Light modifiers

There are two types of lighting: hard light and soft light. Hard light is generated by small light that will result in a harsh shadow. Soft light is generated by diffusing light using light modifiers to minimise shadow. There are many ways to diffuse light source. These will be discussed as below:

Umbrella
There are many different type of umbrella available in the market. Generally they can be used in two ways. They can be used to “shoot-thru” type which some part of the light is penetrated to the umbrella to the object while the rest is reflected. Or a reflecting type where a piece of cloth is covered on top of the umbrella to bounce most of the light source back to the object. The advantages of using umbrella are:

1. It allows light to be bounced over a large are due to their design but there will be light loss if you are using the “shoot-thru” type.
2. It is cheaper and it is recommended to photographers who want to start up small. You may want to get specially made umbrella that offers “shoot-thru” type or reflecting type.
3. Because of the near circular shape of the umbrella, it can create beautiful catchlight shown in the photo.

However, the only disadvantage of using it is, since it can bounce light over a large area, you will find it hard to control the light. If you want a specific area to be lit, then an umbrella is not recommended.

Softbox
Softbox as the name suggest is box with the interior covered in reflective surface and a piece of white cloth is attached to the front end of the box to soften the light. Softbox offers some advantages over umbrella:
1. You can control the lighting as the light is spread in one direction.
2. You can light up some specific area that you want.

The disadvantages of using softbox are:
1. It is expensive to purchase.
2. Because of the different components needed to assemble the softbox, you may need to handle them with care so as not to miss them.
3. Softbox can create catchlight that are square shape and this will look unnatural in the photo.

To see how the light falls off for both umbrella and softbox, you can refer to Zack Arias website on Umbrella VS Softbox. This will give you some ideas before you made your purchase.

Reflectors
Reflector is used to bounce part of the light to the object. They come in white, silver, gold, black and translucent with various sizes. Reflectors is useful when you want to soften some part of the shadow or you can use it as a fill light by reflecting some part of the main light. You can use reflector to create a catchlight.

Barndoor / Flags
Both flag and barndoor are used to reduce flare resulted from direct light or from large white area. They can be used as a subjective lighting (opposite of reflective lighting), adding shadows to certain part of the subject. Barn door is attached to the lighting such as tungsten, fluorescent and allows you to control the area of light while flag is a black paper attached to a frame which can position anywhere you want to block the light.

Snoots
These modifiers are a funnel like device that restricts the light down to a small focused area of the subject. Their main advantage is to focus light to a small area of the subject. They are mainly used for product photography, but in glamour-style photography they are used to highlight select portions of the body which would otherwise be shadowed without lighting other parts. One advantage to snoots over honeycomb grid is they can be placed closer to the subject from behind angles as the light does not tend to show as easily. One primary disadvantage (can be advantage instead) is the snoot will reduce the light by 2-4 stops.

Honeycomb Grids
These modifiers are a honeycomb like grid that fits in front of the studio lights and are used to restrict the fall of light to the desired subject only. They are not as focused as snoots and come in differing degrees of angle (such as 10, 20, 30 and 40 degree honeycombs) unlike snoots the honeycomb grid does not reduce f-stop (or at least by less then about 1/3 stop), but unlike a snoot can not get as small a spot (example on a particular 20 degree honeycomb will have a minimum of a 7" circle of light at the end of the reflector spreading out from there, while the snoot which also has a 20 degree spread will have about a 2" diameter light so can create a smaller point of light at the subject.

Gels
Gels are useful when you want to change the colour of light in order to create a special effects or mood in the pictures. You can use gels to change the colour temperature of the light if you only have one type of lighting equipment (i.e you have fluorescent and you want to use orange gel to stimulate daylight). Gels come in various colour and is placed on top of your lighting equipment.