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#1
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Soft Box Improvisation?
Hi!
I'm starting to experiment with food photography and I would like to improvise a soft box lighting without actually buying a soft box. Would a piece a paper covering a flashlight or a spotlight suffice? Any suggestions? Thanks. |
#2
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Soft Box Improvisation?
I'm starting to experiment with food photography and I would like to improvise a soft box lighting without actually buying a soft box. Would a piece a paper covering a flashlight or a spotlight suffice? Any suggestions? The main point of studio light modifiers isn't to put something between the flash and subject, it isn't really just something more to sell you, to make you look cool. the point is to make a very small light source, the flash tube, seem much larger. a tube with minimal reflector is a very tiny and harsh light source. they used metal reflector bowls cause in the very early days of photography you needed every little bit of light energy to be concentrated and even focused (fresnel lensed spot lights) cause photofloods were relatively weak, film and lenses slow. with flash power we can blast through walls (well I exaggerate) but the thing is, with even a basic monoflash you can hang a sheet a translucent white fabric from the ceiling and shoot a light through and get the effect of a very very large softbox. the back half of a softbox is just a way to make it more efficient, again to avoid wasting all that light splashing around, to reflect it back to the subject. you make scrims by taking that fabric and taping it over some pvc pipe, get two lengths 10 feet long (standard size) and cut 6.5 feet so you now have a 6.5 x 3.5 rectangle, use 4 90' corners and you have a framed scrim panel. run a stretch cord through the pipes and you will have enough strength to hold it together yet be able to pull it apart for packing and keep the loose pieces tied together. the cloth can be found in most fabric stores, called sports nylon. general rule of thumb is that a light source should be twice as big as the subject. I try and try to convince portrait photogs of this. |
#3
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Soft Box Improvisation?
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 06:34:22 GMT, "zeitgeist"
wrote: general rule of thumb is that a light source should be twice as big as the subject. I try and try to convince portrait photogs of this. A 12 foot umbrella to photograph a 6 foot person? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Professional Shop Rat: 14,175 days in a GM plant. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
#4
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Soft Box Improvisation?
"zeitgeist" wrote in message news:OxYvb.281198$Tr4.869516@attbi_s03... general rule of thumb is that a light source should be twice as big as the subject. I try and try to convince portrait photogs of this. Depends on the lighting effect you are looking for and the subject you are photographing. |
#5
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Soft Box Improvisation?
general rule of thumb is that a light source should be twice as big as the subject. I try and try to convince portrait photogs of this. A 12 foot umbrella to photograph a 6 foot person? yes, well, not an umbrella but a 'softbox' which can be a flash head or two behind a curtain, white wall behind, heck just bounce your flash off a side wall. Btw, umbrellas are basically a large form of parabolic reflector meant to force the light towards the subject in a wider field than a spot light, but in typical use are similar in effect to those parabolic reflectors used with photofloods. IE: an 18in flood light was typically used about 3 feet away for a head and shoulders, whereas 36in brollies (typical size when they first came out) were typically used at about 6 feet away. A 12 foot wall of light emulates light from an overhang like a porch, a big window like you find in commercial building lobbies, shade at the penumbra of a large tree and not quite as soft as twilight. You get a very soft forgiving light that allows you to get great tone and detail in the face from the brightest spectrals to the shadow. Most people tend to loose spectrals, and cause their key light is so contrasty they need to add more spectrals on the shadow side, (you know the fill light) and even worse they place it well on the other side from the key light. As a bonus you get fabulous 'depth of light.' try it, youll like it, besides why go to all the trouble to do a set up just like every other photographer in the business. Only a handful of photogs (that I know of) do north light, either flash or an actual north light window, the light used by portrait artists since the invention of the portrait with paints, everybody else acts like it is required to use lighting that is contrasty enough that it needs help with a fill. From the prom shooter to the kiddie pix guy, the passport shooter (well since polaroid took over the business its been the cyclops flash right over the lens) the school picture shooters. this reply is echoed to the z-prophoto mailing list at yahoogroups.com |
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