Flash Diffusers

[beanbag]

I need to buy a diffuser for my 430EX flash before I head out to a wedding this coming October.

I've been told to buy a STO-FEN OM-EW adapter which is fine, but this costs £18, versus the generic diffusers on eBay costing £4.

I understand there are some things that are cheap for a reason, but seriously.....how can the cheap generic brand be any different to a STO-FEN product? It's a piece of fitted translucent plastic....right???

Please correct me if I'm wrong and should be going for the more expensive product. If not, I'll go for the cheap one as it's £14 cheaper which is quite significant......

[VxDuncan]

I have one of the "white sock" type off ebay. Works really well giving nice soft light. Bare in mind that the softness of the light is proportional to the size of the light source (hence harsh shadows from the small sun in the sky, big diffuse light when a big cloud goes in front of it). Therefore the bigger you can make the light source, the softer the light (think softbox). Obviously there's a trade off with range (power) and recycle times.