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modifiers

Here’s how to figure out what size and shape of softbox you should buy

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Very early on in the journey of a photographer’s transition to flash, particularly studio strobes, the first question we find ourselves asking is “what modifiers should I use?” Actually, the first question is probably “what’s a modifier?” which is then followed by the other one. You start to do a little Googling and searching around retailers, and you discover softboxes. There are so many different shapes and sizes out there, though. Which is the right one?

Well, the fact is that there is no objectively right or wrong softbox. They all exist because they’re all useful. They’re just all useful in different ways and each present a different appearance of light only our subject, depending on how you use them. In this video, David Bergman (and Dean Edwards) take an almost 20-minute tour around every size and shape of softbox you can imagine illustrating what they do.

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Watch: Comparing small vs large softboxes to help you decide which you should buy

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There’s a moment that comes to everybody who eventually starts breaking away from using solely natural light and moving towards artificial lights to give you a bit more control and consistency. Whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker or YouTuber, you’re going to one day have to decide on what to buy to be your first, or perhaps only softbox.

In this video, Sam Holland walks us through the differences between a hard bare light, a small softbox and a large softbox to let us see the kind of light it produces as well as the benefits of each type of hard, slightly soft and very soft light. In the context of Sam’s video, it’s largely based on the YouTube or presenter style lighting with just a single modifier, but which deserves your money?

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Lighting setup: Modifying the sun for natural light portraits

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I live in the U.K., so offering natural light portraits to my clients is far from a smart choice. We have almost no clue when or even if the sun is going to come out and help us on a shoot here in Britain, but for those rare moments where the sun does bother to show up on set, it’s definitely worth having a few techniques up your sleeve to enable you to work with it, rather than against it.

For those of you living in parts of the world where the indigenous population don’t have the pallor of wet tissue paper, the sun is probably a staple light source in your workflow. But whether you live in Norway or L.A., we all need to modify that sun in some way to either avoid washed out and flat images, or the dreaded squinting model. This article looks at a popular light controlling technique often used in the studio and brings it outdoors to give your daylight portraits a more refined look.

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This is my favourite $1 lighting modifier

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I’ve always been drawn to interesting looking light. The simple, soft and flat light of softboxes and other standard modifiers rarely hold my attention and I’ve often felt like that softbox lighting doesn’t exist outside of the studio. It’s always looked a little too clinical for me.

We’re shown interesting light all of the time when we’re observing daylight. Dappled light as it falls through leaves, dancing sparkles of light on water, rays of light through buildings and other structures, but we rarely try and bring that interesting looking light into the studio. In fact, many of us chase and covet this idea of ‘perfect’ light from a generic modifier and although there is certainly a time and a place for that, today I’d like to share a lighting technique that is a little more visually engaging.

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Can you get away with shooting without light modifiers?

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When we talk about studio lighting, we always talk about light modifiers as well. They’re an integral part of using artificial lighting, but does it mean you should use them absolutely all the time? In this video from Adorama, Mark Wallace addresses this topic through a set of examples. He takes photos in his studio with different modifiers to show you what each of them does, so you can see for yourself whether or not you can get away with omitting them.

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Food photographers, upgrade your modifiers before you upgrade anything else

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You’ve been into photography for a while, you’ve upgraded your skills, and it’s time to upgrade your gear. If you ask me, that’s always exciting, but it can also be stressful: what should you upgrade first? In this video, Scott Choucino discusses this topic and helps you choose between your lens, camera, light, or modifier. And to some of you, the answer may be surprising.

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The DOP Choice Universal Snapbag is a softbox you can mount to any light with barndoors

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There are a lot of LED panels out there these days with no real access to add modifiers. Sure, there are some that are Bowens mount that let you use the same sorts of things you’d use with strobes, but for panels, not so much. There are also a lot of Fresnels out there, that can be a pain to attach softboxes to as well. DOP Choice’s Universal Snapbag solves that problem by attaching directly to the barndoors on the front of the light. We spoke with DOP Choice at IBC 2019 to find out more.

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Here are 17 light modifiers compared and how they affect your portraits

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No matter what kind of photography you prefer, there are so many light modifiers to choose from and give your photos the look you want. A wide choice is a great thing, but it can also be confusing. To help you out, Scott Choucino has compared as many as 17 of light modifiers in his studio. So, let’s see in his video how different light modifiers work and how they affect your images.

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5 modifiers for photographers on the move

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A little while ago I was teaching one of my lighting workshops and one of the attendees was looking to implement some of the set-ups I was sharing into his workflow. Seems simple enough right? Well it turns out this photographer was a Formula 1 trackside shooter that needed to get portraits of drivers and crew. As you may well imagine, there is limited time to setup a photoshoot in a busy pit-lane on race-day, so he was after lighting modifiers that would be suitable for his slightly more ‘run-and-gun’ portraits.

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How to make & use a single DIY globe modifier for simple, stunning portraits

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It’s not often I get to shoot very simple, clean white light shots, but in a recent shoot the model asked if she could get some updated ‘Polaroids’. For those of you not familiar with the term when used in reference to a model shoot, it’s actually not the now obsolete and ludicrously expensive single-shot film, but a request for very basic portraits of the model for their agency. This ‘Polaroid’ term is a relic from the analogue film days and it essentially now means shots that are un-retouched and with the model wearing very little makeup.

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