Macro diffusor comparison

In an ongoing fight against harsh light, too many highlights and too high contrast i have been trying to make my own diffusor out of black cardboard, matte transparent plastic, silver, black and transparent duct tape.

Here are 4 images of the Nezara viridula Nymph for comparison.

The first was made with a cheap Ring Flash from Neewer. (Only 67 Euros an Amazon!)
The second with my own diffusor, but with a somewhat transparent Plastic front.
In the third image i replaced the front with a two layers of milky transparent Plastic.
And the fourth is with a beauty softbox from Amazon.

All image where shot with ISO 200, f/9 @ 1/200 sec. Direct out of the camera.
Flash Exposure compensation is +2/3, but with the Neewer Ring Flash it is +1.

Image 1: the Neewer Ring Flash is surprisingly good at removing shadows, better than just having a standard flash on top of the camera, but it is simply too dark with strong highlights on the pronotum.

Image 2: My old diffusor, at the time, had a very transparent front plastic part, so the light is not that diffuse as i suspected. Although the light is right, the contrast seems too high, Black is very black and the highlights are too bright. Shot in RAW - you could save it in Photoshop (PS).

Image 3: I replaced the front of my diffusor with a milky white matte semi transparent plastic. The light is right and the contrast has been cut way back. The highlights are still there, but way smoother. In my eyes the best result.

Image 4: Why bother doing it yourself, when you can buy a Beauty Softbox on Amazon from around 10 Euros. the Result is quite similar to image 2, my own diffusor, but not as good as image 3. Still a bit high on the contrast, but the size of the Softbox is almost twice as big as the diffusor use in image 2 and 3, which isn't something you walk around with that easy outdoors.

One thing to keep in mind, the diffusor works better the closer you get with the diffusor to the subject. Not all live insects likes that and most will try to escape.

I always use an external flash battery pack. This will provide extra power to your flash for really fast recycle times. Mine has 8 AA Batteries, but nowadays there are models with 12 AA Batteries.
The Neewer Ring Flash as well as my old Canon 550EX Flash both have connectors for External Batteries.