Food Photography: Light Modifiers (part II)

Softbox: the magic word that in the photography world means smooth light, soft shadows, blurred reflections, the trademarks of so much professional imaginery.

In the last article of this series I talked about the simplest light modifiers, the scrim, which works in a very similar way than the normal curtains hanging from the windows of our houses: it diffuses light making it softer and less harsh.

The softbox is an elaboration of this concept: its sides are made exteriorly with black material and interiorly with a reflective one (usually silver colored), so light can bounce all around, while on the front side there is a diffuser material, named "baffle", usually white nylon or other fabric, very similar to the one used in professional scrims. Most softboxes have a second layer of diffuser material in front of the light to further diffuse the light and make it softer.

Even with softboxes you still have to remember and repeat again and again the two main laws about hard and soft light about whom I already talked in the past articles:
- the nearer the light is to the subject the softer the light will be.
- the larger the light is, compared to the subject, the softer the light will be.

Softboxes exist in various size and shapes: squares, rectangles, octagons are the most commons and each one serves to mimic a different light source and gives different results.

 Square and rectangular softboxes are used mainly to mimic the light coming from a windows. The reflections on shiny objects are indeed squared, the light is pretty soft but still directional so you'll have blurred shadows on the opposite side.

There also are gridded squared softbox that are used to have a more directional light with less "spills". Spills are when the light scatters around in (usually) unwanted places, as you can easily guess the grid helps a lot to give a light a linear directional while continuing to keep it softer because it is diffused inside the softbox and not on the set.

Another type of softbox is the so called "striplight". It consists in a pretty elongated rectangular shape and it is used to light edges or create slim reflections on the subject.

The other very diffused type of softbox that doesn't belong to the square type is the octagon softbox. Its shape has been designed not to mimic the effect of a window but of a circular point of light, like a spotlight, but still keeping the classic soft effect of the softbox. They are used mainly in portraiture because its a kind of light that can be easily controlled while its softness helps to hide skin imperfections (or at least doesn't accentuate them like a hard light would do with its strong shadows).






Softboxes are available for almost all the type of lighting: flashes, hot continuous lights and cold fluorescent continuous lights. Just remember that hot lights need specifically designed softbox, made with heat-proof materials able to withstand high temperatures, don't put softbox designed for flashes or cold lights on hot lights or they will burn (btw, it's also pretty dangerous!!!).

About every company that produce lighting system has also a range of softboxes to be used with their devices (flashes, hot and cold lights). They usually aren't interchangeable, they use proprietary systems to connect the softbox to the lighting device. There are also third party manufacturer that produce softboxes (usually at lower prices) that are compatible with most of the systems but check them out carefully so not to risk to have a practically unusable item.

Recently I saw around some pretty smart designed softboxes to be used also with small flashes (speedlights) like the ones produced by Nikon, Canon, etc to be used on the hot shoe of the cameras. To be used effectively though you have to put them away from the camera, usually on their own stands, and have to be triggered remotely just like they were studio lights. This is a huge topic and it would deserved its own article just to scratch the surface but if you're curious have a look at the Strobist site which is one of the first to propel this pretty new way to use speedlights in such a creative way.

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