Customer Reviews

Gary Fong AMBDOM AmberDome for LSU and LS2 (Amber)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I use the Amberdome with the Cloud Diffuser Light Sphere for indoor flash portrait photography for one reason: to warm up the cold light from the flash to balance the warmer tungsten (e.g. incandescent) light in the background. The camera must be placed into 'Tungsten' white balance mode. The result is a very natural photo in which the direct light from the flash is subtly blended with the background light. Without the amberdome and your camera set to 'Auto' white balance mode, the subject directly illuminated by the flash will be white-balanced correctly, but the background will be very orange. Some people say to shoot RAW and correct the color in post processing: you cannot easily do so with a single adjustment layer because there are two distinct white temperatures.

To use the Amberdome, I angle my flash upwards at the ceiling and tilted towards my subject slightly. I set my Canon 5D camera to the tungsten white balance (the icon is shaped like an incandescent light bulb). This only works when the ceiling is about 10 feet or lower, as light power diminishes exponentially every foot, and a nearly white ceiling. The bounce light will match the tungsten light in the background, but sometimes I get a green/yellowish tint in the edges of the photo because the ceiling color changes the orange.

I've used the Amberdome indoors in low-light situations. Using the Amberdome helps to preserve the natural lighting in low-light, but the best part is that it lights up the space without blinding everyone in the area. For a neat effect, try dragging the shutter with the Amberdome. Any moving subject will have a warm glow about it. The Amberdome works best with a digital, as it's tough to tell how much warmth it's casting upon your subject - hard to control on an SLR. If you're using a digital, make sure that the white balance is set to tungsten lighting, otherwise, your photos will come out way too warm. The Amberdome is pretty much usless in an high- or mid-light situations, but it's totally worth it if you shoot often in low-lighting.

On my last assignment, I was to shoot a wedding outdoors, however a sudden change in weather forced the ceremony to be indoors. The indoor location was good, however, I was faced with tungsten lighting from some spotlights above. This cast harsh shadows down upon the bride, groom and party. To resolve this, I set up two remote flashes on either side of the stage and used two amberdomes on my two lightsphere universals and set my white-balance to tungsten. The photos turned out beautifully and the happy couple were ecstatic with the end results.

Gary Fong's amberdome saved the day and my wedding shoot. It never hurts to be prepared, and Gary Fong's system makes it compact, light and easy to port around.

Using this outdoors, I was also able to shoot in the rain and capture some great portraits. Using the amberdome again I was able warm up the photos, making it look as if the models were looking into a sunset.

I would recommend this to all professional and semi-professionals. For hobbyists who understand how to handle colour, this is also a good item. However, for the novice-photographer, I would suggest studying up on what these dome colours do to an image and how they change the image you capture first, before using it for the first time.

Remember, it's not just about aiming a camera and pressing the trigger, it's how you can use the lighting to create the magic in a photograph and to prevent post-production retouching of your photos.

Several people have reviewed this product and commented that it cast too warm of a hue (which could be duplicated in post production) this is absolutely true! The purpose that most of us use this device for is to "match" existing light - making our electronic flash's "color" match a dominate ambient light - for instance if you use an electronic flash outside and want to "light up" the face of a subject to soften shadows and do NOT use the amberdome the resulting flash will look too cold compared to everything else in the shot...using the amberdome will allow you to get the proper amount of light on the subject and blend into the ambient light.

By the way, you can use the amberdome in outdoor "golden light" situations and create a beautiful shot - the amberdome will match the golden light very well - in fact I turn by collapsible dome to fire the flash directly through the amberdome at the subject and get great results.

You won't use it for most shots, however when you need to match the right situations - nothing else is nearly as good.

While I think this product is a nice idea, I find that it warms all the images up a bit too much. Especially when it can be warmed in post processing in what I feel is a better way.

Some people, though, may enjoy the feel of those images, but I find them a bit too "faked".

I shoot interiors for Realtors and use the Amberdome whenever I'm shooting a room that is mostly lit by artificial lighting. Whenever I set white balance to 4000K or lower, the Amberdome eliminates the blueish color of the flash. I only wish that I would have purchased this when I originally bought my lightsphere.

When shooting people, I generally like my on camera light sources color temperatures to match the background environment of the location I am shooting in and I bought this to bring the color temperature of the strobe unit to something similar to the interior lighting of homes, restaurants, churches, hotel rooms, and other similarly lit venues. The strobe color temperature, without some kind of warming is too cold and when the person is lit by strobe (bluish) and the surroundings and background lights are in tungsten(yellow-red) it does not look natural. Using this in conjunction with the GFLSC01 LightSphere Collapsible Diffuser warms the subject to more match the background and surroundings.

I think it is a bit too warm and too saturated with color, I would like a bit less of both.

I don't like it for warming skin tones in open shade situations as it leave the backgrounds and surrounding areas not hit by the strobe's light too blue... for these types of situations I prefer doing an overall color correction in post production...or as a camera color balance adjustment by changing the overall color temperature when shooting...

The amber dome is great for certain photographic situations. In the morning sunrise or evening sunset is the best time to use this amber dome. It helps your flash maintain the same color as the sun so your subjects don't look like flash lit them up. It works best when your flash is off camera fired from the side. There typically are not many other times I would use this accessory. The construction is made well and should last a ling time. I use this item in conjunction with the collapsable gary fong.

First of all, this disc is yellow not the proper orange needed to convert daylight to tungsten.

The little snap on amber filter that came with the pro kit is the same color also.

It creates a weird green cast in my photos.

I put a 2 cent daylight to tungsten gel over the flash with the normal gary fong collapsable and it looked much better.

The gel will also balance properly balance the light without a dome.

Don't waste your money.

If you have the light sphere collapsable and do not have this amber dome than you are missing out.
This definately gives you a warmer picture when taking portraits with the flash outdoors.