Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

This piece of equipment is great for shooting outdoor portraits in shady conditions or incandescent light. Be sure to set white balance to 3200k. Helps bring a nice skin tone, especially to very pale skin without overkill.

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

The Amberdome is a must if you are going to do indoor flash portraiture or just plain old point and shoot stuff. You will notice the difference in skin tones.

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

The Amber Dome works a little differently for PENTAX. For Canon, the Amber Dome works pretty much exactly as advertised. Just change the white balance to Tungsten and you're set. For PENTAX, changing the white balance to Tungsten when you have the Amber Dome attached, doesn't exactly do the trick, especially on lower ISOs.

For Canon, it works as advertised. For PENTAX, many times there is no need to put set the white balance to Tungsten. Keep it in Auto White Balance (AWB) or set a Custom White Balance, or customize you Tungsten or Flash balance themselves. I find keeping it on Auto White Balance it the best. Simple. ;-)

It was explained on the website that since Canon and Nikon cameras flash tend to have a cold cast, the Amber Dome was made for those instances. To warm things up. Fair enough. But that's on a Canon or Nikon camera. On PENTAX cameras, it seems exactly the opposite. Putting the Amber Dome on and changing the white balance to Tungsten gives everything a COLD cast, similar to a Canon camera without the Amber Dome, and sometimes colder. :-/

Since all the white balance settings (Daylight, Tungsten, Flash, and so on) on a PENTAX K10D are customizable in of themselves and not preset, I found that setting a Custom white balance with the Amber Dome can do the trick for the PENTAX K10D. But MOST of the time, especially for lower ISOs, just leaving the white balance on Auto makes things work fine when you have the Amber Dome attached. PENTAX just does white balance differently. Unlike other cameras it seems, PENTAX Auto white balance doesn't try to make white things "white". It renders them closer to how they more or less "are" to your eyes in reality. For the Lightsphere with the Amber Dome, it works out just fine, but in my experiences, ONLY with lower ISOs.

For PENTAX cameras, it isn't told that for each shooting mode Aperture Priority, Manual, Program, etc, handle white balance differently. Having the same Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO and white balance can/will render a DIFFERENT photo depending on which shooting mode you are in. Aperture Priority with the same settings, with a Tungsten white balance with the Amber Dome will be MUCH different than Manual mode with the same exact settings and Tungsten white balance. On Manual mode, setting a Tungsten balance for the Amber Dome is right. On any other shooting mode, setting it to Tungsten is WRONG. You MUST set the white balance to Tungsten in Manual mode. But in the other modes, just leave it on Auto and you'll be fine.

It's odd, but it works pretty good once you get the hang of it. You'll have to work with it to get it going for PENTAX.

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

I have the Gary Fong cloudsphere, the chrome dome add-on, and now the amber dome. The cloudsphere is REALLY GOOD! It helps SO MUCH to diffuse the flash, works especially well indoors, where it can diffuse and bounce off walls and ceilings.

I tested out the amberdome, and it does seem to work, but I will need to really think it through to pull it out and use it when I need it.

The idea is that it makes the flash more yellowy, to go along with yellowy indoor lighting, and then you have both foreground and background with yellowy light, except that you set your white balance to compensate for this to get better, less yellowy light. Without having both foreground and background consistent, you would be stuck in terms of white balance.

You can also use it to help the flash match up with ambient sunset lighting (and go with the yellow tones).

On my camera, the white balance choice for tungsten is not available when the unit is set to an external flash. So, my plan is to set a custom white balance using the amberdome, and then everything will look OK (not yellow). I will need to experiment more to see how this all pans out, but it looks good so far.

If you don't have the main piece of equipment - the Gary Fong lightsphere cloud, I highly recommend that!! And, then the amberdome as an optional accessory.

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

I just purchased this product a month ago, and I won't shoot indoors without it. Used mostly on my kids in the house, it's so easy. Put it on go to tungsten and "bingo".

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

Previous reviewer is using it wrong or something, because it works exactly as advertised. If yours falls off, contact the manufacturer - I know Gary stands behind his products. This is exactly what you need to compensate for the heavy tungsten background for event photography. I bought two so I'd never be without it.

Comments about Gary Fong Gary Fong Amberdome, Light Warming Accessory for the Lightsphere.:

The Amberdome simply does not fit the Lightsphere. It is far too loose and won't stay in place. [...]The concept is very good but the product needs more refinement.