Studio lighting question...

[raamakants]

Hi, I have one question today.

If someone have limited budget to buy only one light modifier for portfolio and fashion shoots, which option he should go for?

#1: Beauty Dish 70 cm
#2: Softbox Octa 135 cm
#3: Softbox Quadra 100x100 cm

All 3 modifiers have almost same price.

Thanks for advance for your help.

[zona5101]

the octa.

beauty dishes are awesome but they aren't easy modifiers to use nor do they work well with every face. They have a harder light than a softbox.

The square box is fine, no real down side, I'd pick the octa only because of the catch light shape it will give.

[Doug Sundseth]

Agreed on the octa. It's nice and big, so if you use it close to your subject you'll get controllable soft light. If you were shooting product instead/in addition, I'd consider a largish rectangular softbox instead, because it allows you to change the hardness of the light a bit by rotating the box, but the basically circular catchlight is nice for portraits.

[KellyB69]

That depends on your style. I would choose a modifier similar to the Elinchrom Deep Octa as a compromise between the Beauty Dish and Octa.

[raamakants]

Thanks Zona, Doug and Kelly.

[scootermcq]

Originally Posted by zona5101

The square box is fine, no real down side, I'd pick the octa only because of the catch light shape it will give.

+1 with what Bruce said. One of my favorite modifiers.

[scootermcq]

Here is a pic with a square softbox. I used this as a b4 & after example on an eye edit, but it does show the catch light for you.

[Professional]

This is really a subjective decision, i may use all of the modifiers and get decent nice results!
I have an octa and it was my favorite light modifier until i got the beauty dish, the BD made it nice for me, it give me harsh hard light for some shots which i like but i bought sock for it, and here it made everything different, with sock i can get same soft lights as with softbox/octa, some may say it will not gave same soft light, but from what i shoot i get all soft light, as long you put any sock or white material diffuser in front of the light source it will soften the light, and the sock is same as the softbox/octa/umbrella material made of.

And why i prefer BD is because its size, the Octa i have is big [1.5m], can't be folded unless i fold the bars very tight, same with the softboxes, BD doesn't take big space as with softboxes/octa.

[scootermcq]

Um, no.

The larger the light source the softer the light. If your octa is double or more the size of your BD, you are going to get softer light if they are the same distance from the subject. That's physics, not heresay. With a title like "professional" I am taken back with you providing a broad statement like that without examples or fact to back it up.

[Professional]

Originally Posted by scootermcq

Um, no.

The larger the light source the softer the light. If your octa is double or more the size of your BD, you are going to get softer light if they are the same distance from the subject. That's physics, not heresay. With a title like "professional" I am taken back with you providing a broad statement like that without examples or fact to back it up.

Well, no disagreement there.

I just didn't mention about the modifiers size or distances, umbrella can give soft light because it is more bounced spread out or that shoot-thru, in all cases because the size of modifiers it will not be always the reason, as i said, i prefer beauty dish because of the weight not because it gives softer light, i didn't mention that BD will give softer light at all, i just said it will give similar or closer soft light, does closer or similar means the exact of the same?