Gadgets
$10 Flash Bounce
Need More Embarrassment in Your Life?
Not getting enough gawking from strangers? Do you miss your mom picking at your acne in public? Do you want a sure way to get more attention and ridicule from your photographic peers? Do you also want a way to get better indoor flash portraits on a budget? Read On. I've created a way to help you with all of this.
Need More Light?
Indoor lighting poses some special problems in photography. First and foremost, it's dark! When the aperture of your lens is maxed out, and your slow shutter speed is threatening to make an Impressionistic watercolor painting of your subject, it may be time to use a flash for extra lighting. On most cameras, the built-in flash unit casts light on subjects directly. This usually creates rather harsh, flat lighting on the subject and hard shadows directly behind the subject.
A very good technique to avoid both of these ugly aspects of flash photography is to bounce the flash against a wall or ceiling. The bounced light creates more pleasing, diffuse, directional light. The only caveat is that nearly all on-board camera flash units cannot direct their light any direction but straight forward! A separate flash unit with the tilt and/or swivel feature is necessary, and expenses can sky-rocket.
Get More Light and Better Light.
I set about thinking of inexpensive ways to use my built-in flash (Canon Elan IIe) so that its output would be more pleasing on film. I found and thought of various tricks. A white film canister, slit down the side and its bottom removed, was suggested to me. Putting this over the flash unit was supposed to soften the output. Being a cheap imitation of commerical flash diffusers, this might work. Yet, I was still in search of the elusive flash bounce. I read about using a white card to reflect flash output up. This could certainly work, but with the limited power of the built-in flash, it would be best to lose as little output to the initial reflection as possible. A mirror came to mind.
Bounce Flash for About $10
So, I tinkered around and built a mirror flash bouncer for about US$10. Here's how I did it.
I bought the following items:
| Quantity | Item | Cost | Where |
| 1 | Schwinn bicycle mirror. Clamp-style, adjustable. | $6.99 | Bicycle shop |
| 1 | 5/8 inch x 18 inch 14-GA Hyco Bar (as named by Home Depot) | $0.51 | Hardware store |
| 1 | 1/4 inch x 1/2 inch Machine Screw w/Nut. Package of 5. | $1.29 | Hardware store |
| 1 | 1/4 inch x 1 1/4 inch Fender Washer | $0.12 | Hardware store |
| 2 | 1/8 inch x 1 inch Fender Washer (Optional) | $0.24 | Hardware store |
| 1 | Tennis Racket Replacement Grip (Optional) | $4.99 | Wal-Mart |
| Total Cost | $14.14 |
With the optional items, the total cost actually came out to be more than US$10, but still well under $20. You don't have to buy exactly the same things that I bought. In fact, you probably shouldn't, unless you have a Canon Elan IIe! You do need some basic things—an adjustable mirror, a support bar, a screw that will attach the bar to the camera. You need to measure your own camera to determine appropriate sizes.
Putting it All Together
Assembly is very simple. All you need to do is bend the bar into an "L" shape, making sure to position a hole over your camera's tripod socket. Leave enough room at the bending point to accomodate the bulges and contours of your camera. I trashed my first attempt because I didn't account for the strap ring on the side of my camera! You also need to decide whether you want your bar to stick up on the left or the right. Think about how you hold your camera, and where important buttons are. I put my mirror to the left, so that it was out of the way of my grip and shutter button. The mirror is also easier to bend into position on the left. I also removed short lengths of the bar at the ends so that they didn't stick too far up or out. The dimensions ended up to be about 5.5 inches for the base and 9.25 inches on the side.
Does it Really Work?
To test my mirror flash bouncer, I set up some objects in a dimly lit hallway. There was just a tad of mixed (natural and tungsten) light, but not enough to take available light pictures by hand-holding.
I used a 50 mm f/1.8 lens and Kodak Elite Chrome 100 film. I set the camera to Program Mode, which chose the settings—1/60 seconds, f/2.8.
I increased the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) for the bounce photos, because I wasn't sure how much power would be enough. The light would have to travel a long distance and would be scattered by the ceiling and wall, so some extra power might be needed. My ceiling is 8 feet high. It is an off-white color, with a very rough stucco-like texture.
When I side-bounced my flash, I used a door, which had an off-white matte oil paint. The door was about 2 feet away.
For comparison, I also took pictures using the direct flash and the film canister diffuser trick. I chose to decrease the FEC for the direct and direct-diffused photos because I thought that perhaps a little less power might soften up the output.
| Zero | -1 | -2 | |
| Direct Flash | 
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| Direct Flash with Diffuser | 
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| Zero | +1 | +2 | |
| Flash Bounce Up | 
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| Flash Bounce Side | 
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Success!
Needless to say, the bounce flash was a success. The upward bounced flash produced slightly warm and natural-looking lighting. The side-bounce photos were mostly neutral in tone. I wasn't able to get far back enough in my hallway to include all the objects in the frame in the portrait orientation. If you are curious about the bears, you can take a look at the other side of the FEC +2 setting.
The film canister did not diffuse the built-in flash much at all. The shadows behind the subjects are a very tiny bit softer, but they are still ugly. One noticeable difference produced by the film canister diffuser, however, is a more neutral tone. The blue cast is reduced. In addition, reducing the FEC didn't not soften the light. Instead, the light merely became darker.
How it Doesn't Work
Some time after originally writing this article, I began to better understand the way Canon's EOS TTL flash metering works. The results above are typical of how the flash metering and exposure should work.
In Program (P) mode, the flash provides the main light for the foreground and will quench when it provides enough light to make the subject at the focus point 18% gray. The result is that it is not necessary to increase FEC to provide the built-in flash with "enough power" to achieve bounce. The TTL flash metering will do this automatically, as long as the guide number (for a given set of settings—aperture, film speed, shutter speed) is not exceeded. Thus, adding +1 or +2 FEC will serve only to increase exposure relative to 18% gray at the chosen focus point.
For the same reasons, attempts to "soften the output" by decreasing FEC for the direct flash photos will never be successful when the flash has to provide the main light. Decreasing FEC will only decrease the exposure relative to 18% gray. In other words, the subject will only become darker. Only when the flash serves as the fill light might decreasing the FEC really soften the output.
Going Further
Despite my initial concerns, I've found that a sheet of white cardboard works just as well as a mirror to bounce the flash. It's possible to simply hold the white board with your hand while taking the picture. As long as you have a free hand to hold the bounce material, you do not need to build a bracket.
The built-in flash bounce works equally well at wide angles (~28mm) and telephoto angles (~80mm) as long as the room provides enough bounce surface to scatter and reflect the flash's light back to the subject.
Limitations
This is not meant to replace a true accessory flash unit. A true accessory flash will have more power and features and will allow you to take flash photographs in many more different situations. Nevertheless, if you're biding your time and saving up your money, you can use my idea to bounce your built-in flash in the interim. Naturally, there are limitations to using my contraption.
My current model is somewhat limited in its bounce directions. I can bounce only upward in landscape orientation and sideways in portrait orientation. Adding a few additional "joints" of the ball-and-socket type can solve this problem.
The output of the Canon Elan IIe built-in flash unit is limited. According to the Magic Lantern Guide (Pollock and Richter 1996), the guide number for 100 ISO is 43 in feet (13 in meters). This will limit the distance over which you can bounce your flash. This may also limit you to large apertures. Using faster film may remedy these limitations.
The flash metering is only TTL or A-TTL. Of course, it cannot achieve E-TTL.
Other cameras may differ! I'm confident in the performance of my mirror flash bounce for the Canon Elan IIe and other EOS models. Cameras of other brands, however, may produce better or worse results in any or all of the above factors.
Finally and most notably, it's just plain dorky. It's really hard to guess whether your fellow photographers or lay people will laugh harder. If you are shy about it, you can just use it in the privacy of your own home. You can certainly apply some black paint to camouflage it. If you have nerves of steel and can laugh in the face of kilodollar equipment, step confidently out into the world with my mirror flash bounce. Sew a bright fuzzy sleeve for it!