on camera softbox

Hi Everyone,

Greetings! This is a re-post, i posted it yesterday in wedding forum but got no reply! I shoot mostly East Indian weddings which in most cases take place in grand reception halls. By nature these weddings are not as organized as Western weddings and attended by hundreds of enthusiasts crowds. To overcome the low light scenario it's extremely difficult to mount lights/umbrellas as its often tipped by photo enthusiast crowds or kids regardless sand bags presence. My last event was one of those days where ceiling was about 20 feet high, candle light ambiance and I was struggling with my light stands. I ended up using sb700 manually with high power/iso combo and spent lots of time for post productions.

 

Therefore I was just wondering, could on camera Softbox or Rogue flashbender be any good (for family pictures to be more specific)?? Anyone have any experience or any advise for me? I'd really appreciate if you share, Thanks. RaihanM.

On camera soft boxes sound like a great idea but really don't work that well in my experience--they are still small light sources and don't begin to simulate the larger sources possible with studio flash units. I feel your pain--but don't expect a lot of improvement in the shooting environments that you describe.

On camera soft boxes sound like a great idea but really don't work that well in my experience--they are still small light sources and don't begin to simulate the larger sources possible with studio flash units.

 

+1 to that!

They're tiny and pathetic things that do very little to soften the light.

 

I'd be looking to beef up your speedlight(s). The SB-700 is a whole stop less powerful than the likes of an SB-800, 900, 910 or similar.

There are also much cheaper 3rd party options that offer more power, such as Nissin's Di866 ii, and Godox Ving 860N.

 

Even Nikon's older SB-24, 25, 28, etc. are more powerful than an SB-700, and can still be used in manual or Auto-Aperture mode.

 

One stop more 'power' can make all the difference when bouncing flash. And you don't have to use the ceiling. A light-coloured wall can be equally or more successful.

I've worked with a photographer who uses a softbox mounted on a hand-held pole for in-situ lighting. This requires an assistant to hold, carry, and position the pole-mounted soft box, but it obviates all of the problems with vulnerable light stands or being relegated to only on-camera flash.

Thanks for the comments n suggestions!

There's a lot of different flash modifiers that slip over the front of the flash and do some good jobs softening the light output. But they do cut down on the power a bit so you might want to upgrade the flash to at least an 800 or 900.

 

That said, there's a whole technique to using flashes and it's worthwhile to invest in some education on the subject. Google:

Neil van Niekerk - he's the flash king/wizard teacher. I can't recommend him enough.

There's a lot of different flash modifiers that slip over the front of the flash and do some good jobs softening the light output.

No. There's nothing you can just slip on the front of a speedlight that softens its light worth a damn.

Soft light requires a large area source. There's no getting around that fact.

 

There are devices that scatter and diffuse the output of a speedlight, but they require the proximity of light-coloured reflecting surfaces to have any effect on the light quality; and even then all that happens is the hard-edged shadows get filled slightly. But technically, they don't get softened. That requires a large source area. Lighting 101.

It may be better to do it as rodeo_joe says, but it's by no means impossible to soften the light with a diffuser of some sort. A white hankerchef has always been a way of improvising.

The ones I used(on camera soft boxes) seemed to colorize the image with a tint that is even hard to remove in Photoshop. Imagine going through 1000 images trying to remove the tint. Not all of them do this, but most of them do. The other problem is that you may lose 1/12- 2 1/2 much needed f-stops. These things also have a tendency to drive your AWB crazy, which means random over-exposed, or under-exposed shots.

A white hankerchef has always been a way of improvising.

What? You wave the handkerchief in surrender to the hard-edged shadows and specular highlights?

 

Just sticking some diffusing material in front of 4 square inches of speedlight lens does not make a soft light source.

Just sticking some diffusing material in front of 4 square inches of speedlight lens does not make a soft light source.

 

Insofar as it does not make the source light much larger, true.

 

But a diffuse light source can often be good enough, all the same.

But a diffuse light source can often be good enough, all the same

Explain please JDM, just how sticking a hanky or some other diffusing material in front of a small flash fresnel does anything to the quality of the light except make it dimmer and cover a greater angle?

 

Unless there are some light-coloured reflective surfaces really close to the flash, you'll get an identical look to the un-diffused flash. You have to make the source larger, by bouncing or using a much larger diffuser much further from the flash, in order to significantly alter the character of the light.

 

Do the experiment. Take two consecutive shots, with and without handkerchief, and see if you can detect any difference at all in the hardness of the light.

 

Been there, done that, and totally wasted my time trying stupid little 6" square 'soft boxes' that do nothing except lose a stop of light at normal shooting distances.

 

The handkerchief 'trick' has been bandied about for decades, mostly by old press hacks who ought to know better. It just doesn't work, and has entered the litany of urban legends that have no basis in fact or science.

Edited February 24, 2019 by rodeo_joe|1

Gosh, I must be one of those hacks. Too bad for me:(

This is a soft light source:

This is not:

 

And I don't mean the window behind the flash.

This is also a big and diffused light source for some captures. It's one of the rigs I use for bug macros.

 

 

Two points about this: First, what matters is the size of the light source relative to the object photographed. The reason people use big softboxes for portraits is that they would otherwise have a very small light source relative to the subject. So, for the OP: yes, you need a larger light source, because you will be photographing people from a distance. Bouncing the flash--ideally with a bit of direct flash for highlights--is a common way to do that. It turns the reflecting surface into a large light source.

 

Second, putting a diffusing surface in front of a light source does matter. In doing studio macro work, I now no longer use professional materials; instead, I use two sheets of baking parchment paper. That is also one of the diffusing layers in the rig above. The problem for the OP is that this effect won't be nearly enough.

Second, putting a diffusing surface in front of a light source does matter.

Nobody said it didn't, but putting a diffuser right next to a speedlight fresnel does absolutely nothing to make it a bigger or better light source.

 

The whole point of the fresnel is to effectively expand the light from the tiny flash tube source into a source with the area of the fresnel, and without the loss of light that using a diffuser would entail. In fact the fresnel and silvered reflector increase the light efficiency vastly.

 

The rule of thumb for soft light is that the diagonal of the source area should equal the light-to-subject distance.

Edited February 24, 2019 by rodeo_joe|1