Lighting modifiers with white interiors

treeman

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Having been kicking around studios for a while now, I'm sure I don't remember seeing so many light modifiers with white interiors, I'm sure everything used to be just silver, in the past. As it happens I'm going to be trying out some soft boxes with white interiors this week too, I'm sure I never heard of that before.
Anyway, I was wondering if the appearance of more white stuff is due to digital sensors not being able to render such a large tonal range as film did.
Anyone care to correct me?
 
I don't know the reason for it, but if I was a cynic I might wonder whether a factory in the far east got hold of a job lot of white material that was a lot cheaper than the silver stuff...

Lencarta does a very popular warm white beauty dish that is a bit more forgiving on skin imperfections than the silver one. The difference between the two is quite distinct and can be clearly seen in this article in the Learning Centre.

And again, the quality of the light from a silver reflective umbrella is much harsher and more specular than the light from a white reflective umbrella.

But there isn't much difference in the effects produced by softboxes with white interiors. I think it was Chimera who brought out the first softbox with a white interior (after all, they invented softboxes in the first place) and having had one each of their medium (4' x 3') softboxes in both white and silver, I can tell you that the light from the white one is slightly softer than the light from the silver one, and that it loses about 1/5th of a stop more light.
 
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