Softbox or Diffuser brolly

[SwissJon]

Now I've got my nice SB800 (No, you're not seeing the crappy photos I took in order to get this! It was a trade off between taking photos and disturbing the audience, and in my opinion, they're crap.. The Circus seems to love them, but I don't. )

But I'm a complete novice when it comes to flash.. And I had this silly thought that a little plastic diffuser on the flash itself would be enough.. I was wrong..

Anyway, I'm now looking at options to diffuse the flash better, and from what I understand, there are 3 options:

1) Soft Boxes
2) Reflective umbrellas
3) White umberellas

I'll usually want to be taking photos in a large area of fast moving people with really bad lighting when they're often 20 feet in the air.. But occasionally I'll want to take portraits..

Suggestions? My feeling is that I'm best off with either white brollies or silvered ones..

[MrJones]

the only difference is the contrast you'll get in your photos.
the soft box will be.. well.. soft.
the white umbrellas are in the middle
and the reflective ones are more contrasty then the rest.

basically, the further the diffuser from the flash, the softer the lightning gets.

don't forget your camera has a sync speed of about 1/200 or 1/250.. if your objects are moving really fast you'll need good ambient lights as well.

[SwissJon]

Thanks.. I think I need some training to get to grips with this flash.. It's not as easy as I first thought. I read somewhere that the Sync speed was 1/60th.. 1/200 will make much nicer photos as I can use my 80-200 F/2.8 wide open and get some nice blurred backgrounds.

I've already got some reflective brollies, I think I'll get some white ones... I prefer the light to be a little softer as the Circus tends to use coloured lights, and with the flash on the opposite side to the coloured light, the performer tends to be coloured on one side with a nice halo effect. Very nice if I can get it right..

Right.. Practice practice practice.

[scootermcq]

One other big difference is the control of the light. An umbrella casts light in a much more uncontrolled fashion, so you get bounce off the floor, walls, ceiling etc. When you use a shoot through, even more so... it is cast in all directions. This is not good or bad, just what it is. This does mean, if you find lighting you like in one room and move to another, set up the exact same way, you will get different lighting depending on ceiling height, wall distance etc. Softboxes (especially with grids) tend to go where they are aimed and lets you get more consistant lighting.

I tend to use umbrellas for groups and softboxes for singles or couples.

[BigFuzzy]

Jon, I always recommend Strobist.com. Takes a while to get through everything but you'll be thankful you did.

One thing to remember since you already know f/stops and shutterspeed and iso is this simple rule (and you should always shoot in manual with this stuff):

f/stop controls your flash exposure
shutterspeed controls your ambient light

If your flash is too bright, make your aperture smaller and the opposite for too little flash

If your background (ie ambient) light is too bright you want a faster shutter speed and if too dark a slower shutter speed. Carry this on a cheat sheet and you'll start thinking abou this as second nature.

then you just have to get creative with your light positioning.
oh, and positioning also is relevant to brightness but also with softness..but I'll let you read about that, what I put above is a good starting point.

Please tell us you're planning on shooting off-camera?

[BigFuzzy]

Great images Scott!

[scootermcq]

Originally Posted by BigFuzzy

Great images Scott!

We can thank Zack Arias for those.... I just linked to his blog.

[SwissJon]

All the same, thanks Scott.. It gives me a much clearer idea of what I'm after.. Looks like shoot through brollies are the way forward.

Thanks BF.. The aperture/speed usage makes a lot of sense to me.. I was already adjusting the aperture because the photos were coming out over exposed, I hadn't thought of adjusting the speed to make the background lighter/darker.

Ah reading, my favourite thing as always, brilliant replies.

LoL. One day you lot will make a real photographer out of me!

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by SwissJon

LoL. One day you lot will make a real photographer out of me!

Hopefully I can make myself one first, then I'll worry about you.

[OsmosisStudios]

I think of a softbox as a soft spotlight, and an umbrellas a light grenade.