Finally found a good use for my Fong lightsphere

My 1 year old loves to use it as a chew toy.

lol. My oldest when she was a baby chewed off the end cap of the Giottos rocket blaster. It's now a bath toy.

I wouldn't.

God only knows what Chinese chemicals are in it.

Have you seen his latest video on How To Shoot A Wedding? So many flaws. He quit shooting weddings years ago and yet he says he is shooting one? Either he got permission to shoot for his production or he staged the entire thing because what photographer would not shoot the bride coming down the aisle with her dad and shoot everything from the back at an angle. Clearly he misleads the public again as making you think he is the premium photographer.

Funny I'll have to watch it. Is it on a YouTube channel?

I saw it on his website; www.garyfong.com under his premium videos: on his instructional videos is an entire series on how HE says a wedding should be photographed with his lightsphere. Funny how he talks about using his lightsphere cutting a cake and dance in a white tent, therefore the most flattering lighting is to bounce in the white tent as Denis Reggie and others do. Shucks, if you ever seen a video of Gary's wedding years ago, even the photographers shooting his wedding never used his products to do it, says alot on what they think of his stuff. Better watch it though. If you say something too negative Gary will go to your website and then criticize your work up one side and down another - a jealous rage to try to get back at you. He tried that on me and he wasn't even on my site.

I seem to get good results using a lightsphere. It's definitely expensive for what it is but when I need to soften the flash and I don't have something to reflect it off of, such as outdoors, it appears to perform as advertised. What issues are you guys having with it?

fohchris79 wrote in post #17086473
I seem to get good results using a lightsphere. It's definitely expensive for what it is but when I need to soften the flash and I don't have something to reflect it off of, such as outdoors, it appears to perform as advertised. What issues are you guys having with it?

If you're using any 'tupperware' diffusers out of doors, you're generally wasting light and battery energy. The diffusers direct much of the light away from your subject and it never comes back toward the subject when outdoors or in a very large indoor venue.

Unless the apparent light source SIZE with the diffuser mounted is significantly larger than the size of a bare flash, the diffuser will do almost nothing to "soften" the light falling on nearby subject(s).

You may be fooling yourself into believing that the Fong unit is doing something that it cannot. Fong's advertising definitely portrays the products a being magic when they are not.

Mine is a seed holder for my parakeet.

It is interesting to see the ads on those sites for indoors results.

Two pictures together, one with the tupperware and one with bare flash.

Strangely the third picture is always missing, the bounced flash that the speedlite was actually designed to do.

Plus when you see the pictures he displays, it is never the one straight out of the camera to show the true one, it is always the processed one. Plus it was revealed last year that on his boxes of products the two pictures of the girl wasn't even taken by him but was downloaded from the internet and he used them - those same images were seen on other products as well. Watch his videos. Watch the models or brides, as he is taking their picture - the angle and expressions on their faces are totally different than the ones he shows processed that shows he took them at another date and time. Totally misleading.

When I use it outdoors, it's typically a situation where there is a lot of artificial colored ambient light and deep shadows on the faces. (Think outdoor corporate party.) When I need to get group shot of two to four people the the diffused light through the light sphere is enough to light the faces and still keep the ambiance of the colored light in the background. I'm not saying this is a great device, especially for what they charge for it, but I have found a use for it that works well for me.

Shooting wrote in post #17086629
Mine is a seed holder for my parakeet.

LOL!!

FEChariot wrote in post #16897496
My 1 year old loves to use it as a chew toy.

good tip, but can you also post some photos, so it's easier to understand how to use it that way?

Green Li wrote in post #17086769
good tip, but can you also post some photos, so it's easier to understand how to use it that way?

Sorry the better half has mandated that there will be no posting pictures of the kids online. That one's for me.