# Recommendation for Flash & Diffuser



## Oneeyephoto (Mar 28, 2013)

Hello forum, 
My name is Erik i am new to photography and I hav a Canon T3i w/55-250mm & 18-55mm lense. I will mostly be using my camera inside of whatever club I am promoting that night. I was told by other photographers that i should invest in the following items: Flash, diffuser, and lense hood. However they failed to advice me which ones to buy for my current equipment. 

Afterdoing some research I found the canon speedlight 430 for the flash but it does not have the diffuser, or hood. 

Can anyone help me? If you could suggest any other gear that will help me in my nighclub photography that would be great too.

Target price for everything = $200 -$300


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## Designer (Mar 28, 2013)

I have one of those little soft boxes that fit onto a speedlight, but I don't use it much, as it still is "on camera".  Depending on what the ceiling is, that would probably work better, or a wall.  I think the recommendation of the lens hood is so you can shoot close to stage lighting without lens flare.


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## tirediron (Mar 28, 2013)

If you want to do a better job than the competition, get the flash off of the camera.  Start with a flash bracket (and whatever TTL cord your unit requires).  Alternatively, you can just hand-hold the flash offset from the camera by a foot or two. I would definitely get a diffuser for your flash as often the ceilings in clubs are painted black, and full of pipes and duct-work, making bouncing flash a challenge.  This little SB actually works suprisingly well and it's cheap like borscht.


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## cgipson1 (Mar 28, 2013)

Bounce works best with white ceilings and walls.... what club has that?  lol! Go with John's suggestion... a good flash bracket will work wonders! Use something like this ABBC Super-Big Bounce Card | Peter Greggs ABBC ABetterBounceCard for Canon Flash Nikon Flash and Digital Cameras or this Demb Flash Products - Flip-it! the variable-angle flash reflector for diffusing the light a bit.


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## Peter Gregg (Mar 28, 2013)

Hi, this is Peter Gregg with A Better Bounce Card. If you plan on buying one of my flash diffusers or SensorSweep dslr sensor cleaner kit, the link in the thread above is old with old higher prices. Use the ABetterBounceCard.com or PeterGregg.com web site.

Even better - Amazon has a special price on all 3 sizes of my bounce card kit lower than just buying one ABBC by itself. I really recommend that because you get all 3 sizes and you do not have to worry about which size to buy. It isn't the newest 3.0, but close enough. Save some money (less than $10 each) and have all 3 on hand at all times. That is the reason I made that kit. Do a search on Amazon for these words - ABBC 3 The sizes in the kit are Small, Large, and the Super Large. The small is for when you want to attract LESS attention or in a home type environment. the Large is for when you want to push out some light. The Super-large is for when you want to really have your light be the boss 

Peter


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## cgipson1 (Mar 28, 2013)

Peter Gregg said:


> Hi, this is Peter Gregg with A Better Bounce Card. If you plan on buying one of my flash diffusers or SensorSweep dslr sensor cleaner kit, the link in the thread above is old with old higher prices. Use the ABetterBounceCard.com or PeterGregg.com web site.
> 
> Even better - Amazon has a special price on all 3 sizes of my bounce card kit lower than just buying one ABBC by itself. I really recommend that because you get all 3 sizes and you do not have to worry about which size to buy. It isn't the newest 3.0, but close enough. Save some money and have all 3 (Small, Large, and Super Large) on hand at all times. That is the reason I made that kit. Do a search on Amazon for these words - ABBC 3
> 
> Peter



Hey Peter.. thanks for the info... I guess I need to update my link in my favs... lol! So do I get a discount for pushing your products?  

http://www.amazon.com/GET-ALL-SIZES...F8&qid=1364496514&sr=1-2&keywords=peter+gregg  Nice Price!


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## Derrel (Mar 28, 2013)

David444 said:


> Go with the *Canon 430 EXII* Learn to bounce, you don't need a diffuser.



I guess the idea of nightclub bounce flash is supposed to be a winky-winky joke. I mean, right???

It's drunks all clustered together...just diffuse the flash right on-camera. The images will be posted on the web at 300x pixels...


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## davisphotos (Mar 29, 2013)

Interesting nobody has suggested the Fong Dong yet  For a nightclub, I would keep it simple-bounce card on the flash, high ISO to bring in some ambient, and embrace the hard flash look.
I think you are going to find both of those lenses incredibly frustrating to work with in a dark environment, the 55-250 will probably be too long to be of much use, and the 18-55 is going to be very, very slow to focus. It won't really fit in your budget, but something like the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 would make your life much easier.


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## Mike_E (Mar 29, 2013)

Tupperware is not the way to go.

Peter's products are about as good as it gets and less expensive than most.












yo Pete, the check's in the mail right?


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## jacoba (May 1, 2013)

davisphotos said:


> Interesting nobody has suggested the Fong Dong yet  For a nightclub, I would keep it simple-bounce card on the flash, high ISO to bring in some ambient, and embrace the hard flash look. I think you are going to find both of those lenses incredibly frustrating to work with in a dark environment, the 55-250 will probably be too long to be of much use, and the 18-55 is going to be very, very slow to focus. It won't really fit in your budget, but something like the Tamron 17-50 f2.8 would make your life much easier.



I work for two nightclubs.  I have the exact same setup as you do.  I have a Canon T3i with a kit lens.  And yes, the lens is not really that great for nightclub photography.  The focal is too small, and it does have problems auto-focusing in very dark environments.  I just want to say that the person I am quoting right now has given you some great advice.  Flash diffuser's are excellent.  Most are not too overly large, or will get in the way of your lens if you decide to take it off-camera--which you should!  This adds dimension to your photos and will probably set you apart from other nightclub photographers.  You should use a small bracket that you can mount your camera on and the flash beside it.  Large ones are not very practical in the nightclub scene.  Someone else had mentioned the brackets earlier, and they were correct; in my opinion, at least.  As far as bouncing the light goes, it is not practical in venues like this.  Save yourself the headache of adding one more thing to think about every time you have to take a shot and just get a diffuser.  Once you are more experienced you will realize that you will be tweaking the camera settings constantly to expose the ambient light, but you are also taking the flash exposure on top of it.  To have to re-position your subjects, or yourself, each time in order to bounce the light on them is not practical.  Most ceilings have duct work, are black, and sometimes your position just isn't viable--and then you've missed your shot!

Practice bouncing elsewhere.

I use the Canon 430 EX II.  Also the Gary Fong pop-up diffuser, which runs you about $70-$80.  I also have a cheap one-piece, back-up diffuser that's only like $30 in case I bump in to someone and they crush one of the pieces (the pop-up is a two-piece kit).  Before you go out, I cannot stress this enough, but practice, practice, practice.  Practice using your diffuser and finding out what kind of light looks even, and best, across your subjects.  I guarantee that this will help instead of figuring it out half-way through the night and half of your pictures don't look nearly as good as your other ones.  Learn to expose properly, and then underexpose a little, so that your flash exposure looks great and you also capture the ambient light.  Otherwise your subjects are going to look great with dull and flat backgrounds.  I can't tell you how far to underexpose, but maybe a stop, or two.  You just have to play around with it inside the club and decide what looks best to you.  And yes.  Set your exposure compensation correctly.

Other than that play around with things.  If all of this isn't practical yet, just shoot with the flash on camera with the diffuser for now.  You will build up money to get the other things later.  I highly suggest going off-camera because that is what is going to set your photos and you apart from the other photographers in the area.  Then you can start to really play around with things. Second curtain is obviously best for shooting in nightclubs, or just about anywhere.  First curtain is going to get you some cool ghosting effects if you're taking photos on the dance floor.  Look for mirrors, angles, unorthodox places to take photos from.  If you can, see if the manager will allow you to take practice shots within the club so that you can understand where to take photos from and where not to take photos from.  What I mean by this is that there are usually some reflective surfaces in the nightclub that look God awful.  You'll eventually learn where to shoot and where not to.  Sometimes just shooting on an angle helps because the light won't reflect back and be overexposed in some areas.  Other times you just have to avoid certain angles altogether.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading my novel.  I think that's a fair bit of advice for now.  If you're unsure of anything I've just said, research it!  There are many great resources on the Internet that are FREE!  I have done nothing but read and sponge up all the information I can since I have started.  It's difficult giving out advice because everyone's venue is different, especially in this area.  Sometimes the lighting isn't so bad, so you don't need an amazing lens.  Sometimes it's way too dark, or it's just a very bad venue to shoot in.  Either way, you'll have to figure out what works best for you.

And one more thing; your 55-250 lens is not practical for nightclub photography.  Unless you are taking shots of a concert at this venue, attempting to isolate subjects, it is not practical.  At 55, your lens will act like an 85mm lens.  You'd have to be like 25 feet away from your subjects in order to fit 4 people in to the frame for a group shot--awkward!

  Good luck!  Let us know how you make out!


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