Portrait photography tip: Use a softbox

Friday 17 May 2024, 20:02 by Elja Trum | 2,071 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

The flash from your on-camera flash is quite hard. This is because it has a small surface area, effectively a point light. This creates hard shadows, which often don't look very nice. You can soften the light by increasing the surface area of your light.

Soft light is often much more attractive, especially when photographing a woman.

Michelle - f/10, 1/160s, 1600 ISO @ 70mm
You can increase the surface area of your light with a softbox. I am very pleased with the Apollo Orb softbox. It folds in and out like an umbrella, so it is quick to set up. It makes your light source many times larger, producing beautifully soft light.

Do remember that you also need to place a softbox close to your model. If you move it too far away, the larger surface area of a softbox eventually becomes a point source again.

Think of the sun. It is extremely large, but so far away that in practice it is a point source. I often place my softbox just a few dozen centimetres from my model, just outside the frame.

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