On 31 Jul 2002 01:05:00 GMT, russbutner@aol.com (russbutner) wrote:

>I shoot with the flash above the camera, covered with one layer of white
>handkerchief, and always get softer, more natural resutls. No red eye, or funky
>shadows. Only 1 stop light loss.

If you did a careful "side-by-side" test, with and
without the handkerchief, at normal distances, I would
be very surprised if you saw ANY difference in the results.
The above is a common myth. Flash softness depends on
the light source size (relatively unchanged by the
handkerchief, as it is also unchanged by the bounce cards
you see photojournalists using outdoors...;-), and the
light source distance from the subject and background -
"diffusion" has nothing to do with it - but size and
angles do...