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If you’ve read our review of Gary Fong’s Lightsphere flash diffuser, you’ll remember that I decided to return mine and set out to build a flash diffuser myself, one which would match the response of the Lightsphere while providing other features and all for a lot less money.

To recap, there were really only two things I disliked about the Lightsphere: its bulkiness and price. And just to clarify, its not that the $49 Mr. Fong charges for the Lightsphere is a lot of money for something that works well and will get plenty of use, but its that I felt that it was way too much for something that closely resembles the food container used by my local Indian food restaurant and also doesn’t fit into my camera bag. The bulkiness of the Lightsphere also led me to think that if such an instrument needs to be large, then it should have a purpose when packed away in my camera bag. That purpose, I realized, should be to protect my Nikon SB 800 flash unit.

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Gallerama visitors and members can now enjoy viewing all gallery slideshows while being able to control the speed and background color. In addition, controls for navigating through the gallery while in Slideshow mode have also been added and include pausing, starting over, skipping and reviewing previous photos. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

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My favorite local photo store - Adorama - recently sent me one of their email newsletters and this particular one happened to highlight an exciting product from the professional photographer and entrepreneur Gary Fong: Lightsphere.

An innovative flash diffuser, the Lightsphere II Inverted Dome System is claimed to produce results rivaling sophisticated studio-lighting setups at a fraction of the cost while being portable enough to carry around anywhere. On Gary’s website you’ll find a number of good videos showing the power of Lightsphere, its variety of applications and performance under different conditions. Gary himself made an appearance at Adorama recently and showcased his product receiving a great response. A member of the staff told me they sold about a hundred of these in a span of 2 hours during and after Gary’s visit!

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I think I know what you’re thinking. The first product review and off all things I pick a ball head? And you’re right. Its an odd choice but it just so happens that I got one of these just this week and am still putting it through the test. Oh, and its not just an ordinary ball head. Its the Markins Q3!

First things first, I bought the ball head directly from Markins although its available elsewhere, including the popular Photo Pro Shop (a part of Nikonians.com). The shipping was inexpensive and the package, which included the ball head and the P200U camera plate (for the Nikon D200 - sold separately) arrived 3 business days later.

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We’re excited to announce that some of Gallerama’s coolest, single-view gallery layouts have been upgraded to include a handy “Zoom” function. Since some of these layouts previously didn’t support viewing of our largest web image size, we’ve added a cool means of getting to them. Look for the little “Zoom In” icon below the photo and give it a try for yourself. Note that once in the Zoom mode, you can continue to browse through the gallery by using the “Previous” and “Next” buttons below the photo.

Check out my Storm King Park gallery to see this in action: http://alekbiotic.gallerama.com/gallery/435