Direct Flash can ruin a perfect scene. It can make your subject look like a deer caught in the headlights, blow out her skin tone, leave an ugly shadow behind her, cause red eye, or create an overall unnatural look.

Demb Flash Products created a great, affordable line of alternatives to direct flash called the Flip-It. The Flip-It comes in a variety of sizes, the Photojournalist Flip-It, the smallest model, the Classic Flip-It (which is slightly larger), the Saucer Flip-It, a crossover product with a unique size and shape, and large sizes like the Big Flip-It and the Jumbo Flip-It. Our favorite is the Jumbo Flip-It, as the large white surface area provides great, soft lighting for weddings and portrait sessions. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that every wedding and portrait photographer should own a Jumbo Flip-It. Here’s why.

1) Better Photography – The Jumbo Flip-It creates nice diffused light that’s hard to duplicate, especially at its price range and level of convenience. In photography, we know that bouncing off of walls, reflectors, and other large white surfaces create nice, diffused lighting. Well think of the Flip-It as a miniature wall or reflector. The light travels from the flash, off of the white surface and on to your subject. At the same time, the light from the flash also sprays out and up, bouncing off of surrounding objects and ceilings, filling the rest of the room with great lighting. Here are some examples from a few weddings.

demb flip it
demb flip it
demb flip it

2) Quality – The Flip-It is well made. The hinges are strong and the plastic doesn’t wrinkle or bend.

3) Cost – At $35 dollars, the Demb Jumbo “Flip-It” is well worth the money, especially compared to its competitors like the Gary Fong Lightsphere at $60.

4) Convenience – Another advantage of the Jumbo Flip-It is its size and ease-of-storage. It attaches with velcro and folds flat for storage in a pocket, purse, or camera bag. As all of you on-location photographers know, every inch of space in your camera bag matters, especially for destination gigs. The Flip-It is a class above its bulky competitors when it comes to this aspect.

3) Full Control – You can control the lighting by angling the white reflector on the hinge. Angled more toward your subject produces a stronger, more direct flash, while angled back gives a more diffused, softer light. This is the sort of flexibility that’s hard to find with other flash diffusers.

We’d love to hear your comments below, a well as see your examples of images using the Flip-It!