Hey Nick,
Good to see you back. I think i'm gonna order up a Clear one this week and see how I like it. They are a little big and goofy looking but if they work i guess that's all that matters.

I'll keep you all posted.

Cris...

I have both the Clear and the Cloud and I like the Clear better also. I tend to use it whenever I use my flash just to help diffuse the light.

In the last issue of Professional Photographer (december 2006, magazin from UK) Simon Stafford writes "I will be putting my money where my mouth is and buing one of each" about Lightsphere.

I got one to experiment with and found it cumbersome and only really useful in any meaningful way in small rooms with white walls. In a large room you are just as well of with an index card rubber banded to the backside of your flash. Save your $50.

Kirk

What I have heard from the pros I have spoken with is that it's really the same as using the Stofen diffuser and not worth the 50.
Ed

Eddiaz00:
What I have heard from the pros I have spoken with is that it's really the same as using the Stofen diffuser and not worth the 50.
Ed

Nah, I like it better than my Stofen. It provides a much larger source of light than the Stofen. The Stofen is great for approximating "bare bulb," though.

I have both the cloud and the clear. The cloud produces more diffusion, at the cost of reduced light output. In either case, the range of effectiveness is rather small. I'd say 10' is really pushing it with a Nikon SB-800.

One of the things that disappointed me was that contrary to Gary's claims, you still need a flash bracket. Keeping the flash on the camera, and rotating the head as he shows didn't eliminate the shadows on the side opposite the flash. It reduced them quite a bit, but I still found them objectionable. And again, the cloud is better at this than the clear, due to the increased diffusion.

Once you get beyond 10 feet, that sucker is just throwing light away. The apparent light source size isn't substantially bigger. My next trials will be with a mini soft-box, such as the one from Lumiquest, but I'm not retiring my flash bracket. In fact, the Lightsphere proved to me that there was no easy way out, and that I had to get a flash bracket.

With the 10' realistic limit of the Lightshere, this isn't something I'll use with "long glass." Shooting down a church aisle, there's nothing but the ceiling to bounce the light the Lightsphere is diffusing, and that's typically a long way up, and a long way back. Yeah, just add a card to throw enough light so the bride and her escort don't end up with "racoon eyes." Leave the Lightsphere for "intimate" working areas, such as the bride's prep, the church foyer, and the like. Even at the reception, the reflective surfaces are too far away to provide sufficient fill light. You want a nice tight area. Remember Gary's video where he used a hotel hallway? Low ceiling, close walls - perfect for the Lightsphere.

I hope this helps. Good luck!