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DIY: 12" gold/silver reflector as a flash bounce.

I have an overview view of this reflector on YouTube. I have a small 12 inch Promaster reflector that has silver on one side and gold on the other. I also have a few Rogue filter gel rubber bands (2 work a lot better than one in this case). Put them together and it makes a pretty serviceable flash bounce.


If you are interested in this product, find it on Amazon here. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases! 

Why I had never tried this before I don’t know…

Basically strapping the reflector to the flash. Makes it multi-purpose.

Check out the image below for a quick test of the setup:

The Promaster reflector in its case.


There are a lot of options added with a simple small reflector.


A few things to note:
  • The built-in bounce card also had the plastic diffusion panel covering the flash. In this case with a small room I think it worked a bit better than it would in most circumstances.
  • The cloth diffuser/reflector has been my go-to accessory for the flash. I have used that at many events.

I think the reflector turned out really well. Shadows are pretty soft and lighting in general is more even less harsh than the others. The camera was in a balanced flash mode and in aperture priority. Normally I’d use manual for a test, but this worked out just fine. In the case of the mini softbox, you can see how much light it wasted and how useless it generally is.

I think I’ll be using the reflector at a convention next weekend. One added benefit is that with the gold side I can counteract the large amount of tungsten lighting that is often in hotels.
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