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Studio portraits: What modifier for what light?

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Santa Claus has you spoiled this year by offering you the studio of your dreams?  A kit of flashes, a backdrop support and even more rolls of paper?  It only remains to push the furniture in your living room out of the way to turn it into studio worthy of the name!

A single point hurts you in spite of all the new material, you do not know what light modifier to choose?

Beauty dish, softbox, stripbox, reflector bowl, umbrellas of all kinds and sizes, flash ring, etc…  It is a bit like choosing a new car, many choices but which really matches my expectations?

No worries, I’d be your dealer today to guide you by showing you the difference in all these modifiers!

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10 Different Lighting Setups Using A single Light And A Single Softbox

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Many times photographers think they are held back by lack of gear. However, having just one strobe and one softbox is more than you need to create so many looks and apply your photography to so many subjects.

Photographer Tony Corbell uses a single light and a softbox to show ten different lighting setups and applications.

Now this is not your usual 3 minutes video, it is a full 22 minutes of cubical distraction. The amount of tips that Tony casually throws is amazing.

Tony uses a big Bowens Gemini 500Pro monoblock with a Lumiair 80×100 softbox. But the same principles apply also when you are using smaller and cheaper lights light strobes. you would have to either raise the ISO or open up the aperture for a softer look.

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Comparing 7 Common Light Modifiers

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Guest post by Robert Mitchell. Hit the bottom of the post to see his links.

When assembling a lighting kit, it’s very difficult to know which modifiers are best for the type of work you want to do, and sometimes you don’t know or are discovering what you want to shoot. There are reflectors, umbrellas, square and rectangular softboxes, octabanks and a wide variety of accessories to shape and alter the quality of light.

So how do you know what’s best for you?

In many cases you don’t. If you have no experience then you don’t have any preferences formed and most of the tech talk is of no use to you and makes little sense. One person’s preference may not at all be what you like and it may not work within your budget.

I’ve chosen 7 common light modifiers of varying sizes and shapes, and I’m using modifiers that are , for the most part, inexpensive. Nothing very small and nothing terribly large. This is not an in-depth review, nor is it a light modifier showdown.

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How To Build A Focusable Parabolic Reflector

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Focusable parabolic reflectors may not be your first lighting modifier as they are big and require a lot (A LOT) of power, but once you start using them it is pretty hard to go back. To top that, they are also pretty expensive. The medium branded ones are around $800 while a top brand like Broncolor will set you back about $2,400.

If you still want to drive test one of those and at the stage where you have more time than money, Dennis Christian put a tutorial together on building one from scratch (or almost scratch….).

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How To Choose The Right Softbox For The Job: Understanding Softbox Size Vs Soft Light

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As Gavin Hoey explains in this informative video tutorial on softboxes, soft light is generally preferred over a hard light when shooting portraits. There are a number of light modifiers that can help achieve soft light, but one of the most commonly used is a softbox. When choosing and setting up the correct softbox for the job, size and distance from the subject will make a huge difference in the softness of light it will distribute.[Read More…]

How To Build And Use A DIY Scrim (Made From A Portable Clothes Hanger)

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I have been planning around trying to build a DIY scrim for about a month now but couldn’t think of a frame where I could start my project. First thing I thought of was making it out of PVC pipes (sadly PVC pipes are not as easy to get here), then thought of using wood for the frame. I put it aside for a while until I found the perfect frame for my new project.

A scrim is not a stand alone unit and you want a light source behind it – either a strobe, a strong continuous light or even the sun. The scrim will diffuse that light (and eat quite a bit of it during the process) into a beautiful soft light.

Normally when I go to the local mall I visit the Japan Store because almost everything there is for P88 ($2USD) and there is a LOT of stuff to choose from, so I was looking around the other day and found a portable clothes hanger for around $5.50 USD. WIN! This would be the perfect frame for my next project. (If you don’t live in the Philippines, fret not, they are pretty cheap in the US too)

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6 Awesome Home Studio Tips: Backdrops To Lights And More

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The folks at the slanted lens are anything but low value so it was kinda surprising to see that many of their setups are actually low-budget DIYs. The short below shows six of those tricks including a plumbing backdrop hanger, a ton of budgety lighting solutions (some of which we have covered in the past, but their softbox is pure budget geniusity) and my favorite, another use for a tarp.

[6 Tips for Setting Up a Home or Office Studio via theslantedlens.com][Read More…]

A Big, Cheap, Solid And Foldable DIY Softbox

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Many people have asked me about the DIY softbox I made a year or so ago — lovingly nicknamed “the ghettobox” — so here it is, finally: The ultimate guide to making your own 30” softbox (that’s about 76cm, you could make it even bigger, though!), that — very important — is solid and portable. Yes, you heard right, you can fold it flat but it’s still solid. Plus: As a bonus you can also hang it from somewhere to save floor space.[Read More…]

Low On Budget? Consider A Desk Lamp + Softbox

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If you read this blog long enough, you know I am a big fan of small strobes. They are portable, relatively cheap, can squeeze some intense light and great for on the go. Key words for this post are relatively cheap.

While you can buy used SBs on eBay for a bit over $100 or a LumoPro for a similar price, you are still in for more than a $100 for lights.

Just saw photog Andy Game setup which has a great answer to the money issue.[Read More…]

Doitall Flash Thingy

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How about creating a thingy that is a bounce card, a softbox and a super bounce card. Nice isn’t it?

Martin Kimeldorf is a regular inventor here on DIYP (with inventions like Portable Backdrop Mount System, the Kimel Bouncer and the dual vertex gel system he is one of the more prolific mind I know). I was not surprised when he came up with a design to the problem presented above. It is a bit rugged and DIY looking, but it does the job. It’s also a great project to get inspiration from, both on what you can do with a flash and how you can do it.

Its all Martin from after the jump.

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