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9. Soft Boxes in the Studio
Softboxes are enclosures that surround your lighting source and direct it, via reflective materials, out an opening that is covered by some opaque material. So what happens here? The light emitted from the light source bounces about inside the reflective interior of the box, spreading in all directions, until it finds its way out the opaque material at the end of the box. This opaque material will reflect some portion of the light back into the box while allowing some of the multi-directional light to pass through and ultimately fall on our subject. This creates distinctively “soft” light, because the light, which is spread across the surface of the softbox, is very multidirectional when it leaves the softbox, and has been reduced in intensity by the reflection of the light around and back into the softbox.
Softbox fitted to the front of our monolight. Most softboxes deconstruct in order to be stored away conveniently.
Now, the primary contributors in the diffusion of light are dependant upon the surface the light is being reflected off of or through: its size, texture, and opaqueness. Therefore, we’d expect a few things.
- The larger the softbox, the more diffuse the emitted light will be. So large softboxes, placed close to a subject will simulate soft, northern-facing window light. - The more textured the reflective interior of the softbox will have a significant impact on how diffuse the light leaving the box becomes. The textured surface aids in breaking down the directionality of the light source. - Finally, the opaqueness of the softbox opening will have a major impact on how much light is allowed to escape the softbox versus how much is reflected back into the box, away from the subject.
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