Trying to get some soft light

[dubaiphil]

Living in an apartment which doesn't face the sun (in this heat that's a good thing) means that soft window light is difficult to come by. Combined with a very active 18 month old boy who has a penchant for electrical and camera equipment and a father-in-law who was soon to fly home to the UK meant limited opportunity for photos of him and his new grand daughter with any kind of lighting set up.

So once our little terrorist had retired to bed I set up a king sized bed sheet, hung between light stands, and shot my SB600 and SB700 through it to get a nice large lightsource, shot 5 ft away from the subject. Here was one of the test shots before doing our little shoot.

Straight out of camera and then a simple B&W conversion, f2, 85mm



Now I just need the time and energy levels to do some pp on the shoot!

[Mike Buckley]

Great idea and a wonderful test shot.

[dubaiphil]

Thanks Mike

Need window light and have no window - make a large window sized lightsource

[AB26]

Nice shot Phil, the light looks good.
Maybe a crop to just behind and above Grandpa's ear and to the edge of little Amber's receiving blanket. Loose a little of the empty space bringing Amber closer to the viewer.

[rpcrowe]

Phil, I wonder if bouncing a flash using a diffuser/reflector (such as the Demb Flash Diffuser Pro) might be the ticket for soft light...

[dubaiphil]

Hi Richard - I bounce light quite a lot, but in this case I wanted soft directional light.

[Dusty]

Magic. In this case I wouldn't have cared about the ins and out of light as the image and the subject are more important. Good light anyway.
Dave.

[rpcrowe]

Phil, The adjustable angle Flip-It portion of the Flash Diffuser Pro will give you some directional soft light. The softness of that light and directionality is controlled by the angle of the Flip-It.

[dubaiphil]

I've got a lumiquest equivalent, I think.

Light source through modifier = around 5" x 4" = 20 in sq
Light source through king size bed sheet = around 78" x 66" = 5148 in sq

C'mon now, Richard - you're American after all - there ain't no substitute for cubes.

[Shadowman]

Nice image.

[gregj1763]

Magic. In this case I wouldn't have cared about the ins and out of light as the image and the subject are more important. Good light anyway.
Dave.

Yep, Dave has said it all there.
A magic moment