Macro Photography Lighting – Flash Diffusor Test and Review 2022 – How Good is the "Pople Shield"?
Hi, everyone. Long time, no video from me.
Sorry for the absence
and thanks to everyone who was concerned
and wrote me a message.
My name is Wolf Amri
@wolf.amri on Instagram and today
I will talk about an awesome tool
that I tested for a while now.
The pope shield flash diffuser.
Spoiler alert
if you’re looking for a Christmas present,
this might get interesting.
In case you’re into macro photography,
you probably have realized
that lighting a subject
isn’t always particularly easy.
If you use available light,
you will soon get into high ISO levels,
even if you shoot your lens
at low F numbers,
which would additionally result
in a very shallow focus.
If you decide to combat that
with your speed light,
you get pretty bad looking results.
There are other options available,
like a ring flash, but
you need to get really close with them
to get good looking results.
Otherwise,
they will create subpar results.
Luckily, a man
from my neighboring country, Slovakia,
decided to fight those shortcomings
and created a diffuser for on camera,
speed lights or even
I usually don’t do product reviews,
but I found this one
could be really helpful
for all the macro photographers out there
who are looking for a good solution
to light their macro shots.
first thing’s first, my biggest concern
when I saw
this tool was particularly
insects would immediately flee.
When I pop this rather
big macro diffuser right into their face.
To my surprise, that was not the case.
If anything,
it would even do the opposite,
which I would have never expected a mantis
that I photographed
even wanted to climb it. Now that we know
that our insects will stay where they are,
what are the advantages of flash
and particularly a flash diffuser?
When shooting macro,
you need a rather fast shutter
speed to not introduce motion blur,
either by the subject moving.
Often, wind is creating an issue there,
but also due to camera shake.
Additionally,
you usually want a rather big
f number to get a decent depth of focus.
Both will reduce the amount of light
that will reach your sensor,
and therefore you have to raise the gain,
(which is ISO) raising
the gain, however, comes
with the known side effects,
noise and reduced dynamic range.
You surely know that
if you follow my channel,
if you didn’t so far, this is your chance
to hit the Subscribe button.
OK, let’s have a look at these images
shot between ISO 1000 and 2000.
You might not see much noise in the video.
Maybe if we zoom in a bit,
but it’s definitely there.
And these images were shot
with rather high end equipment
with entry level cameras,
you will get a lot more noise.
Beside that, despite that high ISO,
the F numbers are still rather low,
not giving me
all that much depth of focus,
which is rather important
in most macro shots.
If you haven’t been confused by people
telling you to learn the exposure triangle,
by the way, as a fighter
against the exposure triangle, I will soon
have awesome news for you. So stay tuned.
So if you haven’t been confused
by those people, you know that
the real components of exposure
are not shutter speed, aperture and ISO,
but rather scene brightness, shutter
speed and aperture.
Now what if we work on this part here,
(scene brightness)
instead of just raising the gain?
Remember,
that was ISO, so by using the pope shield
along with my speed light,
I am able to raise scene brightness.
And there is in fact, so much additional
light that I can not only lower the gain,
for example, from ISO 1600 to ISO 100,
but I can additionally raise the aperture
to f/16,
giving me a lot more depth of focus.
And besides that,
we get some outstandingly beautiful light
because the pope shield macro diffuser softens
the light of the speed light,
just like a large soft
box would soften the light for portraits.
Why is that softening of the light
so important, and why can’t you just use
a speed light without a flash diffuser
for your macro shots
to showcase that,
I made a few tests for you.
I waited for weeks to find a dead insect
in our garden that was not totally rotten.
I’m not a fan of killing animals
in general, and definitely not
for the sake of photographing them.
You will soon see that dead
animals don’t look nearly as good as live
animals anyway,
and I prefer to shoot them in “action”.
But for better comparison,
I wanted a shot that I can repeat over
and over
without the insect moving or flying away.
I finally found a dead wasp,
That only missed a leg,
but looked good otherwise
and prepared it to getting photographed.
We have a lot of wasps in the garden.
The good guys that don’t come
to eat your barbecue and drink your juice.
So we let them be. Beside making
great models for using the pope shield.
They even have the advantage
that they keep the nasty ones,
the distance. In autumn
they usually leave their nests.
And I took these from under our table
and I used to place the wasp on.
Long story short, if you’re not allergic
against wasp stings, chances
are that you have the nice guys too,
and they may actually protect you,
so don’t kill them.
Back to my experiment,
I set this up and started to photograph
with an on camera speed light.
I used my Godox V1,
which has a round head that gives you
a light spread
Further down rather than just horizontal.
Nevertheless,
most of its power is still horizontal
and will basically shoot
over your subject.
Beside that, it is a rather
small light source coming from
A not all that great angle
creating hard shadows.
Camera settings
1/200sec shutter speed
f/18 aperture ISO 100.
Full power flash
and I got this rather crappy result.
Nothing to call home about.
Let’s now at the pope shield flash diffuser,
including their amazing roof.
Dang!
Quite a difference.
Despite the added diffusion layer,
it is quite a bit brighter
than the barebulb flash.
Reason for that is the roof
that will bounce the light that would
otherwise be lost back to the diffuser.
To tell you how much difference
that really makes, I used a light meter
and the readings I got
was that the pope shield with the roof
is 2/3 stop brighter
than the bare bulb flash.
And the pope shield without the roof is
one stop darker than the bare bulb flash.
So there is quite a difference.
But as I already mentioned,
a far bigger reason
for getting one of these flash diffusers
than just the light output
is the beauty of the light.
Compare the wasp with the barebulb flash
to the wars with the Pope Shield.
These shots are still boring,
though I told you I like live insects much
better.
So let’s check out a few images
that I shot outdoors with living insects.
The light that you get
is just an amazingly beautiful.
So what pope shield would I recommend?
There are a few options.
The pope shield basic that you screw on to
the front of your lens just like a filter.
Before that, you need to attach the flash
diffuser with two small screws.
The diffuser can be had in different
densities.
The basic is rather dense,
and it’s a lot of light.
So personally, I’d go with a Pope
Shield Opal form composite
unless you have an extremely powerful
flash. Talking about power.
Of course, you can also use the pope
shield with the camera’s built in flash.
Let me know in the comments
if you want me to meter that for you.
OK, but then there is another option
for the pope shield.
The magnetic holder,
instead of constantly mounting
and mounting the pope shield
by using the lenses filter threat,
you can get the magnetic version.
Personally, I prefer that, but if you want
to save money, the output is the same.
Just the way it is mounted is different.
A bonus for the magnetic holder
beside being able to remove the flash
diffusor more easily
is that you can get some of these magnets
and then place a Raynox macro conversion
lens between these two parts.
That will give you a lot
higher magnification of your subject,
but you will lose a bit of light
because most of the light comes from
this area and will pass your subject
if it’s very close. For insects
that can create
and not 100% perfect result,
but it’s still way better
than without the diffuser.
For example, for flowers,
that’s not a big issue
if you always use the raynox
macro conversion filter with a macro lens.
A ring flash might
give you brighter results, but personally,
I’m not a big fan of the way
the ring flash looks, because particularly
if you’re not using a raynox
macro converter,
your subject will not be that close
and the image will get that “on camera
flash look” compared to the pope shield.
Flash diffusor
That has to do with the light falloff,
but I will get to flash
photography in general
soon on this channel, so stay tuned.
Beside the different light,
the flash diffuser is cheaper,
which is quite a bonus.
However, if you want to know
which ring flash I used, it’s a godox
link in the description,
just like the link to popeshield.com.
A few more notes
regarding the Pope Shield.
It’s not metal, but plastic and handmade.
Don’t expect a fancy finish, you know,
for example, from Apple products.
What counts for me,
though, are the results,
and they are pretty amazing.
And that’s it for today.
I’ll end this video
with one more comparison shot
this time a flower pope shield, a flash
diffuser with roof
versus on camera flash versus
pope shield flash diffuser without roof.
I can’t wait for next spring or summer
to get even more insects
and flowers in front of my camera.
See you next time!
