Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser… What is Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser anyway? If you are in photography world, you should hear some of Gary Fong products like Lightsphere-Universal CLOUD, Lightsphere-Universal CLEAR, Lightsphere-2 CLOUD, Lightsphere-2 CLEAR, ORIGAMI – Fold Flat Diffuser, PUFFER – Pop-Up Flash Diffuser, DELTA – Point & Shoot Flash Diffuser and more… So what are they? They are flash diffusers. 😀
Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter clone
There are 2 version of Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser. It has Reporter and Studio versions. Mine is Reporter version. It is smaller than Studio version. And it attaches to my Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash all the time.
Complete Accessory Kit for Gary Fong WhaleTail Reporter
Amber Flaps for Gary Fong WhaleTail Reporter
Photo taken with Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter clone is much better compare to direct flash. Never shoot with direct flash because your photo will become too harsh. And make your flash as far as you can from the lens. You will get better lighting in your photo.
Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter in action
So what is the different between the original Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter and the clone version? Hmm… I don’t have the answer. Maybe it is the build quality. So far… I am happy with Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter clone version performance. Most of all, it is a lot cheaper compare to Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter original version.
See Gary Fong WhaleTail Flash Diffuser – Reporter in action – wedding photo.
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I gave up using diffusers long time ago. When inside, just bounce walls. If there’s nothing to bounce, might as well fire straight on. Adding a diffuser does not provide a large surface area.
Direct flash? Won’t your photo become too harsh? I always use diffuser with direct flash. And it helps too at outdoor. It can’t leave my flash gun.
Yeah I flash directly. Using a diffuser does not affect the harshness of the flash. What a diffuser does is it throws light in a lot of direction. Indoors, this works well because the light gets bounced of walls onto your subject resulting in smoother lighting. But it’s the walls that are doing the trick because their surface is so large, they provide diffused light.
When you are outdoors, the diffuser does the same thing – throws light all around, but most of the light never gets reflected. So what it does is basically reducing flash power.
Here are a few experiments you can try out. For both scenarios, leave the diffuser off.
1. Indoors: bounce flash off a wall (not ceiling, wall). On to your subject. Is the effect similar to diffused flash? In most cases, it should be the same.
2. Outdoos: flash directly, but reduce flash power to 1/3 or lower. Again, the effect should be fairly similar to using a diffuser outdoors.
Direct flash sample:
Oops, sorry, looks like embedding HTML isn’t allowed. Follow this link for an image with direct flash: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/2796128057_5d0866b4f7.jpg
Interesting… Will try out soon. Thanks for the tips. 😀