you're going to want to see the results of this we're going to test every single
one of these modifiers and see how they look on Miranda's face. It's JUNE and
time for another giveaway Dynalite is sponsoring our giveaway with $1,000
worth of lighting equipment we've got the MP400 pack and 2 of the MH2015 heads with
the built in reflectors this is a great lighting kit with an umbrella thrown in
and a TENBA case. Get over to The Slanted Lens and sign up and try to win it
hi this is JP Morgan today on the slanted lens we're going to take a look
at modifiers I've got Miranda here she's beautiful
so it's going to be very easy to work with her we're going to take each of the
different modifier starting off with reflectors from small to larger to
beauty dish and then jump into all the soft boxes and octa domes I want to look
at each and every one of them individually and get still shots using
our Baja A6 that shows exactly what that modifier does how hard it is how
soft it is what the highlights are like in the eyes and give us a comparison on
each of those modifiers so we can have something to reference and to be able to
figure out which one of these do we like best for what we're doing for this test
we're using a Baja A6 got it plugged into the wall here the reason I'm using
the Baja zone as a strobe is because I want to see how these modifiers react to
strobe light the strobe light is going to be very different than a tungsten
light or an LED light so we're going to take a look at these in the strobe
worlds or using the Baja to make that happen for us so in order to get rid of
all of the white in here we put two pieces of black foam core up to try to
get rid of the reflections come back on her face from behind her that wall back
in there and also the reflection that comes the white that bounces out of the
ceiling we're trying to minimize that I've got a light meter up I'm going to
take the light meter and just make sure that the power coming out of the box is
the very same every single time and that way it's not about how much light comes
through the modifier it's about the quality of light that comes through the
modifier and that's what we're looking at quality of light now each of these
may start to look the same to you you may say well that seven-inch reflector
and we're getting different than the ten inch you know but the reality that is
there are other things these modifiers do with regards to area of coverage
and also softness versus hardness and so we want to look at some of those things
and we may not see all those things in this test this test doesn't tell us
everything about the modifier but it tells us about the quality of light okay
as I set this up I'm going to put the front of the modifier four feet from her
face the reason I'm moving this light back and forth and keeping the front of
the modifier four feet from her face is because if I put the modifiers on here
and just leave the light always four feet from her face some of these
modifiers going to come out this far and it's going to change the quality of life
where it wraps around her face it doesn't give us a true picture of how
they compare to one another from four feet from the subject
they've got to be four feet away and then we see how one wraps more or less
than another and it gives us a better idea of what the modifier is doing if I
bring them let the modifier come forward on this then it's changing the quality
of light because of distance to subject so we're going to quickly go to these
modifiers and just click click click and see what they are first modifier is the
basic of all modifiers and that is a seven inch reflector so seven inch
reflector so we now have a 12 inch 12 inch wide reflector 12 inches deep and
this is probably gonna be more bright so back that up there for me all right so
we're going to get that at F5.67 so that twelve inch reflector
is two stops brighter than a seven inch reflector the background is much darker
with this and so it's a very narrow beam of light which is beautiful now we're
going to go to a Dynalite 14 inch reflector that's nine inches deep we'll
see how that affects your face and go ahead and test it for me and go ahead
and up to ten so now we have a beauty dish made by dynalite it's got a
white cap at the front of it which means the power is going to go way down to
probably bring it up at least a stop so let's take a look at that we're going to
go to the beauty dish the mola which is similar kind of this one you're going to
just have to hold it on there doesn't mount with this so this was a small
octodome from photoflex I've always loved this light because it has a
beautiful look very similar look to a mola beauty dish and you can also put a
grid on it but so let's take a look at it and see how this compares that mola
beauty dish so there you go so it is a bigger surface than that mola beauty
dish which means it's going to wrap around her face a little better just a
little nicer we're going to go to the medium octodome now by photoflex
and it's 57 inches it's very large we will not go to a large or an extra-large
this is plenty large enough so obviously the first thing is going to happen with
this is that we've got a oct- modifier that's just going to look around the
side of her face more it's going to start to wrap it's gonna be much softer
than what we've looked at at this point just opens up the shadows a little bit
fabulous fabulous fabulous fabulous so next we're going to take a look at a 36
inch parabolic from Dynalite the reason I love these their silver
line which gives you that really bright brightness in the skin which is
beautiful and but their parabolic which means the head sits back there are
little ways which means they're a little more defined a little more narrow in
their area of coverage and you'll see that on the background here which is
really beautiful so the next is a grand softbox 47 inches they're a parabolic this
is a great large it's a large but really fabulous light
we're now going to go to a
series of soft boxes the first is a white lined small extra small softbox
with Photoflex this should be a pretty hard light because a very small light
source you've got a 4 feet away and let's just see what it looks like our
next softbox is a medium soft box for Photoflex it's 32 by 23 inches white
lined and has a pretty light let's take a look at it. our next is a medium soft box by
Dynalite basically the same size the last one just looked at but it has a
silver lining versus white lining so when I say silver lining versus white
lining I'm talking about the entire lining of the box
so this one is all white which gives us a different bounce net it's looking to
me like if I compare it like size is that it looks very similar in quality
me I don't see that much difference I gained about a third of a stop to a half
of stop depending on the box so here we go large white line softbox poor flex
this is going to be a big wrapping light if I was using this softbox I'd push it
way out and let the edge of it see it sit here and let it wrap around her
place but for today we're keeping square on so we get an equal look at each of
these soft boxes our next is a large softbox by Dynalite much larger again
silver lined so let's take a look at what kind of light we get on her face
with this so if now have a 72 inch shoot through umbrella this is a really
beautiful light because it just wraps for both the umbrellas we're going to test today
we're using that 7 inch reflector to kind of keep the light defined so it's
just going to hit inside the umbrella doesn't throw it up on the walls and
everything else so just keeps it coming through the umbrella I still got back a
little bit which gives us some shadow side on her face beautiful life way it
wraps from camera left camera right this is a silver lined umbrella and so we've
flipped it around so we're bouncing light into it and back into our subject
so we'll take a look at what the highlights on her face looked like from
that silver lined umbrella so there's a look at modifiers some of
the things that I've learned in this are Silverlined seem to be a little bit
brighter so you're getting a little better aperture with a more light but
they don't necessarily change the quality of the light that much there's
just a little bit of kind of a brightness in the skin and the pores you
get with that silver lined that you don't get with the white lined but they were
very similar the deeper reflectors just gave us a
narrower beam of light because you saw it on the background they didn't expose
the background didn't brighten the background that beauty dish that mola
beauty dish was beautiful as always to be expected the mola is a little
brighter and a little softer than the silver lined one from Dynalite but
they're very similar looks and certainly an application welcome the 35 inch grand
parabolic I love because it's deep controls the light but gives you a great
highlight on the face I did see some color shift on them it was very
interesting it certainly wasn't enough of a shift
that would make a big difference being able to correct it easily done so this
is not meant to say one's best or better or right or wrong it's meant to give you
things to look at so you can go oh I like this for what I do I like that and
you can make a decision for what you'd like to do so check them out
put your cut in the comments below the things that you saw the observations
you made as you looked at the images anyway so there's a look at modifiers so
keep those cameras rollin keep on clickin our mastering studio strobes
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