A comparison between 2 very different softboxes

This is by no means complete or definitive, it's just a quick & dirty video

comparison of the features and performance of a standard professional softbox

and a much cheaper unbranded one.

The results surprised me, maybe they'll surprise you too.

Please click on the link. Unfortunately PN doesn't allow video files to be

embedded in posts.

Comments/questions welcome, as always.

hi,

It look like you got the older Chimera Pro flat front soft box and one of those cheap korean Octa, a few comments about your test:

1. It is not surprising to find the cheaper Octa box having more even light output across center to the edge. You are comparing a rectangular box to Octa box. The flash tube and head reflector are round in shape so you would expect there is more light fall-off at the corners of the more expensive rectangular softbox. (The further the radial distance away from the center of the softbox, the lower the light output). Think of a strip softbox, you would expect large difference between the center and corner f stops. It is normal that round softbox has more even light output across the front diffuser regardless of built quality.

2. Even the cheap octa has higher output, it doesn't mean it is better. It could that it uses thinner diffusion fabrics.

I have both Chimera Super Pro Plus rectangular softboxes (recessed front diffuser)and the cheaper Chimera Pro II strip boxes(flat front). The built quality of the Super Pro Plus is way better than the cheaper Pro II series ( thicker fabric, allow use to use fabric grids and barndoors).

I doubt the cheap e-bay Octa will be as durable as the more expensive ones. Tears may develope with heavy use as they use cheaper and thinner fabrics and less strong sewing. I am quite happy with my Elinchrom 135mm Octa; it is much cheaper than the Octa Chimera but built quality is good.

Hi Sing, Thanks for your comments.

Yes, the higher efficiency of the cheaper box can be explained by thinner diffusers and/or by more efficient reflection from the softbox walls, but it's difficult to see any difference in the thickness of the fabric, although certainly the wall reflection is a bit more efficient. I'm wondering too how much light is being lost due to fabric yellowing in the older softbox.

Yes, of course radial distance is relevant, but I did tests (not shown in the video) at various points other than the corners too, and found fairly major differences. This surprised me. The best design IMO is the Elinchrom 'Lightbank' where the flash head points backwards.

You may very well be right about the quality of materials and sewing, the materials look fine to me and so does the sewing, but only time will tell. Compared to a few others I've seen, this one is extremely good. As I never need to assemble/disassemble softboxes I'll probably never find out if there are problems with materials/build quality :-)

Yes, the Chimera is old. It's been a very useful tool and I have absolutely no complaint with it. I just feel that the cheap octa, with it's excellent real-world test results, good design and efficient performance, is a very useful tool and well worth considering.

I point I didn't mention in the video, although it's visible, is that the cheap octa has a proper speedring; some of the cheap ones just have thumbscrews, which from what I've seen are best avoided.

Garry,

A very old technique for judging continuous lighting is to stand at the subject's location, look at the light source(s) then put on dark sunglasses or look through a piece of heavy ND (so that the moment you put the sunglasses on you can see the distribution of the light at the source(s) before your eyes accomodate to the new level). It shows you more than numbers can, useful as they are. It is also essential for understanding how bright the lights will appear to the actors, of course.

You can do the same for flash using a digital camera: take a picture of the sources from the subject's viewpoint, with a suitable amount of ND (it can be a lighting gel or gels - the quality is unimportant). I find it to be a good teaching aid for making the link between the size, shape, directionality and evenness of the source etc to how the image looks - sometimes you want even, soft sources, sometimes you want uneven soft sources.

I notice that in the video you appear to use a dome on your incident meter. When assessing light sources I think that it is always worth considering whether the most appropriate receptor is a dome (cardioid response - allowing a large influence on the reading by the sideways illumination) or a disk (or shielded dome; cosine response, with little or no influence by the sideways illumination).

Best, Helen

Hi Garry,

That's a nice comparision. There might be a few other things to consider when comparing those two light sources. As Helen says, I think a flat disc or even aperture disk on the light meter might be more accurate than a dome in terms of reading a small area of the softbox. A spot meter might be even more useful pressed right against the front screen.

You can see in the octobox from ebay that the internal diffuser is very close to the front screen and allows a lot of direct light at the edges to reach the front screen which would help make the light more even and perhaps a little less diffused than the Chimera. A silver interior in the abay special would make it more efficient as well.

That's not to say that the quality of light from the ebay octobox isn't good, just that it's like comparing apples to oranges because of the different designs rather than just the difference in price.

I'm liking the video thing for these comparisons.

Helen,

Constructive comments as always.

You're right about cosine -v- cardioid measurement and I did think about it but I used a dome for 2 reasons:

1. I feel that most people have a dome but most don't have a flat diffuser, didn't want anyone to feel excluded from carrying out their own tests.

2. The flat diffuser tests bounced around a bit more and perhaps would have been misleading.

Also, the actual figures aren't that important, what I was trying to measure was the distribution of light in as close to real terms as I could get, fairly easily.

*sometimes you want even, soft sources, sometimes you want uneven soft sources.* - Completely agree. I'm forever banging on about this in the lighting forum, pointing out that there is no such thing as one tool that does everything.

Brooks,

Again I agree with you - this is an oranges -v- apples comparison but I thought it might be useful none the less. It would be good to have compared high end -v- low end in the same size and shape but I had to make do with what I had available.

I'm finding video to be very useful - but it takes 10 times as long as you'd expect to get anything usable :-)

in case someone wants to buy one? ;-)

Thanks for the video analysis. Looks to me like it's a much better buy than surprisingly a Chimera which I thought was supposed to be "the" standard in softboxes. Have you tried asking Chimera for a replacement for the yellowing cover? It certainly doesn't look good for them to have a material that yellows over time like that...

Ken Yee,

I don't think that it's necessarily a better buy than the Chimera, but it does seem to be very good value for money.

Considering that I've had the Chimera for at least 10 years I don't think I should complain about the yellowing of the front diffuser. The problem really is the design, it's part of the overall construction and can't be replaced without cutting out the old one and sewing in a new one.

As for wanting to buy one of the 'cheapies' I don't sell them, I bought it from a German Company who advertised (once) on UK Ebay. I bought it for a specific job and didn't want to spend GDP ?500 on the Elinchrom version, good though it is.

Unfortunately all their product info was in German, maybe they assumed that because most Germans speak English that most British can speak German....

And when I'd bought it they sent me a series of emails in German, with English translatins that looked like something from Babelfish:-)

Garry, I think you need to compare quality of light these soft boxes produce. From my

experience in shooting fashion, cheap boxes give very soft light without any punch so

black fabrics are completely black even on bright photographs. The light spread is also

very wide! It can be advantage of course in creative lighting.

I had occasion to shoot fashion in China and compare different Chinese softboxes with

Chimeras. Fabric lit with Chimeras looks incredibly good, clothes look more expensive;)

I did an experiment once, shooting with Chimera as a key light and Chinese softbox as a

fill and have got really beautiful light!

BTW, in China you get copies of almost every most expensive light modifier. At least they

look the same but quality of light is not the same (and the price is looooow ;)).

Igor,

What you say is right. The light from the Chimera is much crisper, it's easy to combine both low overall contrast and fairly high local contrast in the same shot, and although I've only done a few shots with the cheapie it's plain that it doesn't have that capability.

But I'll admit to being a bit disappointed with the responses so far; nearly all from skilled, experienced people who've made valid critiscms of my testing criteria and approach. I thought I made it clear that this isn't supposed to be a scientific test and it makes no claim to be definitive in any way.

I've tried to do 2 different things here...

1. Use a video short as a medium, to see whether a 7 minute video is more effective than 7-minutes worth of reading and still photos.

2. Give what I'd hoped would be a useful overview of a very popular type of softbox, marketed to the home user.

The impression I get, from reading forum posts, is that most of the people starting out in portrait photography are looking for soft lighting, period. As they gain experience they will hopefully appreciate the value of harder lighting and gain the skills needed to combine hard and soft light together when it's appropriate, control contrast and so on - but right now they want soft lighting. This softbox produces soft lighting and I hoped that this overview would be useful because the softbox produces CHEAP soft lighting and in a fairly controlled way.

I did think about going into a lot more detail and of including test stills but I decided against it for a couple of reasons:

a. Video upload limits - this video runs for over 7 minutes and takes up 74Mb of space in it's compressed form (it started off as 1.5Gb) and there are limits both the the length of video I can upload for free and the attention span of most users.

b. I felt that this should be nothing more than an overview - I didn't feel that too much technical content would be helpful to the target audience and I didn't feel that a lot of technical content would be helpful to, or needed by, people like you.

Maybe I got it wrong - but it's been a useful learning experience for me :-)

Garry,

I think your comparison is very helpful, especially for anyone new to studio lighting. Some people might not be familiar with these kinds of light modifiers at all. Just showing how these things are made is helpful. And, many people are looking for cheaper alternatives to expensive lighting gear.

I do like the video for it's ease of communicating. For some people it easier to learn by seeing and hearing rather than by reading.

I think maybe some people, me included, were looking for more detail and technical points being covered in your video, mainly because you've done so much of that and done it so well in your previous Lighting Themes.

Now I realize that that wasn't your intent and I think you're right. A simple presentation comparing two similar yet different soft light modifiers at different price points is a valuable thing for many people reading this Lighting Forum. So I'd say you've done a good thing with this video that's much appreciated.

Garry, your overview is great! We could see that unbranded boxes are better and better.

But we just motivate you to test them one next to the other during shooting! ;) I would

love to see it. I have only bowens softboxes and one elinchorm octa in my studio but think

about purchasing huge unbranded octa for the price of 10 astia films;)

*I have only bowens softboxes and one elinchorm octa in my studio*

It would have been much better if I had compared this one to the Elinhrom Octa instead of to the Chimera - the only problem is that I don't have one... :-(

Garry - time to buy one! (just kidding;)))

I leave soon for couple of weeks but when I come back and buy this cheap octa I will

compare it with Elinchrom.