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Camera gear is expensive, there’s no way around it. For many of us, buying new equipment means a choice between item A and item B. If we buy one, the other has to wait a few paychecks. For many people, especially beginner DSLR users, a TTL flash is one of those things. After all, most entry level DSLRs have a built-in flash that works well enough for most situations and a TTL flash can cost nearly as much as the camera body itself. But what does someone in that situation do if they want the look of a bounce flash but only have their camera’s internal flash to work with? Kobre’s Lightscoop was designed as a low cost way to fix that exact problem. You get the look of bounce-flash without the expense of an external TTL flash.
How it Works
Here’s what Kobre has to say about the Lightscoop:
"Lightscoop is a smart low-tech device that creates soft, flattering light by redirecting your camera’s pop-up flash to a ceiling or wall.
Don’t let your convenient little pop-up flash ruin your photos with evil red eye, ugly shadows, hot spots, bleached out faces, underexposed colors, and blurry movement that exist only in your photographs, not in the real world."
Essentially, the Lightscoop is a plastic gadget that attaches to your camera’s hotshoe. The Lightscoop’s main feature is a mirror that sits suspensed over your lens and redirects the light from your camera’s flash. The flash fires, the light hits the mirror, is redirected upwards and then bounces off the ceiling and is again redirected down onto your subject. It’s one of those things that is a bit hard to explain, so I highly suggest looking at the photo and diagram. The whole goal is that you can use the Lightscoop to achieve the softly lit look of bounced flash, without the expense of buying a dedicated hot shoe flash.
Putting the Lightscoop onto your camera is fairly simple—just stick it in your camera’s hotshoe. Then, pop up your flash and use it as you would use a bounced hotshoe flash. For those who are not familiar, successful bounce flash requires a light colored ceiling that isn’t very high. Regular eight foot household ceilings work well, vaulted 15-20 ft ceilings do not. If you want to learn a bit more about why this is, I suggest looking into the “Inverse Square Law”. Otherwise, just accept that you want a light colored ceiling that’s 8-10 ft high in order for bounce flash to work well.
Kobre suggests that you set your ISO at 800 or above, which makes sense because bounce flash is always a less efficient way to use light and internal pop-up flashes are not that powerful. They also suggest that you set your camera to “manual” exposure and use the widest aperture that your lens offers. In my testing with a Canon Rebel T1i, I didn’t find that it was necessary to use the manual mode. I used “Program” mode and the results were fine in most situations. You may need to adjust the flash or overall exposure up a bit depending on your shooting situation. Kobre suggests that you may want to add 1, 2, or even three stops of flash overexposure. To me, that’s a bit high, but again, there are a lot of variables that will affect your settings. Don’t be afraid to adjust if you aren’t seeing the results you want. Overall, due to the weakness of internal pop-up flashes, the tendency is for the images to be darker than you would want. Not so dark that you can’t adjust in post-processing in my opinion, but darker than optimal exposure.
I have to say that the Lightscoop works pretty well. The light is soft and looks virtually the same as light from a bounced hotshoe flash. As I’ve said, and as Kobre’s instructions indicate, the main issue is that there just isn’t enough power from the pop-up flash to make perfect exposures in all situations. However, with a 8-10ft ceiling and a bit of exposure adjustment or post processing, the photos look good. I do have a few issues with the Lightscoop, neither of which should be considered dealbreakers. The first is that there is no easy way to turn your camera vertically and use the Lightscoop. Unlike a hotshoe flash which can be rotated to be pointing at the ceiling no matter which way the camera body is orientated, the Lightscoop always points up from the top of the camera. If you turn the camera vertically, the Lightscoop will now be redirecting the light from the flash out sideways. Yes, before anyone jumps on me about it, you can do bounce flash off a wall. But in real-world shooting, finding a nice white wall within range of your subject is more rare than you would think, particularly if you are shooting candid images. Related to this issue is the fact that, unlike adjustable shoe flashes, the Lightscoop can really only be used when the camera plane is parallel to the ceiling. Pointing up or down will redirect the light on different angles and will cause more of it to be lost—not a helpful thing with an already underpowered flash. Finally, while the Lightscoop’s $30 price is a steal compared to dedicated OEMTTL flashes from Canon, Nikon, etc, it really isn’t that much cheaper than a 3rd party hotshoe flash. While some of these 3rd party flashes claim TTL compatibility, even a simple “auto” flash will bounce well. When viewed in that light, $30 for the Lightscoop might be $30 better spent towards a cheap hotshoe flash. You’ll have more power and the ability to adjust the bounce angle depending on camera orientation.
Bottom Line
Pros
Much cheaper than a dedicated TTL flash, slightly cheaper than a basic hotshoe flash, works well within limits.
Cons
Requires high ISO, based on using underpowered pop-up flash, not really usable with camera vertical, money might be better spent on a cheap hot-shoe flash.
I bought a pair of these and find them great. As my budget does not allow a speedlight to be purchased and the small amount of times I am using flash the lightscoops work very well, even at a much lower ISO than the manufacturer recommends.
I just use a piece of 8.5X11 white paper and folded it into a triangle of sorts. I either hand hold it or use easily removable scotch tape to hold it on for the few times it's used. It doesn't bounce the flash, but is softens the impact, which kinda does the same thing. I've used this method at 125 ISO. Seems to work for me.
