Flash modifiers
Modifiers are items that alter the light, whether diffusing, concentrating, blocking or reflecting
Once we have our flashguns off-camera and can trigger them remotely, the next step is to modify the light in some way. The light from a bare flashgun is quite harsh, as it’s a small light source, so produces sharp shadows. While this is useful for certain situations, like documentary, press photography and generally any situation that requires a clear and brightly lit image, it doesn’t make subjects look their best when trying to craft the light. So let’s take a look at a few different types of light modifiers and see when you would use them.
softbox
With the flashgun placed at the small opening at the back of the softbox, the box itself contains a silvery interior lining designed to reflect as much light forward, out of the front of the box, as possible. The light then hits the first inner baffle, a semi-opaque white sheet, that disperses the light. After the first spread, the light is then spread further by a second outer baffle attached to the outside of the box, usually with Velcro. This produces a soft light where shadows are gradual – perfect to complement the smooth contours of the human face, for example. They come in a variety of sizes, from fold-up models that you could pack away in your bag, all the way up to huge wall-sized boxes.
umbrella
There are two types of photographic umbrella, shoot-through and reflective. Shoot-through umbrellas look and act much like the interior baffle of a softbox, with one semi-opaque layer of material that the flash is aimed at. The photographer then aims the outside area of the umbrella directly towards the subject.
The outside of reflective umbrellas consist of a similar material to the outside of softboxes; a thick plastic with a black exterior coating and silvery inside lining. The flash is aimed up at the inside of the umbrella, just as with the shoot-through, but because the light bounces off the silver lining, the photographer aims the inside of the umbrella towards the subject. Shootthrough umbrellas typically spread light wider than reflective due to the convex shape of the outside, so when it’s key to control the spill of light, it’s best to use a reflective umbrella.
flag
A flag is something that blocks light. It can be made of any material, but its main function is to absorb light, not allowing
anything to reflect. Therefore, flags are usually black and are placed in front of lights (whether modified or not) to control the spill of light on a scene or subject.
reflector
A reflector simply bounces any light source that’s aimed at it. It can be made of any material and contain any colour, but most reflectors are either white, silver, gold or zebra stripe (gold and silver stripes next to one another). You can most commonly see them sold in the 5-in-1 pop-up style, with a white, silver, gold or zebra stripe, plus a pull-out diffuser and a black flag side.
gels
Flash gels are just coloured plastic filters that sit over the flashgun to colour the light. You can do this with any clear, coloured material, like acetate or acrylic sheets, but there are also specific photography-graded filters that are measured and coloured to produce certain amounts of light within a colour range. The acronyms CTB and CTO fly around a lot, and they stand for ‘colour temperature blue’ and ‘colour temperature orange’, respectively. The colour temperature is normally stated on the package when you buy the filters, which means you can be precise with your white balance in-camera. They’re useful for when trying to match any existing lighting in place. For example, imagine you’re taking a portrait that is partly lit by tungsten lightbulbs and you change the white balance to render natural colours under this light. By comparison your flash light will appear quite blue. All that is needed to fix this is a CTO gel over the flash to mimic the colour of the tungsten bulbs. This therefore allows for realistic colour balance from all of the light sources that you’re using. These photographic gels come in full, half, quarter and sometimes eighth strengths, meaning they’re either a stronger or weaker respectively.
other modifiers
The four main types of light modifiers are listed here, and while there are a wide array of different types of modifiers, they usually combine some forms of the aforementioned. There are also plenty of accessories for the modifiers as well, such as extra long flaps on the side of softboxes to control the spill of light, and even honeycomb grids, which help to focus the light in one direction without spoiling the diffusion.