Lessons

Lesson Info

Modifiers: Octabank, Softbox, Strip Bank, Umbrella

a lot of folks are asking I'd love to see the difference between the seven foot octa and the forefoot octa and fifty inch soft box and a twenty eight inch soft box and beauty dish and and all of that we haven't even gotten into grids yet we're going to get into grid spots today we haven't gotten to the strip bank the strip box yet so we're going to strip today all right s o he tune in zach stripping um so we're going to start going through this now this isn't going to be the most scientific methodical process in the whole world of doing this weird basically going to try to just keep a light standard one spot keep the power settings of the flash heads at the same place and we're going to put that seven foot doctor up and then we're gonna put the forefoot octa and then we're gonna go to soft boxes that right umbrellas we're gonna go through our soft boxes we go to our umbrellas we're going to put grid spots I'm going to do beauty dish and what we're looking for is how that affects the li...

ght falling on the subject and how that affects the light falling from the subject to the background um thiss is somewhat scientific and and somewhat just tow walk them through all right now when you get your own modifiers you're not going to just simply stick it in one spot and keep it there you're going to feather it onto your subject you're going to feather it off of your subject you're going toe put it in front of your subject you're going put it to the side of your subject just for the sake of kind of getting through the stuff quick we've decided we're going to stick with one kind of angle one kind of distance um I may come in on se alright here it is at the same distance but how I would use this particular modifier is I would come in closer on then hears what that looks like alright um our first client of the day is luke come on through watch out for the spaghetti on the floor of electricity um let's see so we're going to have lou sitting you go there's package just arrived for you uh we're gonna have lou sitting I want her to be comfortable for this set up I don't want her tio have to stand in one weird strange position as we parade light modifiers all throughout thiss situation here I'm going to we're going to work with our largest modifier first and get that shooting angle uh taking care of first and we'll just base all the rest of the modifiers off of that kind of angle so we can see what different modifiers look like got it great so uh first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna find my composition that I want I've got my eighty two two hundred on on blue um as I get started here I've got to find my exposure and my composition um I got to get all my technical stuff kind of taking care of so um I just want you to be comfortable on you know what let's um that's what I may I'm going to switch out the chair let's get this stool real quick that's it chair back is a little too high for what I'm wanting to do so let's do this bring it up a bit and I think what I'm gonna have you do is you're going to kind of be facing this light here on dh once we're going you're gonna be looking at camera and you know at some point you'll take a break but I'll need you to fall pretty close back in tow whatever if you'd like something to put a foot up on if that makes you more well just let me know say I'd like a footstool let me know if you're comfortable like this in fact uh let's grab a napoli box um I got one right here so lou tell me about yourself what do you do marine biologist I am too no I'm not I wish I'm the guy that went to school for six years and I have an associate degree to show for it um yeah right att least I have that right so if that makes you any more comfortable or not if not just kick it out of the way probably you bring this down so marine biology what do you do what does that mean exactly here have a seat okay okay for my cases I'm working with a purpose estimations much wow that's for me cool how'd you get started into that um one knows another grad I volunteer for two years he would write boils identification with pictures and when I graduated I got a job no progress all right do you like it do you feel like this is what I'm made to do you get that kind of satisfaction from your job sometimes yeah in the circus huh like cirque du soleil circus or like hey come on down and get your cotton candy kind of circus all right sweet so you're doing great right there and again site no teaching talk in my head I'm going okay where my life is gonna be but I I want who are you my subject and what do you do and what do you like and those questions of like do you feel like this is what you're made to do those air some of those like deep points out to go with somebody sometimes because sometimes it opens a box you like close it back on sometimes it opens a box that it's like you just sit down for another fifteen minutes and just like start talking about stuff and remember that wherever you are in your life if you're struggling if you're going through all sorts of crazy stuff that you're living your story right you don't know where it's going to end and you may be struggling now and you have these dreams these aspirations these things you want to be doing later in life you let everybody kind of know what that is it's not the whole put it out in the universe and it will return to you kind of thing in my head but it is I have no idea who she may know for what network she runs in on I've had so many opportunities come up because I've told one person I know what I'd love to do I'd love to do this kind of project do you know what I got a buddy that works for a company that's looking for something kind of like that let me connect you that's what I love about my town atlanta we are a net working networking networking city and we love to connect people the other people in our town um and so I just let my clients know that's what I want to do you know I told chase jarvis and the interview the other day I really want to shoot a cover of rolling stone and he said back to me ok I need teo put you in touch with somebody had I not said that now I have got the assignment yet chase jobs but uh all right so you're hanging out I'm going to get all of my settings my readings my stuff done and then we're going to start going okay so are you comfortable do you need a water drink or if you need anything at all just let us know service industry take care of your client's light meter can we go on camera three camera one I'm using a light meter psychotic light meter uh testing flash built in pocket wizard transmitter it's really nice there are two schools of thought on how to use a flash meter one school of thought is you come to wear client is and you point the incident dome we're taking incident readings you point the dome towards the camera there's another school of thought that you take the dome and you point it towards the light source some people swear that it's you must do it by the light source some people swear you must do it towards camera whichever way you decide to do it I always do it that way and you will do a set of pictures of a bracket and you will calibrate your meter all right my meter is calibrated teo I think it's minus a third stop because that's what I want this is not dead onto your camera even from linz toe lynn's it can change half a stop all right um so whatever you do either towards the camera or towards the light source you just all always do it that way I have just always done it towards the camera unless my life is it's such a crazy degree angle I may do it towards is the light at that point but typically I come in I point it and it's giving me an exposure of seven point one so I want to set my camera to seven point one question came across twitter yesterday why do you use a lens hood on your aa seventy two two hundred and not your twenty four to seventy the reason being is the lens hood was on this linz when I started shooting it and when I started shooting the twenty four to seventy yesterday it was not on there that's the big reason this one is still in the bag on dh I didn't see any flare yesterday so I don't even need it um I really don't even need it on this one so I could take it on and take it off whatever but I'm gonna find my composition I don't like shooting on a tripod at all for your face just a little bit over this way luke right there great I'm a seven point one I am at one twenty fifth of a second I'm at s o one hundred and I take a picture that looks pretty good I'm going to change my composition perfect right there lou good hold that and I'm gonna try to get this all locked in a locker wait go good and lou let me have you kind of looking that way just a bit looking off camera all right that's good um and then no come back to me just a little bit more looking at me and then your eyes back to camera we'll just do that just kind of loosen up get comfortable right there that's great just put your hands together that's nice are you comfortable okay great as long as you're comfortable were great just had till kind of right there that's perfect right there I'm gonna zoom out just a bit I want to find my one single composition for this series of pictures and I don't want it to change I want light I want to see her and then I want to see the back ground because I want to see what my modifiers doing one single modifier to the subject to the background wait get this set up I think that is what I want right there get everything locked down I'll probably even lock my focus boom hold right there for a second do do do do do do alright caught you mid hurt there we go a little bit of a smile great everyone say westcott looking looking looking way have brandy here again our awesome um rock and hair and makeup artist we're probably gonna put you on a camera at some point ask you questions about what kind of stuff that you do if you're okay with that um great exposure looks good it's good and all right so who's given who's keeping the list whose key is keeping our list okay both are okay so here's what we're going to do we're going to keep a list of these modifiers we're going to keep a list of the settings and at seven point one at eight they're going to be changing a little bit um another thing I want to do dan is I want to I'm going to do two things were going toe mark the center of this stand right here so it can always go back to that and then I may take a shot and then say but if I was using this modifier I'd bring it in like this all right so big old eight foot octa perfect oh let's do a meter reading come right up you know again you don't want to take a meter reading from here because the light could be a different exposure than here wear it f nine being that we're using an alien be um way have to take a couple readings to make sure it's being consistent for us after nine that's two thirds of stop different great looking right here lou we'll smile perfect that looks pretty consistent to the last one so we had the seven foot now we have the four foot wei have a little bit darker of a shadow all right um if you could can you be my sandbag man just pull that up real quick let me grab my meter from using this four foot octa I like to have my my modifiers in as close as I possibly can have them and I'm going to take this one and I'm gonna feather it it's hanging out in front of lou more than it is pointing at her she's right at the back edge of it from camera wear now f thirteen on that picture I'm not going to change any power settings I want you to see how how all of this change is good right well I think I moved my camera perfect great my ocd is a little bit in my shot good right there perfect lou you're doing great way appreciate you letting us uh nerd out all right so I would have brought it in closer if I had done that and we're going to see what brings getting close so let's do on the notes hocked a standard octa forefoot octa close right okay next where we going up to next big mama all right um while that's getting changed out can we goto my light room computer all right we have the seven foot octa watch this shadow area right here it's going to get darker when we go to the forefoot thiss area got darker with the four foot and it did with the seven the seven is uh it just it wraps around because it's larger it gets a little bit harder since it's a smaller light source and then if I were to use it myself I'd probably bring it even closer watch the background I could just feather it off of the background make the background darker I could feather it back around to her and make it lighter and I would most likely take it higher to drop a little more shadow under the chin all right it's the one thing I'd be looking for looks nice grid alright well up with big mama let's uh tilt her down just a bit this is the fifty inch westcott apollo no all right got it modeling light on yo yeah that's working all right wear on a different channel on the pocket lizard change pocket was your channel way right dan we're on channel three on all of these all right channel three okay you don't all right yeah thank you yeah alright f ate eight seven point one look that just changed seven point one seven point one seven point one we're sticking with way talked first day about the price of these uh lights alright good a little smile perfect move on dh looks good all right let's uh if I had this let's pop that saying back off right now I love again I bring these in close on let's point it towards her a little bit we'll throw a little more light on the uh background I brought it in I changed exposure because my distance changed way f ten due to due to do so the first one was further away goto f ten perfect right there lou face just a little turn this way right there good picked alright next notice this notice when I had the octo bank further way four foot four foot further way in closer compare background changed a lot your light placement how you feather it and and inverse square law all of that uh can really dramatically change your background do you need to make your background lighter do you need to make it darker you do that through inverse square law and feathering way go back into our grid way have our fifty inch further away and then closer but this time I kind of didn't feather it so hard off but I can't make as dramatic of a change with that fifty inches I can with that octa but there's the difference between the two fifty inch and again if we come in and look at the shadowed area it's nowhere near as his open is that octa bank is that that octa is like a mane and a phil if I come in with the octa and the grid uh fifty inch soft box and compare them way look at these shadows darker with the fifty inch soft box on check out the catch light the catch lights are a little uh brighter the little hotter of ah of a highlight all right where we going to now fifty twenty eight inch westcott apollo grid on what we're going to do it sometime today or this evening we're going to put all of these up on the block all right here we go I told you we were going to nerd out six point three we are now six point three now when we put that twenty eight inch up there the face of it is quite a bit further away than where we started with the uh octa bank all right so that law it's got a nice smile perfect right there hold that um I love this twenty eight inch soft box yes question there's just a few questions in the twitter and the chat room about what do you mean by feathering okay what does it mean to feather and we get one of these camera angles in on me way won't need this office this thing's not going to go over all right I have let me look at my monitor how we doing on the monitor here all right all right let's go toe one of these cameras back here ok wei go light is pointing away from our subject on we just start to feather it in and the feather is that edge of the light it creates so there's light coming out this way and then it diminishes off to the sides and we can't which some of that diminishing area that's the feathered area of it we can point it right at our subject or feather it off just a little bit too where our subjects still sees the face of the soft box but it's pointing here she's here all right so you can point it right at your subject or you can feather it off a little bit that octa my favorite way to use it is feathered off of the subject my twenty eight inch box I typically I liketo have it pointing at my subject it's far more directional I would probably bring it in about this close she's still on the back edge of it from camera position so meaning it's not pointing behind her head but it's pointing in front of her head but from where she's standing she's seeing full face of that soft box half eleven f eleven there we go awesome it's a beautiful life head shot head shot head shot head shot head and shoulders head shot not like actor actor's headshot but I love this box it's very directional yet it has a really nice soft quality to it um it's going to have much darker shatter shadows shatters no man the south is coming out we got a lot darker shatters in it man you saw my used car salesman a video so you asked you don't have that accent I could turn it on okay next what are we going to strip all right we're going to the strip bank this is the westcott twelve inch by fifty inch strip can you turn that around the camera here sir just pointed uh yeah all right and let's turn it this way uh here I'll grab it uh twelve inch by fifty inch it's a soft box but is very narrow all right a little strip of light love it all right we're gonna rock this a little bit more today alright that's going on the head now that this is without ah grid in the box some soft boxes you khun get a grid um you could get a great to be in the box that's the next modifier coming up thes thes air beautiful beautiful lights if you want a really nice soft rim light on the subject you want to create something kind of dramatic and dark and moody which will have coming up um the strip light is also like my favorite modifiers list is growing on the strip is definitely there so meter reading were seven point one let's see if zack can remember teo changes aperture seven one perfect right there good now than a strip I wouldn't typically use it this far away you can way won't need it back on it won't fall over I'm going to come in with it to the side of her on angle down a little more thank you greet um something like this where it is pointing right on her it's got a thick lip on it that feathered edge just is gone I change distance change exposure thirteen thirteen thirteen lucky thirteen yes the meter reading between facing the camera and facing a strip light with something that's not direct is that going to be a significantly different from something that's like a larger source like the octo bank um but the thing about pointing a questions about pointing the meter towards the camera or towards the light when it's more directional does it really make a big difference thing about it is consistency you're going to get to know your meter it isn't going to be exactly perfect right on the box because you have to calibrate it you just want to be consistent and how you use it all the time and you will find that there are times that you need to tweak it a bit because you know you know I have a real dramatic side like coming in here this meter isn't seeing a lot of that going toe what kind of angle it a little closer to my life than normal and take my reading all right um but again those two schools of thought towards the light or towards the camera whichever you decide you're going to do you just always do that and then these meters will be calibrated you go into the menu system and you say minus one stop because for your camera and favorite linds combo you find that that meter is one stop from the exposure you actually want so you just calibrate it and and go with it alright lou you holding up with us awesome what did I say that was thirteen thirteen excellent right there good all right really cut the light off let's go light room real quick really cut the light off of the back around as I brought it in closer my throne I can't talk it's day three I'm going insane compare come on there we go all right so that strip you need to just bring that light in on your subject on dh cut that background down uh that strip light is gorgeous for that let's switch it out for the uh one with the grid spot now let me have that for a second while you take that one off way now have a grid way doing over here thiss egg crate grid that bell crows in all right one thing about this grid's it's about as much if not a dollar to more than the actual soft box itself but this allows you to control light and there is no feathering with this now because this grid um if let's go to camera three way go to camera three you see inside the soft box there as soon as I turn it you don't see the face of the soft box anymore right there so any light that would be coming out of this would not be hitting that camera that video camera lens you're watching right now and then I turn it back and you can see full into it and back now you will not see any of it this's for fine tuning your control of where that light's going to hit and what it will not hit all right so wait grab the media uh in this fun one two and actually it's kind of fun isn't it let's angle it up just a little bit so we're gonna go back to our starting standard position wait six point three five point six five point six five six I'm on over to the camera do you did you two do five six right there perfect ma'am ma'am ma'am it's fashion shoot all right let me erase one of those because we're gonna look at it in postproduction later and go what was that picture delete just delete key remove the lead from disc all right so that is that correct yes now grid in close should just hang this around my neck shit my I need a little like belt pack for it fanny pack mine I'd be nice I take down disney world with my family on vacation have a fanny pack cold beer marber all right I'm an idiot all right so hanging out right there f nine uh let me bring this is just a little bit more I'm probably going to get this in my shots I want to back it out just a bit f nine eight eight eight eight on when you get modifiers do this kind of stuff maybe you might be well this is really boring um okay you know it's kind of boring but you know what this kind of stuff you get to know your modifiers alright so way have the strip without the grid and wis alright uh yeah we're gonna have to take notes so when I come back and look at this later all right um another nice thing with this grid before we move on from it I'm gonna bring it over to more of a sidelight perfect year hanging out just like that kind of looking at it that way now it's over I had a really strong angle this is one of those times I'll just kind of crank my meter over just a little bit f nine f nine half nine ten for growth after nine split the difference do teo great you're just kind of looking over that way just to button down a little more good very nice really dramatic kind of look a little ah little more uh serious uh awesome you're doing fine it's great I love it now I gotta deal with all that crap in light room okay look a little more to your left a little more right there great and looking down yeah down a little more right there hold that beautiful beautiful light this little strip light and then let's just one more little a rim light right there so you're you're still looking kind of down this way on dh I'm keeping the distance about the same so I'm gonna just expect theo exposure to stay the same perfect so moving it around boom boom here's all the same pictures that I shot I think it was kind of directly in front of her and then bringing the light the picture on the left uh it's directly in front of her face like pointing right to her nose and then it's going back behind her a little bit pointing a little bit back towards camera all right move that light around and see what it does for you all right next modifier we're going to the umbrellas umbrella next uh the question came up yesterday about can I discuss butterfly lighting broad lighting short lighting rembrandt um split lighting reformed southern reforms broad half rembrandt flighting um maybe this's the thing most people uh most people getting into this getting this for the first time I think I said this earlier of you waken go so deep with lighting andi I can throw so much information at you that it it just continues to be overwhelming and I have found when teaching lighting that it's best to just wait get exposure down we get working with our subjects down way get that we get you to a comfort level where you're not afraid of this stuff anymore all right and then learning like broad lighting versus short lighting you khun look a block post on that and see the difference in the two and if you understand excuse me if you understand uh this lighter that like uh broad light is to face this way with the light on the side like it will make instance sense to you all right once you are comfortable with how light works how the modifiers work how all of that happens so we'll talk about that maybe a little bit more like I'm going I'm going to do a broad light I'm going to do a short light but I'm not going to break it down and to the fine tune it gets very active temic I'm mohr of ah feel it out all right I'm not going to show you the three toe one proper a flighting ratio boring headshot I will probably have to pull that out at some point but I just don't want to shoot those pictures all right sixty inch reflective umbrella six point three I'm going with one meter reading six point three perfect right there little smile good all right now you know what's really interesting about this um notice how the color changed if if we'll go up to the uh the compare your modifiers we're going to be different color temperatures great right there six nine eight nine nine a a nine seriously nine all right I'm going with nine nine great all right probably should have been eight alright little smile thing great smile and just being eight looked a little better check this out check this out I'm going to go umbrella verses octa lips not all of them and on the internet so I don't know how well you'll see this but you should be able to see it fairly well when I compare these to look at the difference in color between these two modifiers I'm not sure now we'll see we're going to put them up we're gonna put them up we'll put a few color examples but I'm going to convert all of them to black and white all the same way so that you're just looking at light and not color I like to look at all these modifiers in black and white so I'm just saying highlight shadow so we're gonna put him on the block that way but I'll put a few examples of like here's the octo bake who's straight out of camera same color settings here's the umbrella straight out of camera let's switch this out to shoot through all right so this has been reflective let's switch it out to shoot through um you're going to be looking you'll see how these departments poor man soft box thank you dan yes alright to finish my thought I'm going to put two color images side by side the octo bank and we'll do the umbrella so that you can see side by side how these two modifiers are different color temperature all right and how we will need to build profiles later for each one so those of you tuning in going call early sunday morning this is the most boring part of the workshop yet okay but we're getting a little more technical um and and all of that today and we're answering questions so um poor man soft box check this out I talked about if I had one modifier one modifier only it would be the sixtieth shoot through our convertible umbrella and difference the main difference between an umbrella and a soft box for me um let's grab the twenty eight inch he kicked that to me real quick just throw it to me the way it is it's gotta light oh dan throw it dan throw oh there's head in it all right so umbrella versus soft box quickly if I am wanting toe light the subject and the environment that they're sitting in I first go to the umbrella because it just spreads that light out over a large area that's where I'm going if I want to light the subject and not so much of the environment they're sitting in I go to a soft box it is still a soft light source but it is mohr directional I used the twenty eight inch apollo to shoot one to two people one or two people in those two people better like each other because they're gonna be in close so you can shoot a group of six people with this but you have to take your modifier and put it ten feet away to cover that range once you take this ten feet away you are losing the look of that of what this gives you close in theory rule of thumb for a modifier is your working distance from your subject is right on top of them to two times the diagonal length of the face of the modifier so let's just say this is two and a half feet thie rule of thumb working distance would be very close in about five feet away anything beyond five feet it is still a diffused light source but the further it gets away the more of a point light source it becomes so one to two people with this box with that fifty inch I'll do one toe four people with the fifty inch soft bucks if I have to shoot more than four people like I could do five um with that they all have to be like head like a kite group shot on the white that kind of close together I can do that with fifty inch fun but if I'm shooting a group shot at let's say ten people I go immediately to the sixty inch umbrella all right I'm just I'm there immediately I'm not going to use this for a group shot a ten p people but a group shot a ten people the sixty inch that's fine I'm gonna back it out it's going to be straight up over my head it's gonna light everyone pretty evenly and I'm done with my job if I'm shooting ten fifteen twenty people we are not talking fine art portraiture at this point we're talking about get the job done they need to be lit well they need to all my motto is if they have a chin they get a shadow underneath it all right so they get a shadow underneath the chin if they have it they all get light in the eyes this side of the group to this side of the group they're all lit evenly within a stop from each other I've done my job now if hbo calls and says we want a group shot of these twelve people for the new campaign of our new tv show it is not lined up and a sixty inch umbrella over my head at that point let's say it's a group shot you guys of the cast of the new blah blah blah show that starts getting too bars running across the set and you guys have a great id soft box for you you've got a light coming in somewhere like I'm going to light you as a group but each individual like suddenly there's multiple lights flying above I'm shooting this big set but I'd have to big rollers or risers there's big stands of some sort with a bar coming across the top and my lights up here out of my shot lighting you that's that would be the first place I'd go on then we're suddenly talking about walk it and on the set with fifteen twenty thirty thousand dollars worth of gear to shoot the you know the big cable network promotional a shot of a twelve member cast show it is it is this much production for that one shot all right we're not doing that in this workshop because everyone watching this like if you're watching this and you know how to do that big production like why are you watching this right this's for getting started this is I need to shoot portrait group shots at the wedding right sixty inch umbrella over your head bam done I've let thirty people at the altar of a church with one sixty inch umbrella it can be done it goes way up high eight ten feet up in the air down on top of everyone all right so if you don't have a twenty eight inch soft books like this and look of westcott apollo it's up it's down it's so great um you can fake it poor man soft bucks you take a sixty inch umbrella and you lightly close it down not all the way you don't want it like this but it's like halfway closed halfway closed in all right I'm not going to get youto try not to um somewhere in their meter reading f nine closed down umbrella half nine perfect right there lou great I hear tell uh somebody swiss word in my ear that your husband is a photographer yes yes your husband is a photog for uh boyfriend whoops I heard wrong sorry so there's a there's a box see there's a box you could open with a subject you get your information wrong I could go there I'm not going to know where is he uh hiding in the corner over here um yeah so your boyfriend is tim right over here we have tim kind of hanging out tim is a local commercial editorial shooter here introduce yourself for a second while we get this set up tell us who you are matsui and I do do some commercial work but it's predominantly editorial and documentary human trafficking alternative energy and the environment are the folks is of my personal work and I just got back from working with media storm for the past three months doing multimedia production yeah such stuff so brian's an amazing dude isn't he he's pretty inspirational bright I met brian a long time ago like when he's like new media it's a stuff get a video camera start recording audio and people either thought he was visionary or like crazy yeah you know I didn't know which way to go with it thanks a little both here and that's what's so great about him is she's a crazy visionary on it yeah so media storm if you're not familiar with media storm you need to be looking at what media storm does and brian storm with that give us your website tim matsui dotcom this tea I am m a t s u I write and how did you end up here today today yeah because dan depew day uh interned with me I don't know how long ago he was very assertive I think like he was with you and getting into your studio wouldn't take no for an answer exactly exactly and seven point one goes heading up to seattle and so I saw why he was heading up I uh saw your fun video and lou laughed at it quite a bit and decided we had to meet you so awesome well thanks for coming in you good looking boyfriend girlfriend couple yeah boyfriend girlfriend yes or partner or whatever you wanna call right right whatever the word is today awesome so seven point one on that I just shot a picture shoot through now let's pop this off for a quick I want to show you the different main difference between shoot through and reflective of why I go from one to the other light bouncing into this is reflective light light coming through it is shoot through like you got a pixel peep this distance you gotta really pixel people to see the difference between the two but here's where I love shoot through uh over reflective when I'm five six ten fifteen feet away it doesn't matter reflective shoot through the same amount of lights kind of coming through it as it is coming out of it uh sometimes coming out the front here is about the same yes I just wanted to mention we just crashed tim's wide this website great sorry holmes yeah you're like oh I went down to this place and now I got one hundred dollars over band with charge yeah thanks guys yeah sorry about that um I'll be filling you all right send it to craig swanson care of creative life send it to chase jarvis care of all right so reflective or shoot through you get a ten fifteen feet away you can't tell the difference between two really all right you and you might be a two thirds of a stop difference it might be a little you get a little another third two thirds half stop reflective than he would shoot through it fifteen feet away for a huge group shot all right but here's the deal the larger the light sources in relationship to your subject softer the lights going to be correct the larger the light source softer the light so in relationship to your subject so if we can cut the cam three here if this is a reflective light and I'm bringing it closer and closer and closer and closer and closer to get softer I impaled my subject with the umbrella shaft all right so shoot through in its beauty comes in right here really close you can bring this in really really close on someone and how I like to use this the most and I'll set this up at some point today as I bring it in really close it's right I kind of have to hand hold it for a second it's a right over my shoulder so you'd be looking right to me it's right over my shoulder and it's really in close it's a soft beautiful beautiful light source it's really really nice um problems with it though is if the shoot through gets in between your subject in your limbs all of this lights up all of this here lights up and sends light straight back into your limbs so you have to watch out for flair then you'd be like dude where's my lens hood