This past fall I launched an Online Photography Education site called Shoot for Love, it is a monthly membership site priced to be as affordable and as accessible as possible. I will be posting more and more premium educational content including classroom style instruction, instructional video from past workshops, posing tutorials, retouching videos and more. I focus on techniques I use to create the images I love to create.

The monthly membership fee ($12.95) allows me to not only put more time and effort into these posts, it also comes with a money back guarantee so if you don’t find something you love simply request a refund!  Here are a few of the things we’ve posted within the last couple months, with plenty more to come!

Visit www.shootforlove.com and get started today!

Tutorials now Available at Shoot for Love

Studio Lighting Details and Diagram with a Parabolic Umbrella

Lighting Diagram and walk through of a studio lighting setup using a borrowed studio and borrowed lights.

A Photoshop Layers Walk through (video)

Jake Garn gives a video tour of one of his fully retouched photoshop files, layer by layer. A quick way to pick up on some techniques you may have overlooked.

Demonstration On Directing Models (video)

This is a quick little glimpse into some intense model directing by Jake Garn.

The Importance of Great Models

Heather - Makeup by Danielle Carlsen - Hair by Steven Robertson

Classes available at Shoot for Love

Finding Your Style – A class by Jake Garn

In this class shot exclusively for Shoot For Love Jake Garn discusses his path to finding his photographic style and shares this insight with the hopes of inspiring photographers everywhere to find their unique voice.

Lighting Tools 101 – A Class by Jake Garn

Filmed at the 2011 Shoot For Love workshop this is a great overview of basic lighting principles and available types of lighting equipment along with a slew of sample images showcasing different lighting techniques and equipment.  We talk about the first step in learning light and that is understanding yourself.  A must watch for any photography lighting enthusiast!

Posing and Expressions – A class by Jake Garn (Coming Soon)

Filmed at the 2011 Shoot For Love workshop Jake Garn shares posing tips and techniques to get the most flattering looks from your models, also a discussion on inspiring (and stealing) the perfect expressions.

 Free Content on our Blog!

You don’t have to be a member to enjoy the website, we post plenty of free content including equipment reviews and monthly photography assignments.

• December Photo Assignment – Shoot the Weather – Win $150 in printing credit from www.replicolor.com
• Ryan Muirhead Reviews the Fuji X100 Digital Camera
• Holiday Gift Guide – Gifts under $500 for the photographer in your life

iPhone using Hipstamatic (a great photography app)

Steven Wood and I landed at 6:04PM, drove straight from the Portland Airport to Stereoblind studio where we met our two hosts along with two models and two stylists.  This would be the first day of a three day shooting trip, seven models in three days.

The first day, right off the plane, was a shoot planned with a full styling team and three models.  None of whom I’d ever met in real life.

This trip was a bit of an experiment.  I wanted to see how hard it was to leave my geographic comfort zone and shoot, was it worth the hassle to bring a camera on short trips?  Away from my lights, away from my studio, away from my connections.  On a bit of a whim I was browsing Modelmayhem and spotted a model or two that I thought I would LOVE to shoot, and both were in the same city..Portland, a city less than an hour and a half away by plane.   One thing led to another and I looked up prices which seemed much to inexpensive to be right, Steven agreed to join me.  We’d do some shooting, check out the sites and maybe even test drive a Ferrari with a blind Al Pacino, who knows.  I was ready for anything.

About 45 minutes before getting on the plane, a few hours before the shoot, I received an email from one of the models.  “Family emergency, can’t make it.  Sorry for the late notice…,” that sort of thing.

These happen, the longer I’ve been a photographer the more rarely they occur… leading me to believe that when they do occur it’s probably legitimate.  I emailed her back thanking her for letting me know and… well, didn’t know what we’d do.  No cell service in the plane, which was leaving soon.

We formulated a plan B at the shoot.  Instead of one look each for three models we’d do two looks of two models.  The results were… well… if I were into sports analogies I’d say it was a home run.

The lighting setup I used to achieve these is simple.  A single strobe with a parabolic umbrella (86″) creates a very soft even lighting. The umbrella is directly behind me with the face of it perpendicular to the ground, if you look closely into the catch lights you’d see me standing in front of the light.  To bring back some definition in the edges I placed two large, black foam boards on either side of the model, just barely out of frame.  That is what gives that distinctive shaded contouring around the edges of the model, so to speak.

As seen in this simple lighting diagram.

Setup photo courtesy of Dan LaHaie and his iPhone

Lighting doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need a lot of attention to detail.  As anyone on set that day can probably attest to – angles, distances, power and reflectors are tweaked and tweaked and tweaked… until… well, you just know it’s right.

Complete Equipment Used for this test

• Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
• Lens: Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM
• Tripod: Manfrotto 190XPROB
• Tripod Grip: Manfrotto Ballhead (322RC2)
• (Provided by Stereoblind) Strobe: Profoto
• (Provided by Stereoblind) Light Modifier: PLM Parabolic Umbrella (Silver back)
• (Provided by Stereoblind) Modifier Accessory: Translucent White front diffuser for Umbrella
• (Provided by Stereoblind) Black Foam Core – from an art supply store.

The Beauty Dish is a staple, and a favorite, for many photographers, especially those specializing in commercial beauty shots. The Elinchrom Deep Octa is often warmly compared to the Beauty Dish for having a similar light quality, yet boasting the ease and convenience of being both lighter and easier to manage on-set as well as more portable (since it folds up nicely into a bag) – not to mention costing a little bit less money.

So which is better?  Looking around the internet I couldn’t find a side-by-side comparison and we all know if you want something done then… well… lucky for me the amazingly helpful staff at B&H Photo Video agreed to let me test drive the two light modifiers so I could make just such a judgment call, for you, my loyal blog readers.

So without further ado.

vs.

Although the following sample images are labeled, keen eyes should be able to discern which is which just by looking closely. See if you can spot the dead-giveaway.  I’ll give you the hint, it’s in the eyes. (click the images to greatly enlarge)

One thing to keep in mind is that all of these images are directly out of the camera, absolutely no post-processing work has been done to any of them.  Since the Beauty Dish puts out a bit more light the power was adjusted up slightly for the Deep Dish shots, that is the only difference.

Brynlee

This was the first test and as you can see the difference is distinct, yet subtle.  The Beauty Dish (left) seems to flatten Brynlee’s features just a bit while the Deep Dish Octa (right) carves out the structure in her cheek bones and eyes a bit more.  Keep in mind that Brynlee has a very unique face structure (which I’m semi-in-love with) and while your preference on lighting may vary I very much prefer the image on the right.

(click for a larger view)

Demi

She also has an amazingly unique face with perfectly rounded features.  You can see how the beauty dish seems to make her face glow from within while the Deep Octa seems a little too specular.  Notice too the softness of the shadow under her chin along with more shadows carving through her collar bone and upper chest.  However, the Deep Octa does seem to add a softer highlight on the tip of her nose along with brighter lips.  Overall my preference is for the image on the left.

Jillian

Jillian has a more angular facial structure which the Beauty Dish compliments so perfectly.  Notice how the image on the left simply seems to have more dimension on almost every feature.  The Beauty Dish just seems to carve the light around her angles making for amazing shadows and highlights.  Again, I prefer the left image, by far.

Jumping to a Conclusion

I used both of these modifiers extensively beyond these three tests to help round out my thoughts and I’ll be honest at first I thought both were quite interchangeable.  Initially I definitely had a preference for the Deep Octa mainly because it was a bit easier to take on and off, all you had to do was twist it off of the strobe.  The beauty dish wasn’t much more difficult but the weight made using it on a boom-stand a bit cumbersome and I always seemed to forget to take off that little reflector from the front before un-twisting the dish.

It was only after “getting to know” them a bit better that I started to discover the subtle differences – differences that are difficult explain without sounding like a nut-job – but overall I found myself being drawn to the quality of light produced by the Beauty Dish for probably 3 out of 5  set-ups.  If I had to choose one then it’d have to be the Beauty Dish since I can see myself wanting to use it more often, however, both of the modifiers get a ringing endorsement from me – especially since the Deep Octa happens to be a bit more convenient and a bit better under certain circumstances, such as photographing unique faces like the amazing Brynlee!

If you don’t already have one of these I’d definitely recommend saving up some pennies and picking one up!

Complete Equipment Used for this test

• Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
• Light Modifier: Elinchrom 27″ Beauty Dish
• Light Modifier: Elinchrom Deep Octa
• Boom Stand: Manfrotto Combi Boom
• Pocket Wizard (2): Multimax 32 Channel
• Lens: Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM
• Tripod: Manfrotto 190XPROB
• Tripod Grip: Manfrotto Ballhead (322RC2)
• Memory Card: SanDisk Extreme 16GB
• Strobe Elinchrom 300RX Monolight

I wanted to get a new one but I couldn’t really find any good reviews on the differences between brands, so I asked B&H to send me a couple to take for a test drive, thanks so much!  A few days later they arrived and the match was set!

Versus

I’m not a professional reviewer so I set out to simply experiment with both softboxes and report on which one I liked best.  I selected the Photoflex for the very simple reason that Photoflex soft-boxes have speed-rings that will adapt them to several different brands of strobes and  I chose Elinchrom because that is the brand of strobe I currently use in my studio.  For this particular test I used the Elinchrom Style 600RX.

In order to keep the results between the two soft-boxes as fair as possible I used the same settings on the strobe without moving the light stand at all between shots, I also kept all the camera settings exactly the same.  I had Bailey (the beautiful model) try to hold the same pose between shots.  We did this a few times with slightly different styles to get as broad of results as possible.

I didn’t have any expectations going into it, I have used Elinchrom and Photoflex soft boxes and have had great success with both brands.  What I found out surprised me.

What’s in the box

Rotalux by Elinchrom Midi Octa

Click for B&H Listing

• Octa Softbox with textured silver lining
• Removable Inner/Outer Baffle
• Tent poles
• Speed Ring
• Case with shoulder strap

Photoflex Octadome

Click for B&H Listing

• Octadome Softbox with white lining
• Double sided lining, gold or silver
• Octagon lining for back of softbox
• Removable Inner/Outer Baffle
• Speed Ring
• Case with small handle

Thoughts after opening the boxes

Photoflex comes with a lot more stuff, but Elinchrom’s design eliminates the need for a lot of the extras.  For instance, the octagon shaped cover for the back of the softbox isn’t needed by Elinchrome simply because the design of the softbox fits perfectly snug with the Elinchrom strobe.  This may be because Photoflex is designing their light for maximum compatibility across multiple brands of strobes.

The double sided lining that comes with the Photoflex box is kind of a cool idea.  Why you would use a gold reflector? Well if you ever shoot in the shade on a bright sunny day you’ll notice that there is a blue-ish color cast.  The reason you get a blue color cast is because the ambient light is blue – mainly because it comes from the blue sky.  Since gold is a yellowish color (yellow is opposite Blue on the RGB color wheel) the gold reflector can help correct the blue cast in shadows. If you’re shooting the octa mostly inside a studio (like I am) then the gold reflector is pretty much useless… it is cool to have but it’s also a little bit of a pain to put on.

The texture of the two inner linings is significantly different, the Elinchrom has a raised, pebble like texture that you can see and feel. The Photoflex lining is completely flat (both gold and silver).  I’m interested to see if this has any affect on the final images.

Also, the baffles are made out of markedly different material.  The Elinchrom material feels more cloth-like whereas the Photoflex baffle feels more plasticky.  The cases don’t really affect how they’ll shoot but it’s worth mentioning that the Elinchrom case is much cooler and better quality.

Assembly

I hate putting together softboxes, especially big ones.  It’s a hassle.

As far as hassles go the Photoflex was much less stressful putting together, even though I had to put on all the linings the built in tent poles were much easier to manage during set-up.  It’s a trade-off though, once finished the Elinchrom had a smoother front to it, all the edges were crisp, it was much, much lighter, and the back of the softbox fit snuggly to the light which eliminated all the nasty spill light.  Also, the Elinchrom has zero velcro on it and the Photoflex feels like it was born in a velcro factory.

The Photflex does sell a mesh grid which fits the front of the softbox. An equivalent option is not available from Elinchrom. For this review I both soft boxes without a grid the entire time, I’ll do a separate review on the mesh grid in a later post.

All-in-all, if I were choosing soft-box that I was going to take apart and put back together often I’d probably go with the Photoflex, though if I had the option to leave it constructed most of the time (which I do) then the Elinchrom’s light weight and more solid construction make it a bit more convenient moving around the studio.

Shoot One: Beauty Portrait

On first glance many of you will notice one difference between the two images, the Photoflex seems to be brighter – especially near the center of the image (right around the middle of her face).  I think the brightness has to do with the different fabric on each of the softboxes, the Elinchrom’s cloth baffle simply disperses or absorbs the light more than the Photflex.

Brightness aside the Photoflex seems to be a more specular light source than the Elinchrom.  Specular vs. diffuse is one of the main principles in the quality of light and generally speaking the smaller the light source the more specular it is, and the more specular a light source is the harder the shadows and highlights are.  That’s why an overcast sky (the biggest light source of all) creates nearly zero shadows.

What’s confusing to me is that since the Photoflex soft box is bigger it should be putting out a more diffuse light, but that’s not what is happening.

It’s a very, very subtle difference though, so we’ll take a closer look at what I’m talking about.

Look at the shadows just below her cheekbone on each of these completely un-retouched images.  Notice how the edge of the shadow on the Photoflex is just a tad bit more defined than the edge of the Elinchrom?  I’m not talking about darkness of shadow, I’m talking about the edge where it transitions from shadow to light.  You may need to squint to see it but you’ll notice that the bottom edge of the Elinchrom is very soft, whereas the Photoflex is a little more defined.

This is the exact opposite result of what I would have expected since Photoflex should be the more diffuse light source.  I’m not saying that a more diffuse shadow is better in any way. Many jobs call for more defined shadows, in which case a more specular light source is ideal, but a 5′ foot octagon softbox is designed to modify a light into a diffuse source.  Certainly this difference is not a major one at all, though it is noticeable to me.

Also, the Elinchrom seems to have slightly yellow color cast to it, again, easily corrected before or after I took the shot – but I wanted these to be with identical settings.

I think both would be an excellent choice for a beauty headshot.  I do prefer the Elinchrom mainly because of the subtle hot spot from Photoflex in the center of the image.

Shoot Two: Full Body Side Lighting

Again, the Photoflex appears brighter overall.  Both create very useable results.  It was only after very careful observation that I realized something really strange. It has to do with the light hitting the model’s left thigh.

On careful inspection (you have to look at how well the light reflects off the top of the thigh) you’ll notice that the light on the Elinchrom image is brighter than the Photoflex image.  Which is strange for a couple of reasons, first of all the Photoflex softbox is larger so her leg should be closer to the light source, and the closer the subject is to a fixed intensity light source the brighter that light will appear.  Of course spreading the same amount of light across more surface area would definitely decrease the intensity slightly but we already know the Photoflex is producing brighter images overall.  Maybe it was just because her leg is bent slightly more towards the light-source in the Elinchrom version – that would definitely cause a brighter light… but I don’t think the difference would be this much.  I could absolutely be wrong though, I decided to do another experiment to find out.

Like any 5th grade science teacher will tell you, in order to create a successful experiment you need to develop a hypothesis and then create an experiment to test your hypothesis.

I developed a theory, even though the Photoflex was larger I figured the strobe was not actually spreading it’s light very equally across the front baffle.  To test the theory I came up with a plan.  I set my aperture to as high as it will go (f32) and shot the front of each softbox directly, at three different power settings.  1.5 | 3.0 | 4.5

The results are below (Elinchrom is on the left, Photoflex is on the right)

After converting these images to black and white I used the eyedropper tool along with the info tab in photoshop to measure the amount of black present at similar points in both lights. I labeled each of these as seen above.  This test verifies my theory and explains both issues I was having with the Photoflex soft box, there is a ring of more intense light (with a darker center) in the center of the Photoflex softbox and as the light goes out it stays brighter for longer but then drops off much faster than the Elinchrom.

Shoot 3: Front full Body

Even though the Photoflex appears brighter throughout the entire image you can see that the transition from the tones in her face to the tones in her legs is more drastic than in the Elinchrom version.  Not much, but when I look for it I can definitely tell.

Of course I could have shot still images of cubes and cylinders for this light test and we could have eliminated the tiny movements of the model in between tests but overall I think the best kind of test is a real life one.  That makes the beautiful Bailey a perfect choice for this experiment and I would like to thank her for her patience while I yelled at her to hold still while I swapped out lights.

The Conclusion?

All in all both, of the soft boxes performed well. If I’m being honest I prefer the Elinchrom.  Not only does the light transition more smoothly (with a less-pronounce center hot-spot) but the lighter weight and tighter construction makes it something that is just easier to move around in the studio.

One big complaint about Elinchrom though – I’d really love it if the Elinchrom softboxes weren’t nearly IMPOSSIBLE to remove from the Elinchrom 600RX!

However, it needs to be said that I am certain I could get very useable results from the Photoflex.

Final Retouched Images

Other Equipment used to achieve these images

• Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
• Lens: Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM
• Tripod: Manfrotto 190XPROB
• Tripod Grip: Manfrotto Ballhead (322RC2)
• Memory Card: SanDisk Extreme 16GB
• Strobes: Two Elinchrom 600RX Monolights
• Software: Adobe Lightroom & Adobe Photoshop CS5

at Trolley Square Mall

As part of The Hive gallery’s fashion month we did a live shoot at the mall (during open hours) for the public to come watch!  It was tons  of work, tons of fun and we had a great turn out of spectators!  Here is a behind the scenes look with lighting diagrams (click them for a full size view) and video which will give you some real life peeks at how everything was set up!  Enjoy!

A Step by Step guide

Here is a step-by-step lighting diagram guide showing how I set up this particular 4-strobe shot.  The images next to the diagrams are straight out of the camera, also you’ll notice I don’t really make the model pose too carefully while I’m doing the light setup.

See the rest of this finished series at Black Lace

Diagrams

I get lots of questions about lighting, so I thought I’d layout some shots and how I lit (or is it lighted?) them.  Hopefully this will be fairly informative, let me know what you think and if you have any special requests!  Illustrations that I used to create these diagrams are courtesy of photographer Kevin Kertz.

Want to buy any of the equipment shown above? Find it at Adorama using the search box below: