# Soft box or light sphere?



## runnah (Jan 31, 2013)

So as part of my job i take lots of interior shots of completed buildings. I currently had a sb800 and 600 that I have the little cap diffuser. I've found that I still get strong shadows even with the cap on and the little pull up diffuser.

Do I need to go with a soft box of light sphere?

Which is better for my given situation?

Also is the Gary Fong stuff any good?


----------



## Lmphotos (Jan 31, 2013)

Someone on here just gave me their old Lightsphere and I really like it! Nice beautiful soft diffused lighting. But, I've only shot on around 8-10 ft ceilings that were white. I remember Derrel telling me anything higher would probably not work as well.


----------



## curtyoungblood (Jan 31, 2013)

Can you describe what you mean by interior shots and how you are using your flash a little more?

If you are taking photos of an entire room, the light modifiers aren't going to help get a good even lighting across the room. 

I would approach suggest a couple of approaches: 

Get some light stands, and bounce the flashes off the ceiling, and arrange them so that they kill the each other's shadows.

get a good tripod so that shutter speed isn't a problem.  With a tripod, you can close down the aperture and get more depth of field, use the available light, and still have everything in focus. If you go this route, windows are going to be totally blown out, so you'll need to close the blinds or shoot away from them.


----------



## runnah (Jan 31, 2013)

It varies from small to large rooms. I normally use my sb800 on camera but that leads to dark spots. I recently started using two flashes off camera to light up the darker areas but those tended to produce very hard shadows.

Sadly things like light stands are not an option due to time constraints. Today I was just taking my two flashes, setting them up in a room, taking a few photos and moving on. I had to do like 30 rooms in under an hour.


----------



## KmH (Jan 31, 2013)

Hard shadows result from small light sources, like a hot shoe flash unit (speedlight).

Speedlight diffusers, or a light sphere, just scatter light around and waste flash power. Some of that scattered light may go places you don't want it too.

You are wanting light to 'wrap' around corners so the shadows are diffuse, soft, and less noticable.

The larger a light source seems, the more diffuse the shadow edges are (wrap).

A speedlight fired into an umbrella or softbox becomes an apparent, very much larger light source and will deliver softer edged shadows.

Bouncing light from a speedlight off the ceiling also makes an apparently large light source, but distance (up and then down) and the Inverse Square Law mean light power loss and limited light direction control.
Light bounced off a ceiling can also pick up a color cast from the ceiling and it's a rare interior paint that is actually 'white', in a photographic sense.


----------



## amolitor (Jan 31, 2013)

If you're on a tripod you could maybe do a bunch of shots with a bunch of pops and stack 'em. You'd need to automate the stacking process, but I think there's plenty of software that makes this pretty doable.


----------



## runnah (Jan 31, 2013)

KmH said:


> Hard shadows result from small light sources, like a hot shoe flash unit (speedlight).
> 
> Speedlight diffusers, or a light sphere, just scatter light around and waste flash power. Some of that scattered light may go places you don't want it too.
> 
> ...




So both are a waste? I get very good results using the sb800 bounced off the ceiling, the images just look flat and uninteresting. 

What I have been doing is using the 2 flashes to light up dark hallways or to cast light onto the darker sections. of a large room. When I do this the shadows are harder than I would like. 

use the equipment I have is there no way around this with extra diffusers?


----------



## runnah (Jan 31, 2013)

amolitor said:


> If you're on a tripod you could maybe do a bunch of shots with a bunch of pops and stack 'em. You'd need to automate the stacking process, but I think there's plenty of software that makes this pretty doable.



I do something similar with bracketing to highlight darker areas but haven't really tried your idea. I like but just need to find the right time to give it a go. 

Today was just small hospital rooms.


----------



## Designer (Jan 31, 2013)

runnah said:


> So both are a waste? I get very good results using the sb800 bounced off the ceiling, the images just look flat and uninteresting.
> 
> What I have been doing is using the 2 flashes to light up dark hallways or to cast light onto the darker sections. of a large room. When I do this the shadows are harder than I would like.
> 
> use the equipment I have is there no way around this with extra diffusers?



Try bouncing your flash off a wall, either to one side for better modeling, or behind you for more even light.  The walls that you bounce from should be white or a light neutral color so as to not introduce any extra colors.  If you find that the walls are too far away to give you the kind of light that you want, then you will have to use something else.


----------

