The Metz diffuser in your link below, although it has "bounce" in its
name is really a diffuser for direct flash. It operates by placing the
bounce head in the vertical position and then uses the diffuser's 45
degree angle to redirect the light forward. Since the reflector is
larger than the flash head it will have a softening effect on the light.
But this is an expensive alternative to the same effect that can be
gotten using a Lumiquest midi-bouncer <http://lumiquest.com/lq941.htm>
which can be had from B&H for $23.95. It attaches with velcro and will
fold flat in your camera bag when not in use.
<http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/86719-REG/LumiQuest_LQ941D_Midi_Bouncer.html>
You use direct flash either outdoors or indoors where the ceiling is too
high or not refective enough to be used as a bounce surface. If you're
indoors and have a fairly low light colored ceiling then you can use
another product, the Lumiquest 80-20 available at B&H for $21.95
<http://lumiquest.com/lq872.htm>
<http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/32577-REG/LumiQuest_LQ872D_80_20_Pocket_Bouncer.html>
Your Metz flash is designed to do essentially the same thing as the
80-20 by using the bounce head to bounce off the ceiling while the
"wink" light in front fires forward. I don't know how well this works
in practice since I've never used one but I would be a bit concerned
that the wink light is not diffused. But perhaps it doesn't matter
since it's a small part of the total illumination and may even be
advantageous to help produce a highlight in the eye.
But my own preference for this is a much cheaper solution which is
simply a small reflector card. With respect to your Metz it would
attach with velcro along the top edge of the head such that both it and
the head would be pointing up when the head is tilted vertical or
slightly down from vertical. You could make such a card from a piece of
plastic, aluminum sheet or other stiff material having the width of the
flash head and extending beyond it about 3". You may be able to use the
same velcro attachments as for the midi-bouncer. Velcro strips can be
readily purchased at craft, office supply and home stores.
To see what you can do with this simple card reflector see some shots
from this past Christmas. Ignore the first two rows here since they are
a combination of high ISO (3200) natural light and some experiments with
3 flash heads in a room with a catherdral ceiling. But all of the shots
in the last 3 rows are done with a single, on-camera flash with bounce
head vertical or nearly so and with a small reflector card as described
above. They're shot at ISO 400 with shutter speeds of 1/15 to 1/30 sec.
and apertures of f/7.1 in the large rooms to f/14 in the small rooms
with focal lengths from 28-80mm.
<http://www.chucknorcutt.com/Christmas_2007/index.htm>
One way to use multiple cameras is to have multiple films so that you
can have ISO 160 available for outdoors and ISO 400 for indoors with
flash. I would recommend that you us Kodak Portra or Fuji Pro S films
since these are explicitly designed for portraits and excellent skin
tones. Portra is available in NC (normal color) or VC (vivid color).
Fuji used to use NPZ as a vivid color designation but now appears to
simply be using a Z suffix. Anyhow, avoid the vivid color stuff.
<http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e4040/e4040.pdf>
The Fuji films may perform better in the presence of fluorescent lights.
They have a 4th color layer that helps to kill the common greenish
cast from fluorescents.
For processing, one of the better known pro labs in the country is
Miller's Lab. Doing business with Miller's requires that you have an
established account which assumes that you're going to be doing a
certain business volume and probably using their order processing
software for large volumes of print work. For less prolific shooters
there is their consumer side called Mpix <http://www.mpix.com/>
Mpix is in the same physical location and uses the same processing
equipment as Miller's. You can have 2MP scans stored on CD which should
be good for up to at least 5x7 prints. Start here for the film side
<http://www.mpix.com/FilmServices.aspx> beginning with ordering mailers.
Perhaps some others on the list still shooting film can make some better
suggestions especially if you would like a large print of a formal shot.
Chuck Norcutt
J. Van Brimmer wrote:
> Chuck,
>
>
> Would this diffuser do the job for me? Could this be used outdoors
> also? Or is it just for indoor work?
> http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/34997-REG/Metz_MZ_5417_60_33_Bounce_Diffuser_Reflex.html
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