You know that transparent plastic thingie in your flash, that you can pull out to cover the flash surface? Many of you think this is a softening device. If you think this: wrong. It isn’t a softener. Don’t use it for that. Waste of energy—literally.

So what is it?

Question: What is the difference between the following two photos?

Hint: I used a 16mm lens (full frame camera. This is like a 10mm lens for a crop camera).

Answer:

Can you see that the flash is concentrated in a small circle in photo 1?

Well… you know that when you zoom, or change lenses, the flash changes its zoom, right?  But the widest flash zoom setting is 24mm, and I shot at 16mm. That is the top picture. As you can see, the zoom circle is too small for the picture.

In the bottom picture, I pulled out that plastic “wide angle adapter”, the transparent plastic square you can pull out to cover the front (not the white sheet). As said, this is not a softener; it is merely the 14mm adapter”. The zoom device for wider than 24mm. It makes the beam wider, see picture 2.

That’s all: when you zoom wider than 24mm, pull out the wide angle adapter. It does not soften; it widens.


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