The equipment I use are:

Olympus E-410 DSLR camera
Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm f3.5 Macro lens
Sigma 18-50mm f3.5-5.6 DC lens
Olympus FL-36 flash gun

Out of the 2 lens the Sigma 18-50mm f3.5-5.6 DC lens is my main lens that I use when I go out taking photo’s in clubs and bars

You can see some of the photo’s that I have taken on my FaceBook group: http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?gid=45358251081

Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

Thank you
Soyef

I tried Gary Fong whaletail diffuser on Sigma 500, puffer on built-in. Not bright enough for ISO 100 and 21mm lens.

Wax paper gives enough diffusion for an 8″ Clorox bottle bottom used as bounce reflector. Wax paper will need help from an intermediate lens for straight flash diffuser. I’m trying for the best of both worlds as far as direct light and bounce or diffusion. Packman’s explanation is helping me to understand widening the light source evenly, and then aim to lose as little light as possible while widening evenly. Unfortunately the easiest ways of widening the light source evenly also throw away a lot of light. Karl’s bounce card works as well as anything I’ve seen, in terms of efficiency, which is the problem.

I have no one but myself to blame for not experimenting enough. Next time! :)

- Scott

I’ll try to use two remote flash heads. One hand held an arms length to my left or right. The other i’ll use as a crossing backlight opposite the one I hold. For the back light i’ll put it on the floor or hang it off something in the room (trying to hide it directly behind my subject) or sometime I get someone to hold it. If i’m in a smaller room or theres anything bounceable i’ll use a hard key light like I described an arms length to my side and then the other I’ll bounce as a soft fill light.

The other major thing is that I’ll drag the shutter to get a soft ambient fill, usually .5 to 1.5 seconds exposure time. I set the apperature to between about f/8 for my flash at about 6 feet to f/2 at 20 feet.

I do have a couple different 1×1 foot soft box attachment for the flashes but they only soften (i.e. wrap light arround the subject when the flash is at most 3 feet from the subject and that is often too close so I don’t move them much.

A friend recently started using a a thin white 3 foot long tube wraped arround the head. I havent seen the results but I do imagine that at a distance of up 6 feet this should create a nice soft wrap if held horizontally. It’s just a strange and unweildy thing to have to carry, but i’m gonna try it eventually.

http://www.packman.fotopic.net
http://www.nightclubs.fotopic.net

Size matters. Distance too.

Softness as it relates to light is all about light coming from a larger source. A bounce that is 2 inches is about the same as a bounce that is 4 inches. You really need something larger that a foot or 3 feet to make any significant difference than a 6 inch bounce. I come from the motion picture world as a grip. We use diffusion all the time and size does matter. A 2 foot size diffusion at 4 feet subject difference is equal to a 4 foot diffusion material at a 8 foot distance (maybe even at 6 feet because of the inverse square rule)

The reason a small bounce card on a camera gives any lighting effect is because a direct flash strobe light acts almost like a pinpoint coming from the element in the flash head(with a minimum of diffusion coming from the mostly clear lens on the head of the flash unit). So a four inch bounce card is about ten times the size of a direct flashes point of origin.

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/359/0770l1140318rh2.jpg

Thanks a bunch. :)

For some pictures I would have liked a little less flash power, e.g. the 3rd picture here in the row. I don’t know how this would be in practise but I could imagine that with complete manual flash settings you have best control, which would mean that you would have to care about distance, back ground levels and manual exposure settings at the same time.

Of course, that night club theme is a rather academic application for me, but I enjoy it anyways…

About Mac only Raw Developer , the latest Sigma Photo Pro 2.3 is NOT bad. You can download it from http://www.sigma-sd14.com (in case you didn’t know). You should also give Darkroom a try. Fun software.

Of course I’d also need a flashgun able to bounce off the ceiling and was considering the Sigma again, mostly due to price I’m afraid. It was then I logged on to dpreview to see if I could see any reviews or threads on the flashgun and came across your images from your first night and I was blown away by the quality. Of course the best thing was that it ticked off the boxes SD 14, 30mm F1.4 prime, Sigma 500 series flashgun – so my hesitant stance evaporated and I ordered the SD14 the very next day.

Unfortunately I don’t have an Apple computer so I can’t use Raw developer – but hey can’t have everything in life. I’m assuming with a bit of work PS or Lightroom may be used to get similar results. But anyway my point is drifted, which is to say Sigma should have you on commission. Keep up the good work!