Hi--

>> My point should have been made more clearly: fill is fine, but the
>> "diffusers" just waste battery power (there is nothing to bounce the
>> bulk of the light emitted from the flash off of [the sky is a poor
>> reflector ;-])
>> Hope This Helps

>ya know, after thinking about this some more, I realized, you may not
>want all the light from the flash on the subject, hence, kicking only
>part of the light onto the subject using a reflector. Not everyone wants
>to have an equal flash to ambient light exposure. But not everyone has a
>flash with all kinds of compensation controls either. I consistently set
>my flash to lower than the actual exposure, because I don't want to
>flatten out the subject.
>Rick Rick Berk

When I am using 1600 ASA film and wide apertures for near subjects, I
use a styrofoam cup over the flash to allow me to use fill-levels from a powerful flash, but you often see press photographers shooting not under those conditions using techniques/apparatus that only serve to waste batteries and lengthen recycle times. I would guess that most of those
photographers at the Olympics do have fancy gear, and even if they don't,
the "diffusers" would only reduce the amount of light hitting the subject
in manual-flash mode (REALLY cumbersome for hectic work!). I suspect that
they use the "diffusers" often because they do not understand flash
very well, and "everybody else uses them".
David