Customer Reviews

Lumiquest LQ-051D Soft Screen Pop-Up Digital Camera Flash Diffuser

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Looking at the reviews some love this and some find it so-so. I think the real difference in experience depends on your camera.

The Nikon D80 built-in flash juts forward more than the flash on the camera shown. The result is that the flash is pushed right up against the diffuser screen. If the screen was further from the flash, I am sure it would work better.

As it is, this does not really work well for my Nikon D80.

However, for my older 35mm SLR, a Nikon N70, this works well because there is sufficient distance between the flash and the screen.

Bottom line: If you have a Nikon D80, this will not help much.

What a great product. I purchase this item before I went on a weekend trip to visit a friend and the pictures came out perfect. If you have a slr camera and you can control the flash output, this is a must have. I was gonna buy an external flash for my olympus E-500, but after purchasing this item I've changed my mind. I only wanted the external flash to bounce the light off the ceiling to have a more natural look. I really didn't need the zoom feature of the flash gun. I just wanted pleasing light for the typical family picture. I must say, after experimenting with this diffuser, I no longer need the speedlight. All my indoor photos are come out great. Check out my group picture. I had my camera set to Shutter priority mode: 1/20 sec, F.No. 3.6, Flash: 2nd curtain slow sync, flash exp: + 2.0 at ISO 100. My lens was set at 16.0 mm from about ten feet away. I increase the flash exposure to try to illuminate as much of the scene as I could. I think it came out good, almost like I bounced the flash off of the ceiling. I use the slow snyc 2nd curtain so i could capture the light coming off of the lamp. Please comment if this helped your decision. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT!

As this product was advertised to be designed for the Nikon cameras, I was a little hesitatnt to get it for my Canon Rebel XTi.

But the price was good and several of the reviews implied that it would work with other cameras' flashes; so I took a chance.

It works great! It even includes instructions for what you need to do to trim the part of the diffuser into the hot-shoe of the Canon Rebel XTi's. The Canon Rebel XTi (maybe others, too) hot-shoe has a very small micro-switch right at the anterior end of the hot-shoe's right channel that, if depressed, disables the on-camera flash unit. So you have to trip a very small little square of the diffuser's hot-shoe insert to make sure that the little micro-switch doesn't get inadvertantly depressed.

When I first go the diffuser, in great haste to try it out, I had neglected to do that little trimming. The result was the my on-camer flash refused to work. At first I was frustrated and just little angry. Then, with a little experimenting, I found out that I could get the flash to work if i didn't push the diffuser's tab so far into the hot-shoe.

That got me to pondering if there might some sage words of wisdom in the instructions (which I am natorioulsly bad about *not* readin) and low 'n behold, there were very nice, clear, and definitive instructions for exactly how to use the difusser with my Rebel.

A couple of little snips with some scissors and everything was perfect.

I have now taken about 200 pictures using this little device and I can say that it is truly amazing! It folds flat and fits nicely and without bulk into my shoulder camear case; so I have this little difusser with me at all times.

I normally use an off-camera flash and difussers on it; but at times it is just not practical to use that off-camera flash. This little difuser really fills in the gap and my flash photos have taken a noticable and pleasant turn for the better.

I would gladly and heartily recommend this diffuser to anyone looking for a difusser for their on-camera flash.

I'm glad that I didn't spend much on this diffuser for my built-in flash for my D80. This product not only diffused the flash, but also eliminated its effectiveness overall. Rather than getting some sort've soft light effect with this diffuser, I ended up getting underexposed shots (even with the flash strength boosted up to 1.0+). Thanks to the mediocre results I got from this product, I managed to just stick with my SB-400 in conjunction with an omnibounce diffuser. The pictures advertising this product look better than the product that you actually get. What you get is a plasticky/flimsy piece of material with velcro stickers to help attach it to your camera. Very disappointing indeed.

What a terrible piece of equipment! First, it you have to VELCRO it to your camera, putting adhesive goo on your hotshoe. If you try tilting your camera, it falls off because of the poor fit. It is just a pain to use- make one yourself and save some grief and money.

This product is affordable, portable and easy to use but it does very little. The tones are warmed a bit, but the shadows remain quite harsh. I get a better result by placing a sheet of rigid translucent plastic in front of the flash. Also, the front attachment loop tends to pop off on my Canon 30D.

This device does what it's supposed to do: diffuse the flash output coming from the built-in flash. The biggest difference can be seen in indoor shots where a straight flash produces harsh shadows; this will soften it a little. Personally, I'm not a big fan of indoor flash photography, but I am now prone to use my flash more because of this. This isn't meant for the enthusiast or professional photographer; it offers no flexibility. For that, you will need an external flash and a dome diffuser.

After having tested this out I am simply amazed at the image quality--I used to *hate* using flash but with this I am eager to start using it again. The fact that it was $11 makes it that much better.

I had to trim the matchboard slightly as to not trigger the hotshoe switch in my canon 300d, as a result it's far more easier to slide in and out. I find the velcro fit works better than trying to loop it over the nameplate.

t's a terrible waste of your bult in flash to not have this always ready.

I just bought this for my new Pentax K100D because I was looking for a way to get the most out of my camera's built-in flash. The problem with built-in flashes is, that they emit light almost parallel to the optical axis of the lens, which produces a very harsh and cold bluish tint and extreme speculiar highlights on the subject. A diffuser remedies this somewhat by breaking up the straight light beam from the flash into different directions.

The LumiQuest On-Camera Soft Screen Diffuser is essentially a piece of plastic. It has a tongue on one side that is supposed to fit into the hot shoe flash mount of your camera. The other end fits over the name plate on the front, covering the built-in flash. The tongue needed some adjustment with scissors to fit into the Pentax' shoe, and the fit on the nameplate is somewhat flimsy. A velcro strip is included which should give more stability, or to cover those camera models which do not have the nameplate to attach to.
I tried it out immediately and especially with portraits, the results were very pleasing. Without the diffuser, I got the dreaded blue-white flash ghost faces. With the diffuser, skin tones were much more natural and glare was reduced substantially.
My only nitpick: My fingers had this nasty rubber smell after handling it. I hope it will go away after some use.

This product looks exactly as pictured and hooks onto my Nikon D40 easily. It does improve the on-board flash, however I still decided to purchase a speed flash for even more improvement.
Give it a try, though. It was a good step between just the on-board flash and the purchase of a speed flash.