Flash Diffuser for R7

[woolno]

Any thoughts on a good flash diffuser for use with an RF 100 mm Macro on an R7, using, probably, a Speedlite?

 

[AntonLargiader]

I think it depends on what you are trying to do. Product photography, use a lightbox. Indoors, bounce it. If it has to be straight-on, the best option is probably a speedlight softbox. What are you shooting?

 

[woolno]

Bugs!

 

[Kerro]

Any thoughts on a good flash diffuser for use with an RF 100 mm Macro on an R7, using, probably, a Speedlite?

As you have not said what you are doing with it, I assume it is macro. I built myself some homemade diffusers out of 1 inch PVC water pipe and eBay bought diffuser material. I have my speedlights on stands, off camera behind the said diffusers and they work a treat. I made them this size to be able to stand on the floor next to a table for Macro or stand on the table for Product photography with my Godox DE 400 strobes. I built four of these for way less than $100.

 

[AntonLargiader]

Get a collapsible lightbox. It's super useful for putting even light on something small and also having a totally clean background. They often come with a shiny floor, so you can get a reflective effect if you want. Inexpensive and easy to store.

IMO they are even better with off-camera flash because you can get the light stronger on one side for a bit more of an interesting look, but you can certainly use them with hotshot flash.

 

[Archibald]

I use on-camera flash with a diffuser and snoot for hand-held photography of bugs. That fan-shaped white sheet on the lens is translucent plastic. Works great.

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[Archibald]

Here is a honeybee taken with a fan-shaped diffuser and snoot similar to the one depicted above.

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And a Yellowjacket.

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[Stephen]

Any thoughts on a good flash diffuser for use with an RF 100 mm Macro on an R7, using, probably, a Speedlite?

If the flash is used in macro photography, most of the macro photographers/photography YouTubers (Michael Widell, Stewart Wood, Jamie Spensley) recommend Cygnustech diffuser and Godox V350 (GN 36, manual mode, iso 100, 1/4-1/8 power output), in 1x - 2x magnification

Recently, they switched to the Olympus camera because it has in-camera focus stacking with flash and higher overall magnification.......

You can find their camera gears, setup, flash comparison, and diffuser comparison on YouTube videos

 

[Kerro]

I use on-camera flash with a diffuser and snoot for hand-held photography of bugs. That fan-shaped white sheet on the lens is translucent plastic. Works great.

View attachment 21998

Love your diffuser Ed. It's amazing what we can come up with. Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[AntonLargiader]

Archibald's rig looks great! Totally portable. My thoughts about the lightbox were not aimed at nature shots, obviously, but rather more technical macro shots.

BTW in-camera focus stacking is really neat. I'm not sure when Canon started adding it as a feature but the R3 and R7 have it. I haven't tried but I believe it will work with some Canon flashes, too. I know I can get 10~15 fps out of my 430EXii at low power.

 

[Stephen]

Archibald's rig looks great! Totally portable. My thoughts about the lightbox were not aimed at nature shots, obviously, but rather more technical macro shots.

BTW in-camera focus stacking is really neat. I'm not sure when Canon started adding it as a feature but the R3 and R7 have it. I haven't tried but I believe it will work with some Canon flashes, too. I know I can get 10~15 fps out of my 430EXii at low power.

For Canon, flash (Speedlite EL-1) only can work in focus stacking mode with R3 and other models don't allow flash under this mode.
The focus stacking mode in Canon is a great feature since it provides in-camera depth composite jpg photos. If it fails, we could repeat the process immediately. Moreover, the speed for stacking is very fast and sometimes better than the stacked photo using Digital Photo Professional.
I have been using it many times, you can find my photos in the Macro Shooter forum
Although the in-camera focus stacking mode does not allow the use of flash, it has fast FPS, sometimes it is more important, especially on windy days and when small insects hanging on a thin grass stem.

Uncropped image, handheld in-camera focus stacking (10 shots CRaw), natural light. Post-processed with DPP and Denoise AI
The image is not very clear as a relatively slow shutter speed was used (1/125s)

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In-camera jpg photo generated from focus stacking (focus bracketing/depth composite enabled), uncropped unedited photo.

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