Photography: Using Softboxes

Video Transcript

"In this segment we are going to talk about soft boxes. The soft box that I have set up is a relatively smaller, it is a small chimera or medium for some other brands. As you can see what I like about soft boxes is the light is soft and it really breaks up the shadow behind her. But it also still contrasting and as you can see it has a nice wrap around her face. There is the shadow on her nose is relatively diffused, but it keeps a nice contrast in there. The one thing, one of the big the problems you can have with the soft boxes you can get a really bad glare on someone wearing glasses. And actually I am just going to have Sandy throw some on to show you what that looks like. As you can see that big white spot in the glasses. That can be a really big problem when you are using the soft box. Sometimes you have use allot of different techniques to get rid of it. Allot of times, sometimes you just have to ask people to take their glasses off. Or you can bring up this other light and get rid of it that way. But that also changes the way the light looks. Another way to get rid of the glare in the glasses is to ask the subject to maybe tilt her head down a little bit. And that actually can change it and then combining that with maybe lifting up the light can actually eliminate the glare substantially. The soft boxes are great for individual portraits also for like a group of two maybe three people at most. The size of the soft box is what is makes really the big difference. The larger the soft box the softer the light is, also the nicer the wrap it will have on the person. The thing I think I like most about the soft box is the light really changes the closer that you bring it in and then the farther that you pull it out. The closer that you bring it intends to give light a little bit more wrap around the subject itself and up in the shadows and when you pull it out it is still soft but you get a little bit harsher shadows it gets a little bit more spotty. But usually as you can see the difference when you bring it in really gets a nice wrap, contrast stays really nice. Makes the subject look really good."