Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce for the Nikon SB-400 Flash

There's a much cheaper way to bounce...

I own an SB400 flash and looked at this diffuser attachment. First like the diffusion adapter that comes with the SB800 it's a bit bulky and takes excess space. Secondly it costs. Thirdly you can lose it.



Much easier way to bounce and diffuse an SB400: tape a white business card to the top of the flash so it hangs off the front. Bend the card at the middle upward to a 45 degree angle. Tilt the flash tube upward 90 degrees so it dumps the light into this mini white card. Shoot the photo.



You can leave the card on the flash fold it up and stick the whole thing in the SB400's cute little carrying case. Zero cost. Replace it when it wears out.



By the way the SB400 in a room with an 8-10' white ceiling works really well by simply rotating the flash tube up 90 degrees. By design the exact amount of light emits from the edge of the SB400 flash when it's pointed upward. This gives a perfect amount of fill light and the very important eye highlight. You really only need the diffuser or this whitecard trick if the ceiling is so high the flash runs out of gas. The "before and after" photos shown here would look exactly the same if you simply point the flash tube toward the ceiling.



I also found that pointing it up at less than 90 degrees allows too much light to go forward and overexposes the upper half of the frame. If I use the tilting flash at all it's always up the full 90 degrees.More detail ...