Understanding how Soft Boxes Work
Before you shell out the money for a new camera, you'll most likely want to learn about what the camera is capable of doing. "Will the image quality be good with this camera?" "Can I take macro shots with this camera?" "Will I be able to make good prints from this camera?" These are all important questions to ask. But there is also one very important element to any great photograph that a lot of people overlook: the lighting.

You can have the most expensive camera in the world, but without understanding a thing or two about lighting, you will no doubt experience frustration with inconsistent and unappealing results. Conversely, if you have some good lighting tools and know the best ways to use them, you can create stunning images with the most modest of cameras.

Understanding how Light Works
When you study the nature of light, you soon come to see that the larger a light source is, the softer its quality of light will be. Likewise, a small light source generates harsh, high-contrast lighting.

To illustrate, we decided to photograph this reflective pool ball with various lighting techniques. First, we set up two sawhorses in the corner of a small room and placed a 30x40" sheet of black foam core on top. We then mounted an Olympus E-Volt 500 digital camera to a tripod, placed a pool ball on the foam core and framed up a horizontal shot.

Built-in f\Flash Lighting
To demonstrate how most people would go about shooting an object like this, we set the camera to the Program (fully automatic) mode, activated the built-in flash and took a shot (figures 1 & 2).

As you can see, this snapshot result is not much too look at. Although the overall shot is too dark, the main problem with this type of built-in flash lighting is that it renders its subjects flatly. By "flat", we mean there is a limited sense of dimension to the object. And since the flash is such a small light source (not much bigger than a postage stamp), it often creates high contrast results with a poor sense of shape or detail. Here, you can see the small reflection of the flash in the ball, but the rest of the ball is dark and shapeless.

Household Lamp Lighting
To try and give the pool ball a better sense of dimension, we clamped a common desk lamp to a stool and placed it to the left of the ball. Though the width of the lamp head here is about with 5 inches (considerably larger than the built in flash of the camera), it is still a relatively harsh light source.

Before we took a shot with this lamp, we first disabled the built-in flash. We then set the White Balance in the camera to Tungsten to match the color temperature of the desk lamp (2800K) and took a shot (figures 3 & 4).

Moving the light off the camera and to the side will almost always improve the dimension of the shot because it creates noticeable highlights and shadows. Yet even though we solved the problem of flat lighting, we've now entered the world of high contrast lighting. Because the lamp is only 5 inches in diameter, it creates a "hotspot" reflection on one side and overly dark shadows on the other.

How a soft box works and why it was developed for photography
One of the primary jobs of a painter or photographer is to study the nature of light. There are times when light is harsh and high in contrast (direct sunlight/ flash lighting), and there are times when light is soft and diffused (light on a cloudy day, light coming in through a window).

Photographers of previous generations noticed that most objects and people were rendered more flattering and natural in soft light conditions. Because of this observation, it was only a matter of time before someone developed a way to create soft light on demand. Hence, the soft box was born.

Soft boxes were designed to soften the high-contrast light from small light sources (lamps, flashes) to reduce harsh shadows and hot spots. As a result, these light modifiers help to create soft, natural-looking light on both people and objects. Here, you can see the anatomy of a well-made soft box (figure 5).

With this soft box, the light from the lamp head bounces off the silver interior walls past the Internal Baffle, and then through the Front Diffusion Face. As you'll soon see, the Internal baffle helps to keep the light smooth and continuous.

Large Reflector Lighting
Here, we placed a Medium soft box (face measuring 24" x 32") in a horizontal position about a foot away from the pool ball and removed the Internal Baffle and Front Face for comparison purposes. We then made some adjustments to the camera settings for optimal capture results.

We first set the EXPOSURE mode to Manual, set the FOCUSING mode to MF, set the ISO to its lowest setting (80), set the RESOLUTION to SHQ, and created a CUSTOM WHITE BALANCE setting to match the color temperature of the Starlite Kit (3200 K).

We set the aperture to f/8 to get an adequate depth of field, set the shutter speed to 1/40th of a second, focused and took a shot (Figures 6 & 7).

As you can see here, without the Front Diffusion Face and Internal Baffle, the soft box acts like a large, hard light reflector. The reflection in the pool ball reveals the textured silver fabric of the internal walls and the shadow cast is still quite sharp.

Next we added just the Front Diffusion face to the soft box and took another shot (figures 8 & 9).

Now we have a much more diffused shadow. The contrast has been reduced and the reflection of the soft box is much smoother. However, if you look closely, you'll notice that there is still a noticeable hotspot in the center of the reflection.

By installing the Internal Baffle behind the face, the soft box is now able to produce an evenly lit reflection on the ball (figure 10).

Once the Internal Baffle was in place, we took another shot (figures 11 & 12).

The result shot shows a smooth, even, natural looking reflection on the ball with no sign of hotspot. Our contrast has reduced even more and the wrap-around lighting effect from the soft box has maintained a natural sense of dimension.

The biggest advantage to this type of lighting is that now the pool ball appears the way you would expect it look in person. Let's look at our results side by side to see the differences (figure 13).

As you can see from our result shots, the soft box does well to create a more natural looking result. And remember, these lighting principles apply to people as well as objects.

Next, we wanted to illustrate how the size of the light source affects the quality of light on your subject. The basic rule of thumb here is that the larger the light source (soft box), the softer and more diffused the light will be.

To illustrate, we first placed a Small soft box (face measuring 16" x 22") about 4 feet away from the pool ball and took a shot (figures 14 & 15).

The result shows a rather small, bright reflection of the soft box.

Next, we placed a Medium soft box (face measuring 24" x 32") about 4 feet away from the pool ball and took another shot (figures 16 & 17).

In the result shot, notice how the reflection is larger and that the shadow cast on the black foam core is a little softer and noticeably shorter than in the previous result shot.

Lastly, we placed a Large soft box (face measuring 36" x 48") about 4 feet away from the pool ball and took a final comparison shot (figures 18 & 19).

The reflection is again much larger and the shadow is now even softer and shorter.

Again, let's look at our results side by side to see the differences (figure 20).

As you can see here, the larger the light source, the larger its reflection and the softer the result. However, there is one other principle to keep in mind when controlling the quality of light, and that is…

The closer the light source, the larger it becomes
Many people think that if they move the soft box back, it will make the light softer and more even. But in fact what really happens is that the light becomes smaller and therefore higher in contrast, defeating the whole purpose of a soft box.

With a soft box, the closer you place it to your subject, the softer the light will be. Let's look at some examples. First, here's our set-up and result of the Small soft box placed 4 feet from the pool ball. Notice the size of the reflection in the pool ball (figures 21 & 22).

Now let's look at the result of the same Small soft box placed 1 foot away from the pool ball (figures 23 & 24).

As you can see, the size of the reflection has increased considerably. It is much larger than in the result from 4 feet away. In fact, the size of the reflection in this Small softbox result is even slightly larger than the reflection of the Large soft box result from 4 feet away!

The same thing happens with the light of the sun. On a cloudless day, the sun is very bright, but because it is so far away, is also very small relative to everything here and creates very high-contrast light. However, on a cloudy day, the sun's rays are scattered by the clouds and send light in every direction, creating soft, diffused light below (figure 26).

The soft box, then, acts like a cloud of sorts. And the larger the cloud is (or soft box), the softer the light will be. To see this theory in action, let's look at some more lighting examples.

Our previous set-up showed a Small soft box 1 foot away from the pool ball. For our next set-up, we replaced the Small soft box with a Medium soft box and took another shot (figures 27 & 28).

Notice that in addition to the larger reflection, we also have a much softer and shorter shadow cast from the pool ball. This again is a result of the wrap-around effect.

Finally, we replaced the Medium soft box with a Large soft box and took a final shot (figures 29 & 30).

Notice the results now. This highly reflective pool ball has a very smooth, large reflection, and the shadow it casts is extremely soft and unobtrusive. All from a single light source!

Now let's look at the results side by side (figure 31).

These final results show each of these softboxes used to their potential. Each soft box is as close to the pool ball as possible without entering the camera frame, and each one renders the softest light it is capable of.

While tastes vary from photographer to photographer, most will agree that bigger is better when it comes to lighting tools. So before you spend all your money on that fancy camera with built-in hand warmers, spend a little time researching the tools that are really going to make your photographs stand out from the rest: soft boxes.

But Wait, There's More…
Want to learn how to create an even bigger reflection in reflective objects like this pool ball? Then be sure to check out the Part 2 of Understanding How SoftBoxes work(figure 32 & 33).