Illegally cute

This is my cousin's baby. He's just the cutest thing. I babysat him today and took the liberty to grab some shots. I used one studio monolight with a 36 inch softbox, softened further by some white nylon draping. The light was placed slightly above and directly in front of the baby, over my shoulder.

Gary Fong Lightsphere blog

I received my Gary Fong Lighsphere II in the mail. I have only played around with it a little indoors because it's been very cold outside.

Here are a few "side by side" comparisons. I used "straight on" flash (SB-600), regular bounce flash, bounced off of a 9 foot white textured ceiling, and diffused flash via the Lightsphere with the white inverted dome in place. Here are my results:

Straight-on flash:

The face is crystal clear, but you have the typical "flash" attributes, such as harsh shadows from the nose and chin. Also, the background is dark.

Here is standard, regular "bounce" flash. It is obvious that the light is coming from above (notice the shadows in the left eye area, caused by the nose and bridge of nose).

The light is soft, but some details are lost. If this had been taken in a room with a very high ceiling (or a dark, wooden ceiling) this photo could not have been possible with bounce flash at all.

Taken with the Lightsphere II. The face is much more evenly lit. You get the crispness of straight-on flash, but the softness of bounce flash. The face is completely lit, shadows are softer, and less of the background is lost.

These pix probably aren't the best examples, but it's too cold to go shoot what I really want. Bottom line: I'm very, very pleased with what this device will allow me to do in the future. It was worth the modest investment.

I've recently invested in a Gary Fong Lightsphere II. I have not taken any shots with it. I bought it to use (mostly) outdoors, and the weather here in central Indy really bites right now. I will use it during weddings in lieu of standard bounce flash. I'm tossing around adding an amberdome to the gadget bag. I'll need to read more reviews.

I also invested in a radio slave device to fire my Nikon Speedlight off of the camera's hotshoe. It will be fun to incorporate the two.

Thus far, I've used mostly fill flash and reflectors to fill shadows thrown by unavoidable harsh light:

Stay tuned for the Great Gary Fong experiment!