Gary Fong GF-LSUSTAR Lightsphere Universal Starter Kit

An effective diffuser - would benefit from a rear reflective plate to amplify light thrown forward, although a piece of white paper or card provides a solution. For the money there would be no harm in providing better guides on its use. The attachments are fine as long as the unit is held upright but from a smaller flash unit - Cannon 480 - very prone to fall off if the camera is tilted. It does the job but it is way way too expensive and at a third of the price it would still be providing the manufacturer with a handsome return.

I can understand the reviews saying it is too expensive; nearly £100 for 4 bits of plastic & some velcro straps does seem a bit of a con. But my word it works; really-it's fantastic. I just put it on my brand new flashgun & put it on my D610 for some test shots. Remarkable, smooth, even, flattering light. Brilliant. Buy it.

What a difference with this lightsphere wonderful highly recommended Im just a beginner with my photos trying to improve all the way, have done several weddings, baptisms, millions of family photos but this is a massive improvement

I bought this kit for photographing a wedding and I got great results. For most of my shots I had it facing upward and it gave a good balance to my pictures. Affordable kit as well. Would recommend!

You know what.... I shoot weddings, and for receptions this product does a pretty damn good job!

Ok but tend not to use them much, bulky and not totally impressed with the results

Does what it is suppose to quite good

The Gary Fong Lightsphere looks like a piece of Tupperware and will probably attract exactly that comment from people you bump into. However, its effect on flash photography is nothing short of stunning, and it's now the only flash modifier I carry in my bag, and has been for several years.The problem of camera-top flash is that the light comes from the wrong place if it's your main source of illumination. You can bounce it off a handy ceiling, but it can still be harsh and you lose the catchlights in the eyes.The standard solution is to put on the diffuser that came with your camera and bounce from that, but the results are seldom excellent. Some flashes, such as the  Nikon SB-800 Speedlight  have a flash card that you can use to create your own mini-bounce flash. The results are still far from perfect.Photographer Gary Fong developed the Light Dome (now called Lightsphere -- I don't know why the change) to deliver exactly the right proportion of soft, diffused light directly and bounced diffused light indirectly.You use it in one of three ways:Indoors with a low ceiling, you put the hard top bit on the Lightsphere, mount the whole thing on the flash, and put it on the camera pointing straight up.Indoors with a high ceiling you do the same, except you take off the top.Outdoors you put the top back on and point the whole thing at the subject.What does it do?Essentially you get nice, soft, even lighting with sparkling catchlights in the eyes for the indoor shots, and you get softer lighting with gorgeous catchlights for the outdoor shots, provided there's enough light around for it to work as fill flash. If it's dark, then it will still be somewhat better than undiffused flash, but not amazing.The Lightsphere comes in two kinds -- clear, for larger groups, and frosted, for single portraits.I bought two of the clear kind and one of the frosted kind when they first came out, and they've completely replaced the collection of brollies, big reflectors, manufacturer supplied diffusers and so on that I used to carry around. When used with a plain white ceiling the results are nothing short of amazing.The only downside is that they are big and -- certainly when they were unknown -- used to prompt jolly remarks from other photographers. You see them more often now at press events, but I still get comments from non-photographers, usually referencing Tupperware.--Note on this item: Amazon reviews tend to get attached to different things, so check what you're buying. The Universal Starter Kit (which is the exact item I'm reviewing) contains two Lightspheres, one half-clouded and one clouded, plus two hard inverted domes. If you only have one flash gun this may be a bit overkill, and you might prefer to start with just one Lightsphere. On the other hand, it does give the option of the group or single version.