This week has been sturm and drang with the temptations of new Fujifilm gear, so I thought it might be nice to feature something today that I
can afford to buy. And that will be genuinely useful in event shooting.
We all know the benefits of diffusers for flash lighting - whether they are the little square boxes that clamp over the head of your speedlight, or a bigger assembly that you attach via magnets or strap...they all serve to provide a bigger apparent source of light out to the subject and a subsequent softening of the flash effect.
Weegee woulda laughed around his cigar at the idea of making flash softer and kinder. Most of his subjects were in no position appreciate kindness or to complain about the blast from a Press 25 - because in a lot of cases they had already got a blast from a .45. They were beyond the need for beautification.
Your clients and subjects may be in better shape and will appreciate a smoothing out of wrinkles, filling in of panda eyes, and general modelling of a flash reflector. In the case of the Lastolite EzyBounce, you get a chance to progress from a small bounce card through to a very large one with wide variants in between. The card can be bent over forward to fire light down along a full-length figure or tucked into itself to concentrate the illumination.
The strap is silicone rubber and is generously long - you could wrap it around one of the big Metz or Nissin flashes easily - no more need for the hideously large Metz product. I use that term advisedly, as I owned one and coped with wedding receptions and high winds while using it.
Note that this Lastolite product also scores over a number of silicone rubber products in the matter of weight - it is a lot lighter than the system diffusers.
One final thought - I will have to experiment to confirm this, but I suspect that the fully-unfolded mode with the panels angled slightly into themselves may be one of the closest approximations to the good old Graflex metal reflector that Weegee favoured. Which may mean the same light pattern thrown out in front of the camera. I must get myself a chocolate cigar, a battered fedora, and a corpse and do some testing...
