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Useful Photography Tip

Useful Photography Tip #158: Don’t Discount the Bounce Card on Your Flash

Chris Gampat
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03/22/2016
1 Min read
Model: Bec Fordyce
Model: Bec Fordyce

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Consider the fact that years ago, all photographers using a flash were encouraged to stop using the little bounce card and wide angle diffuser in favor of something like the Rogue FlashBender series of modifiers. If you’ve been using those or other modifiers, you probably haven’t really thought twice about two things that can really help your flash output control.

One of them is the wide angle diffuser: spreading light over a larger area can make it look softer in certain situations.

The second one is the little bounce card. If often can bounce just enough light into an area to give off a really nice effect. That’s how I created the image above with model Bec Fordyce. The direct flash head was way too powerful even when the power was really turned down. But when the flash output was bounced off of a little card, it created hard shadows that still worked with the overall image and effect.

So don’t ever discount all the tools that you have available to you: and also be sure to keep them in mind accordingly.

bounce card flash flashbender
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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