In my bouncing flash article I mentioned something called Omni-Bounce. The Omni-Bounce is a Stofen product that enables you to better diffuse your flash.
Now, what exactly does it mean – better diffuse your flash? Well, when you use a flash attached to the hot shoe you basically have two choices, direct flash and bounced flash. Direct means that your flash is aimed directly at your subject, and bounced means that the flash is directed at a surface other then your subject (say a wall), and your subject gets the light that “bounces” off that surface.
What happens if you need both? This is why the guys at Stofen came up with the Omni-Bounce (or omnibounce). it is build in a way that throws some of the light upwards and some of the light sideways (well, so does a Nylon bag …). But if you need to go portable, a bag can hardly be a solution. The omnibounce is also very popular with party photographers.
Another aspect of the onmibounce is bearbulbing the flash (as in bear-bulb). Big expensive flashes has something called bare bulb. bear bulb is way to use a flash when the flash head (ie bulb) is not hidden. This will create a sphere of light going in all directions. This has two main uses. The first use is to light a big room – since the light is going in all directions, one bare bulb (big) flash can light a big room. An sb-28 with an omnibounce can light a medium room. the other use if to have a nice fill – the object close to the flash will get allot of light, but it will also get some light bouncing off the walls.
OK pause. Let me talk about something else for a second. In Greece there is a dish called Tzatziki. It is a great dish mainly made out of sour cream (or yogurt) and cucumbers. It is great with Shis-kabab. The sweetness and sourness of the Tzatziki blends well with the meat and lighten it up. It can also serve as a dip with chips or nachos.
So, why am I bringing this whole Tzatziki thing? If you followed closely, you noticed that for the Tzatziki dip, you need sour cream. And the sour cream cap can be used to make an omnibounce. Simply clean the cap, let it dry and place it over your hot shoe flash (SB800 in my case). Notice that I chose the sour cream cap that had some “stripes” on it for better flavor diffusion.
Here is how it looks like on the flash (please ignore the funny face I make when taking a picture)
So these are two good uses for the sour cream cap.The third is an emergency cell phone. If you have two of those devices, you can make a small hole in the base of each and connect them with a string (five meters will do the trick). Now ask your kid to hold one cap and go until the string it tight. Ask him (or her) to put the cap against thier ear and whisper to the other end. TADA! an instant cell phone (or Tzatziki phone).
Here is how to use that phone
