Lighting Modifiers and Their Effects

So many modifiers, so many effects. Learn all about lighting from a seasoned pro.

Have you ever wondered about the difference between a softbox and a snoot? Or whether to use an octabox or an umbrella? If so, this class is for you.

You’ll discover the crucial differences between a variety of lighting modifiers as Karl explains how they work, what effects they create, and when to use each one.

You’ll also cover the principles of hard and soft light and optimise your ability to control light.

In this class:

  • Lighting modifiers
  • Hard light and soft light
  • Direction of light and the impact it has
  • Size of a light source and its effect
  • How to further modify certain modifiers
  • Lens flare and how to reduce it

If you enjoy this class, to check out Precision Lighting: Modifiers and Techniques and Beauty Lighting Comparison.

Don’t forget to try our amazing Lighting Comparison Visualiser tool.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Hi Karl,
    Are there any advantages to owning a Broncolor silver umbrella vs a Focus 110 aside from the (substantial) cost savings?
    I own economy-brand silver umbrellas and got the Focus 110 a year ago and love it but the color output is noticeably different. As such, I intend to replace the economy-brands with Broncolor silver umbrellas but it also occurred to me that I might want to just get another Focus 110 or two for their versatility.

    Thanks,
    JP

    1. Hi JP, the main reason for the 110 as you will have discovered is that it focuses the light more accurately than a standard umbrella, this gives more light and more 3 dimensionality where you want it. Personally I’d go with the 110’s unless you need white umbrellas.

  2. Such an amazing tutorial !
    Thanks Karl for comparing so many light modifiers in one go !

    Its quite a challenging task to pack such great amount of information in just 41 minutes.
    Absolutely enjoying and learning all videos here.

    Thanks once again.

    – Sanket

  3. Superb tutorial! Thank you.

  4. Hi Karl,
    Thank you for these great tutorials!
    How to decide between using Octabox or Softbox if both have same size?

    Thanks again
    Thomas

    1. Hi Thomas, if they are a similar size then there won’t be much difference on people or matt texture objects. I generally use softboxes in shapes that are most similar to the subject so that the light spread is similar to the area I am shooting.

  6. Hi Karl,
    Love the friendly way you teach. Lightning was scary, now I’m feeling ready to make my first baby steps in having more control on my photographs.
    I have a question; which modifiers should I buy if food photography and products are my main interest? I was thinking a 30*100 softbox and a snoot. I have two flash units at the moment
    Cheers!
    Alan

    1. Hi Alan, please watch our food sections but a 150 Octabox would be a good starting point and yes snoots and with grids.

      1. Hi Karl, thanks for answering 🙂
        I’m at the tea preparation video, the food section is amazing. Just wanted to double check before making any purchase.
        Cheers!

  7. Hi Karl,
    Firstly, thank you for all the knowledge you are sharing. I have learned more from your videos the past few weeks than all the other courses I have done in the past 5 years. And, I’m only just scratching the surface so far.

    Secondly, as a very general rule of thumb, would you say that the larger the surface area of a softbox, the greater the wraparound effect and more versatile/softer the light? So, for example, a 120cm Octabox has a surface area roughly 25% larger than a 120 x 80 rectangular softbox and would be the better purchase in terms of creative flexibility?

    Keep up the good work and thank you again.

    Ian

    1. Hi Ian, yes and you will come across me mentioning that in several modules and live shows. A larger softbox is always more versatile as you can easily mask it to make them smaller when necessary too.

  8. Hi Karl and the team
    Thank you so much for these in depth tutorials. I have very limited equipment, but from watching these videos I now have a much better understanding of how it can be used. It is also encouraging me to be more creative and satisfied to use the gear I already own. Definitely the best £12 I have ever spent.

    Thanks again
    Andy

  9. Hello Karl, I see you are wearing glasses and remove them when looking into your camera, do you have some diopter on this latter ?
    Thx
    Yann

    1. Hi Yann, no these are only reading glasses, beyond 1m I can see perfectly sharp and don’t need a diopter but many camera viewfinders have a diopter built in if you need to adjust.

  10. Great course. I am introducing friends to join in. One interesting question, when you go back to compare with pics, you can find the correct pic is because you marked them already or you can see the config from the pics? 😉

    1. Hi Devel, I’m usually pretty good at spotting which modifiers were used based on contrast levels, highlights, specularity, fall off etc. However I wrote down each shot for this tutorial as there were similar size softboxes in my test and I needed to be sure. If I’d also used Paras in these test you would have noticed a difference in their lighting effect too.

  11. Hey Karl,

    I’m looking more into buying my first light setup with a light modifiers.

    Am I correct to think that silver modifiers are more suited for fashion, beauty & portraits and
    White modifiers is for a more soft result like for a wedding or natural light type of look?

    I’ve also read somewhere that if i’m not sure yet which kind of softbox to buy, my best bet would be to start with a deep umbrella. Is that good advice?

    1. Hi Jacques, that is sort of correct. I would say a large softbox like the Broncolor Octabox 150 is an essential tool to have as it is a good allrounder. Softboxes are more forgiving, especially on older people. Silver stuff has more punch and sparkle, the deep umbrella such as the focus 110 is a better choice than a standard umbrella. Check out the chapter on lighting modifier comparisons in the ‘portrait’ section.

  13. Hi Karl,
    Really informative comparison, thank you!
    Just wondered where you use the golden reflector to create warmer tones, could that also be achieved to a similar effect in post, eg adjusting the RAW file’s temperature or tint settings in Photoshop?

    Thanks

    1. Hi Maha, my first comment would be why do it in post if you can do it for real? Doing it for real will always look like more real and doing it in post will often take longer.

  14. Thanks for this great course!

    I have a question. I just received a umbrella mount 120cm octabox. When I close the aperture and take a picture of this modifier I can see that the diffusion of light is not even, it’s concentrated in the middle. Is that a common issue with the umbrella mount and flashgun ? Or is this particular octabox a bad quality one ? There is no diffusion layer inside.

    Do you think I should switch to a speedring mount octabox ?

    1. Hi Quentin, umbrellas will generally have central lighting unless they have and inner layer of diffusion. Most good softboxes have a good silver internal surface and then a mid layer of diffusion as well as the outer layer, some even have three layers to make them more homogenous.

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