As you become a more sophisticated photographer, there are dozens of different tools out there that you can use to control light. Diffusers, reflectors, umbrellas (in various colors and sizes), ring flashes, the list goes on and on. It can be very hard to know what effect each of those will actually have on the quality of light and the quality of your pictures.
Here's a very interesting and useful site from Visatec, a lighting products company, that shows the differences between the many types of lighting control products they sell.
For example, this image (click to enlarge) shows the difference between a silver umbrella and a sun (gold) umbrella. There are dozens of other choices in the menus ranging from snoots to just plain lamps.
Recently, I added a light controlling gadget to my bag of tricks, the Gary Fong Lightsphere 2. I was finding that I was taking a lot of flash pictures of my daughter inside, and wasn't happy with the quality of the regular flash, or even bouncing my Speedlight SB-600 off the ceiling, so I looked around for another option and am giving the Lightsphere a try.
Here are a couple of different images taken with the different light sources.
This one was taken with the flash from my D200.
This one with the Lightsphere - I find it quite a bit more pleasant overall, with better balance and softer highlights.
I'm still just a few dozen shots into the Lightsphere, so we'll see where it goes.
For more tips on taking great pictures, visit www.justshowmehowto.com!
Visatec link courtesy of Photodoto.
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