Best modifier for feathering

[zafar1]

<p>I am looking for the best modifier to feather light. My objective is to create a light gradient from one side of subject to the other side. I need to create about one to one and a half stop difference from left to right of model in gradual fashion.</p>

<p>I have tried Soft box and it gives very little or no feathering for my need. An umbrella might do it but it is too difficult to precisely control the light placement with it.</p>

<p>Are there any other modifiers that would do the job well (beauty dish?) ?</p>

<p> </p>

[mercedes1]

<p>Pretty much the closer the light is to the subject, the more noticable the light fall off will be. It's used in portraiture a bit and a softbox is quite common. Basically get the softbox as close as physically possible to the subject without getting in the frame.</p>

<p>Another little trick is to angle the box away from the subject a little so the white face of the box will appear as a long and narrow rectangle to the subject. This makes the light just skim across the face of the subject and make it fall off very quickly to back of the head if it was a person, instead of that wrap around effect that softboxs tend to do if real close.</p>

<p>Also if the box is real close then you may find that you can't turn the strobe down far enough for the aperture you want to shoot. I get this a lot and normally use a ND filter to allow the aperture to be openned up where I want it to.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>You may also want to look into a grid for that softbox.</p>

[nathan_stiles]

<p>A grid would be even tighter control-- the opposite of what this post is about.</p>

<p>As Mercedes mentioned, you may not actually need to feather the light to get a gradiant fall off. All of your modifiers w/ a large feather area spill more, it's the nature. As far as "best", they all feather differently, so each is best depending on how you picture it. A shoot through umbrella will have a less rapid fall off than a regular umbrella. A softlight should be less than that, if I recall people's description. The BD is more like a flush faced soft box, as far as the feathering is concerned.</p>

<p>However, I'd not worry about that, and use distance and depth of light to achive what you want.</p>