ll still bounce light off the ceiling providing a softer light, and works quite well in locations where you can’t bounce off a ceiling.

Another great way to get rid of those pesky shadows on walls is to use an off camera flash to overexpose the wall behind.

This can mess with your metering a bit, but like anything in photography, a bit of fiddling with settings and you should be able to find something that works for you.