FLASH DIFFUSION and BARE BULBS
You need a GIZMO, they will all tell you that. commonly called a diffuser, one of the 4000 lighting diffusion, plastic and fabric add-ons that we cannot live without. In B & H’s last catalog (the big one) there were four pages of diffusers by eight plus companies. That’s a lot of turf. More expected this year. Lets face it, a good picture is like a house. Bad foundation, weak structure and all the fancy paint in the world won't help a bad house. There are no magic bullets in photography. Composition, Lighting, Action, Subject and Position all play a key role in the formation of the winning shot.
Diffused light is on the secondary level of technique. It's an improvement to the foundation. The other most commonly used improvement is "I'll fix it in Photoshop". Flashes by virtue of their nature are simply an electrical dispersion producing light. The problem is the light is very sharp, the term specula not spatula or speculum, as produced by most flashes.
This is how high guide numbers are achieved for sales purposes, and usually produce under or over shots, never what you wanted or saw. This "sharp light" is like direct sunlight, flattering to few and unflattering to many and stronger in the center and then tapers off. So they measure the center. It's called bragging rights. We call it hype.
We take this narrow and specula light and either diffuse it in a softbox by shooting through or bounce it with flashcards, spheres and reflectors. Simply put we are widening the light source which dilutes the power in F-stops and increases the power the strobe must put out. So the obvious and simple answer is bouncing light. But, too much bounce and we get a bunch of soft shots that are too equal all over and we lose the modeling effect. I've seen results from the newest hotdog diffuser and it's Ok in some and a disaster in others.
There are two ways to achieve bounce, the least expensive, you can make yourself, use a flashcard, in one of the 300 different models or drag a wall wall or ceiling with you. There is no such bullet for perfect exposure whether softened or not and that's because every scene you photograph is not the same. Thats why we have studios, consistent, variable controlled environments.
THE OPPOSITE OF DIFFUSION IS BARE BULB -
This is not a new idea. "Hand Grenade Flash in Theory" has been around for ages. About once a weak I get a call about it and it's the same question and reinforces my theory that not enough light theory is present in the brain of the caller.
When you got talked into buying that Gary Fong Fongalizer by Tupperware, you didn't realize that it will instantly kill two F-stops. With basic amateur lenses running 3.5 to 5.6, that puts the flash at full power down on the widest aperture of you ISO range at 100-200 and you lose depth of field. And in auto mode it really can get hairy.
In photo gear, the late sixties and seventies brought out the bare bulb. The reason: SLOW FILM had little contrast and bare bulbs with no reflectors produces a specula light, very sharp, good for newspaper guys so the plate-makers for the newspapers who printed pictures had contrast and not flat pictures. In B&W with S-L-O-W--F-I-L-M, and very little contrast most of the time this becomes a disaster with digital.
For those who are willing to try bare bulb, which is really weird with DIGITAL, and deadly if you are shooting in a hall with mirrors, chandeliers and any other kind of light reflection, you are in the realm of disaster for stuff that counts. Use it for the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stuff. Like a good fling, you take it all in but don't get married to it. Digital see's better than you do. All of the color spectrum that's visible. You basically have no control.
OUR VERSION
So we went back over to brother Hiram's Redneck Museum of Photography and asked Billy Bob if he heard of any other devices that could put light out in all directions evenly at once. He strode out to the broken Kenworth next to the barn, grabbed a part, went to the shop and after about ten minutes said " hey you 'all, this here will work, cost you a dollar". I don't really know if he got the picture.....
WARNING: This device has not been approved by the Bureau Of Mines for use in Natural Gas Plants, Oil Refineries, Dynamite Factories and the Men's room at Hemingway's favorite Bar in Key West. Use of this device in any of the mentioned areas might cause a horrific explosion. If you have been in Hemmingway's you'll know what I mean. More gas than the Alaska pipeline.
EDITORS NOTES:
This document has been checked for speling, granma and flunctiation. No dangling participles here since Granma trimmed them. The bull was not very happy!
And add a couple hundred dollars of Photoshop add-ons next to your slick AVATAR on the forum.
Make sure it's above your credit line at the bottom of page next to your list of filters, gorilla pods and tripod accessories you own.
Really makes the other guys jealous of all your disposable income and lack of any real talent.
SUMMARY
Flash is always a heated discussion. There are those who defend their outlay of disposable income and think a 100 Guide Number unit can truly duplicate what studio gear can do. They can with lots of manipulation and technique. There are those who drag enough studio gear for solid location setups and this will work at all weddings till you get too old or a hernia, or someone trips over the setup and the crash is heard throughout the wedding hall.
The end result, whatever these folks had, didn’t work for them and now they hope they’ll recoup their loses by selling their gear with some story attached like they are going back to ambient light or returning to Cornell for their degree in advanced Heart Surgery. I guess that’s why so much flash units are for sale on eBay, forums and websites. You wind up with hundreds of other peoples failed flash ideas and the truth is most any light can work if you understand the mechanics of lighting.