Softer studio light

[donkeymusic]

Hello, up until now i have been shooting high key with families and children as does everyone nowadays but i am also looking at getting models in to try and expand my range.

If i have models in, I don't want the high key look, what can you recommend for me to be getting softer lighting?

Do you i stop metering at f8?

thanks for any advice.

cheers

 

[Richard King]

Softer than what? and what does F8 have to do with it

Soft light options:
Umbrellas
Softboxes
Shooting through a panel of fabric scrim
Using a lastolite pop up background as a large light source

Each have their own qualities and drawbacks

Also, the closer you are to the subject and the bigger the light source, the softer it will be

 

[EOS_JD]

Also, the closer you are to the subject and the bigger the light source, the softer it will be

That answers it. It's all about the modifier and the relative size.

As well as flash power, Aperture controld depth of field. That is very different from softness although a shallow dof can give a soft focus effect.

In the studio, f8 will normally provide enough dof using a standard lens to keep the head of the subject sharp from nose tip back - with the critical sharpness on the eyes. it does not affect the softness of the light.

 

[donkeymusic]

bit of a short description.

I want to work with some models to try and create more atmospheric shoots, and at times the key light at f8 in the studio seems to be very full on. what i meant was to try and create some that appeared more natural.

Does that make sense?

thanks

 

[donkeymusic]

Also, the closer you are to the subject and the bigger the light source, the softer it will be

How does this work, never quite got my head around this, i would have presumed that the further away the softer the light would appear.

Does make sense when you watch professional shoots on tv that the mains lights are always quite close to the subject.

Thanks

 

[Richard King]

The further away the light source the smaller it is relatively

If I stood slightly sideways on one foot in-front of a six foot by six foot softbox, my body is going to be fairly evenly illuminated top top to toe. If the light from one side casts a shadow, the light from the other fills it in

If I stood slightly sideways on one fifty feet away from a six foot by six foot softbox, to are going to see shadows on my face, because the softbox isn't evenly illuminating it, essentially, it has become a "hard light"

Consider the sun - it is massive, but it is a long way a way, and when you see the hard harsh shadows it creates, you can see why we call that hard lighting

If we moved a lot closer to the sun, say stood on the surface of the planet Mercury, the sun would be a softer light source (al be it very bright and hot)

lighting consistency, and shadow definition is simply down to geometry - you have

- size shape and texture of subject
- size of light source
- distance from light source to subject
- directionality (is the light source going to bounce about the room)

You also need to factor in the inverse square law

Draw it on a piece of paper in those terms, and soon you will figure what shadows (umbra, penumbra) and evenness of lighting are all about

 

[EOS_JD]

Richard's description of the Sun is good but the Mercury description doesn't help see it.

The easier way to describe it is to think of the light on a cloudy day.

Although the sun is massive, it provides light from many millions of miles away so is a relatively small and therefore hard light (think dark hard shadows on a bright sunny day). Place some nice fluffy clouds over it to diffuse the light and that diffusion area becomes the light source. The diffused area (the cloud) is far smaller in real terms than the the sun but because the cloud surface is much closer to the subject and therefore much larger relative to the subject, it is in turn much softer.

That's why on a cloudy day we get nice soft shadows and more even consistent light. So you don't need to move to Mercury to move closer to the light source.

Just place some diffusion between your subject and the light and get the diffusion close to your subject. Think perhaps a large window on a sunny day with a diffused voil or the like.

 

[donkeymusic]

Thanks for both of the explanations, they both helped me understand the lighting.
Im my mind i thought the further the away meant the light was softer and it was travelling further and this faded away

 

[EOS_JD]

It does lose a lot of power the further from your subject (see the inverse square law) but as the power goes down you have to compensate to let more light in. That light becomes harder the further away from the subject because it's relatively smaller.