SOME PHOTOBLOGGING: I still love the Nikon D300, which I’ve now had for about nine months. I used it to take photos for my Popular Mechanics piece on the Clayton I-House, and I had occasion to use some accessories I don’t use much. (The exterior photo is a PR handout — the I-House I toured was in a less photogenic location. The interior shots are mine.)

Outside the studio setting, I generally despise flash photography — it tends to flatten things out, and I much prefer to shoot available-light even if the available light isn’t that great. But sometimes you need a flash, and I have a Nikon SB-800. (The newer version is the SB-900 but I don’t use flash enough to upgrade, and the 800 is a hell of a flash).

A great flash is still a flash, though. But inside the I-House I had to take wide-angle photos (I was using the 12-24 ultrawide zoom) in a sizable space, and had to contend with very bright sunlight slanting in through the windows as it was a brilliantly clear winter day outside. My favorite flash is a bare-bulb setup, but the (cheap!) Gary Fong Lightsphere diffuser that fits on top of the flash makes a very close second. I held the flash above and to the side of the camera with the diffuser attached and the light was nice — filling in shadows and helping to overcome the effect of the bright sunlight without being overpowering.

Here’s an outtake, which shows the flash in use in the reflection on the upper right.

I haven’t used ’em, but there are also diffusers for point-and-shoot cameras and for the little pop-up flash on most digital SLRs. I suppose they’d help, though in both cases the flashes are weak enough that if you diffuse ’em I imagine there isn’t a lot of light left.