Exercise 38 Softening the Light

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take two photographs one where the subject was light by a bare bulb or flash and the second where the same subject was light by a diffused bulb or
Where: Inside the house, during the day with the outside light blocked by blackout curtains.
When: During the day.
How: I setup the still life with a flash off to one side, photographed once with the bare light and then with the diffused light.

This did not go as expected as the first time I did this exercise the light from the studio light was so bright that there was little difference between the two photographs. I took several days trying to find the little differences between the two images before abandoning the idea and starting again.

The second time I used a small square desktop white box to diffuse the light through one side of the box, this two failed as again the difference between the two photographs was negligible.

I then decided to use less light and I tried a small flash head remotely triggered off camera. While this light up the subject the differences were little due to the fact that the white box was diffusing the light too much.

Finally using the same white box I took off one side and using the same small flash head I took a number of photographs until I was reasonably happy with the bare bulb result. I could still see a lot of white burnout, but at least I could see the subject clearly, I then used a disposable paper tissue to cover the head of the flash to diffuse the light. This work and I could finally see the difference between the two images.

The first attempt.

A small china statue given to us a long time ago; It is quite wide and long and so I thought that as it had a lot of relief that it would be a good subject.

Bare Bulb

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 62mm (35mm equivalent 93mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



Diffused Bulb

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 62mm (35mm equivalent 93mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200m lens



While I can see a difference in the levels of light and contrast I was surprised to see that the diffused bulb had darker shadows and that it had a larger overall contrast range to the subject. I also fell that the bare bulb image is almost too washed out with light. Trying to control a light that powerful was quite a bit difficult in such a small room.

The Bugs Statue

I changed my mind at tried this out in the end. As the statue itself has a lot of curves and straights on it I thought that I may be better to spot the contrast differences between the two images.

Bare Bulb Bugs

D80,Aperture f/8.0, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 40mm (35mm equivalent 60mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-55mm lens



Diffused Bulb Bugs

D80,Aperture f/8.0, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 40mm (35mm equivalent 60mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-55mm lens



This time I can see a lot more contrast in the shadows of the ears, face and feet of the statue.

What I learned out of this exercise is that softening the light is not always the solution to every problem, while it can create a great deal of contrast within an image, it can also create a situation where the final image may lose some of its detail.

However when there is too much light or the light being used creates shadows and light which are too hard and too sharp then these can be softened by the use of scrim or soft boxes to create a flatter softer light which is not as harsh or has too much contrast.