Light Modifiers

[Rick Harris]

Am ready to take the plunge into buying modifiers for doing portraits. I invision mostly 2-6 people (family, corporate, bridal). I have the lights I need but don't know which way to go with modifiers. I like the look a softbox set up gives but know no sizes and if one is better than another. Looks like one of those things you can spend as much as you want. I do have access to a studio, however, I would imagine that I would be shooting on location at homes, offices as well. That said, how much of a pain is setting up 2-3 softboxes on location? Should I be looking at another type of setup?

Soooo, any information and guidence would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help. Rick

[David_Buzzard]

Get a big one for doing studio work, and medium sized unit for locations, and an extra small one for going on battery powered flashes. Photoflex makes a great box that has removable sides, so you can either use it like a conventional box, or lantern type light. One nice thing about soft boxes is that you can pull out one or two stays, and partially collapse the unit to move it around.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[Rick Harris]

David, when you say "big, medium" are you meaning 36x48 and 24x36? WOuld a 36x48 be large enough for six people? Are you suggesting big for main and medium for fill? What about hair light? Thanks for your help.

[michaelnotar]

i have the following at my studio: 2 medium softboxes 24x32, 2 XL SB 54x72" mostly for product, but usefull for large groups, esp. for a hair light, a med strip dome 15x54 for 1-2 person portraits for a hair light. i have fabric grids on the med strip, med SBs, and its the best thing i bought.

the medium softbox is the most versitile. probably the simpliest way to start is with umbrellas, cheap, versitile, and compact.

carfull, 36x48 is a photoflex large and a chimira medium, the 24x32 is a photoflex med and chimira small.

if you want to spend money, im a fan of beauty dishes. i have a speedotron 22 inch, a common size for about $250 with a grid, i use speedo lights. but i also have a mola euro 33" beauty dish. at close to $700, but its an amazing light, i use it all the time. very well enginered, a great quality of light. finally the quality of light i was looking for. it falls off like a hard parabolic, but doesnt produce specular highlights, and it has a very even throw to the light.

[David_Buzzard]

Here is my set up for doing head shots and such. I just set it up in my living room, as I don't do enough studio work to justify a dedicated studio. I did an entire real estate office over the day, so it makes it worth while to set it up.

The bg light is the 36x48 softbox. The short stand (a 'plug' in grip speak) has a background light on it. With white backgrounds, you can change the colour by shifting the colour of the gel on the background light. There's a 52" fold up reflector as a fill source. It's out the frame, but I have a head mounted on a boom stand for a hair light. It's turned right down, and I just put a 'barn door' on the light, closed almost right up to keep the light from spilling onto the subject's face and shoulders. I have the subject sit on a stool, and I have a home depot work stand for the subject to put their elbows on. You should really have a proper posing table, but I couldn't find one for sale in Vancouver, and I found that for $25.00, and it works pretty well. I also use a digital photo target to set the white balance. If you're doing a home studio, it's really important to do an accurate relective white balance test, as your walls aren't a neutral colour, and you can get a crazy colour shift if you just set the camera to 'flash'.

If it's just one or two people in the shot, a relector is a good fill source. If it's more, you need to bring in a fourth light to fill. I couldn't tell you the size of the medium box, but it's about 24x36 inches, and you can peel the sides off so that it's like a huge stro-fen light. I really like beauty dishes, but they show so much detail that unless you've got someone with good skin and make-up, it's going to cause you problems.

Umbrellas are good light sources, but they spill light in every direction. If you're in a small set-up like this, you'll end up with light from your key light overpowering the background light and so on. I've been doing a lot of location work with my SB-800, and I really like using the umbrella with that set up.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

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