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Home >> Photography >> Digital Photography The Lightscoop The Evils of Flash The concept is very simple. When using direct flash, the light source, while powerful for its size, is still coming from a very small device and is like a point source of light. The quality of light is harsh, because it’s a full frontal assault on the subject with a pocket sun. In the studio, you can modify the light in just about everyway so that it does not produce harsh light, but the two mainstays are still the soft box and umbrella. The soft box allows you to fire the flash directly, but through a soft-shelled box that bounces the light around over a larger surface before being going through a translucent cover. The umbrella also spreads the light from the flash over a larger surface area (the inside of the umbrella), but instead of being fired directly, the flash is reversed and fires into the umbrella so that the subject is bathed in soft, indirect light. The umbrella is, in my limited experience, still the overall best way to modify flash lighting in a fairly quick and efficient manner. You can also reverse the traditional flash and umbrella setup by firing the flash directly through an umbrella, which will be like firing through a soft box, but without the boundaries of the box to keep the light contained.
The next best way to mitigate direct flash is to bounce the light over a white or near-white wall or ceiling. Flash brackets, while popular with many, really don’t do much for modifying the quality of flash output. All a flash bracket can do is mount the flash higher to push the shadows down lower, which is a good thing, but the main flash pop will still be as harsh as an on-camera flash unit. If you use an accessory flash unit, such as the Nikon SB800, you have a nice range of tilt and swivel options so you that you can bounce the light in most shooting positions. The only real limitation is whether you have a white or near white wall or ceiling to bounce the light. If you can afford a pro-level SLR then you can also afford an accessory flash unit or two and be able to bounce when you wish. For those using consumer SLRs with the built-in pop-up flash unit, there was precious little you could do to modify the light output…until now.
The Lightscoop is not without some limitations, but if you follow the instructions provided, you will be able to obtain evenly lit, bounce flash photos. About the Lightscoop The Lightscoop has a (near) universal flash shoe mount with clearance in front of it for the pop-up flash to rise up and down. I say near universal, because I’m not sure if the Lightscoop will fit onto the old Minolta D-SLRs and now Sony D-SLRs with their non-standard flash shoes. The documentation for the Lightscoop does not list Minolta or Sony SLRs, with only Nikon, Canon and Pentax listed as being compatible. Of the three brands, the following cameras are listed:
The instructions indicate that for best results, the following should be set on the camera and lens:
Depending on your brand of camera, additional settings may be required. For Nikon, these include:
For Canon SLRs, it is recommended to adjust the flash to the highest +2 stops compensation to get the most juice from it, as there is no Manual flash mode available. I tried the Lightscoop with the Canon 30D, but encountered a problem with the Lightscoop mounted in the 30D’s hot shoe. Fully in, the Lightscoop prevented the 30D’s pop-up flash from firing. I had to pull it almost all the way out before the 30D’s built-in flash would fire.
Results
Additional benfits of the Lightscoop are to throw a more neutral cast of light in the room to mitigate the warm orange qualities of incandescent light, and a major reduction in shadows case by the subject, or by the lens hood. Built-in flashes can only pop up so high, which means that most if not all lens hoods have to be removed, otherwise the hood will cast a shadow in the lower portion of the frame. Because the Lightscoop redirects light upwards to fall on the subject, such annoying lens hood shadows are eliminated. This also works for larger lenses such as the typical 80-200 or 70-300 tele zooms that would also cast shadows in the scene due to their length.
Comparison Photos
What you will notice in the comparison photos above is that most of the photos exhibit a fair bit of coolness due to the use of a high shutter speed to take the ambient light out of the equation. I'd also suggest that the photos with direct flash lighting look underexposed using Standard TTL. The Lightscoop photo does not exhibit the coolness or underexposure and produced the best looking photo (the camera is about eight feet away from the subject wall). Not even the Gary Fong Lightsphere on the SB800 (set to TTL mode) matches the quality of light produced by the Lightscoop unless I start making some exposure adjustments and add some flash compensation (second last photo above - the last one is just a repeat of the Lightscoop sample). Caveats My take is that the Lightscoop is very much the kind of accessory needed by consumer photographers using only the D-SLR’s pop-up flash. Unfortunately, most consumer photographers tend to use kit lenses, which for the most part, have variable apertures that stop down to f5.6 pretty quickly in the zoom range. A typical 18-55mm f3.5-f5.6 lens will not let in enough light for the Lightscoop to do its thing once you zoom in from about 35mm onwards due to the lens stopping down. However, if you shoot at very close quarters, such as less than five feet from the subject, you can still get some nice photos using the Lightscoop, as I did with the sample above of my daughter Sally. I’m also not that thrilled with having to use ISO 800. I don’t like noise in my photos, but live with it in order to produce more pleasing photos than direct flash would provide. One of the biggest reasons why a Nikon D3 is such a desire for me is the ability to do away with flash unless I specifically desired it, rather than being forced to use flash out of necessity. Without much experience with other D-SLRs, my other caveat with the Lightscoop is that it seems to be most effective with Nikon D-SLRs due to Nikon providing an actual Manual mode for the built-in flash. Until I started using the Lightscoop, I never delved into what kind of flexibility my D200’s pop-up flash offered, but I was pleasantly surprised at the flexibility and options available that surpass what is available in the Canon 30D. Previously, I had only used the pop-up flash for fill lighting at its default TTL mode, as I have the Nikon SB800 with its swivelling, tilt-up flash head for more serious flash use. The SB800’s flash output can be modified with its own omni bounce accessory, or the Gary Fong Lightsphere diffuser to bounce and soften the light. With the D200, I have the option of choosing three modes of TTL, Manual, or Commander (for i-TTL control of wireless external Nikon flashes). As described above, you need full power output for best effect with the Lightscoop, which Nikon offers with Manual mode. With the Canon 30D, all I could do is bump up the flash compensation as high as it could go, as there is no other mode than default TTL – the need to barely mount the Lightscoop in the 30D’s hot shoe in order for the flash to fire is another nag, but one that appears specific to Canon only. Conclusion The design should also allow it to work with more than just D-SLRs, as there are high-end digicams that mimic the look and feel of SLRs with pop-up flashes of their own. I’m thinking of some Canon, Panasonic and Fuji models, but of course, you would need to experiment with the settings and flash output to see how best to use the Lightscoop. An external flash unit offers more flexibility, but not everyone can afford, or desires to spend a few hundred dollars or more for such units. Also, not everyone is aware of the need for an external flash and even if they were, not every consumer would know how to use one properly for the most pleasing looking photos, as many consumers seem oblivious to the “evils” of flash use. At only $30, the Lightscoop is recommended for consumer D-SLR users without an external flash unit. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Flash is evil and of all the techniques and accessories used over the years to mitigate the poor and harsh qualities of direct flash lighting, the one that I seem to keep coming back to is bounce lighting. Why, because it just works.
Unfortunately, while some have tried, you really cannot effectively shoot on the go or in casual settings with soft boxes and umbrellas. Consumer photographers would likely be aghast at some of the methods and devices used by pros and serious amateurs to modify the light from on-camera flash units (anyone for a hard hat with a flash mounted on top, firing into a mini umbrella?)
Introducing Professor Kobré’s Lightscoop, an accessory item that will allow you to effectively bounce the light of a built-in pop-up flash unit, such as found on every Nikon D-SLR from the D300 on downwards to the D40.
How the Lightscoop works is by using a reflective surface about 2x3 inches in size positioned at the front of the Lightscoop. The non-mirror finish reflector is angled forward about 20 degrees. The pop-up flash fires into the reflector, which in turn bounces the light up to the ceiling or wall.
