Don’t make this mistake when you buy your first modifier. We’re going to take a look at a square soft box, a round soft box and an umbrella. Which one is best for you? Don’t waste your money! Buy the right thing the first time. Let’s get started and see what we can do. 
I got Jenly here with us. We’re going to take a look at these three modifiers and understand the quality of light and the cost and what’s best for your first purchase.
So the first question we need to answer is, why do you need a modifier? 
Let’s take a look at an image without a modifier, just a 7-inch reflector. 
That image is really hard. The transition from highlight to shadow is really abrupt. It’s directional. It looks pretty good on Jenly because she’s young and has a beautiful face. But for most people that’s a disaster. 
Your grandma would never use that modifier, ever!
So we need to modify this light. Let’s take a look at three modifiers that I suggest and see which one works best. Special thanks to Westcott who sponsored this video and provided us with our soft boxes and umbrella.
The first modifier most people choose is a square soft box. The square soft box does several things for us. One, it softens the light because we’ve got a diffusion material in front of the strobe head and we’ve got a bounce inside of the box which allows the light to bounce around and starts to diffuse it. 
And it looks much softer, much nicer. It gives us control because the soft box has hard sides and it’s closer to our subject matter. And so it cuts the area of coverage down so it’s not throwing light into the ceiling giving us an overall fill that we didn’t want. It’s just controlling the light better. It’s easier to keep the light off the background with a square soft box because you have that edge of the box and you can feather that away from the background. So having a soft box compared to a reflector gives us much more control and a much more beautiful light. So let’s put this on and see what it looks like.
So I’m going to raise my exposure by a half a stop at least, maybe just a little more than that. Because with that soft box going on there I’m going to lose exposure. So I’m going to go about 7/10 of a stop. Let’s take an image there and let’s take a look at those two compared to each other. Oh, the difference is absolutely astounding to me. You get this beautiful transition from the highlight to the shadow. You don’t get that hard line on the cheek. You get that great beautiful transition. Look at that, learn to be able to see that and identify it. What’s interesting is we got this box vertical.
What happens if we throw it horizontal? Move it slightly towards the camera and it even transitions more. The soft box is seeing around into the shadows. It’s giving us a much prettier light on her face. It’s looking around the image. It looks really gorgeous. So sometimes even though we’re shooting a person vertical we want to move that soft box horizontal to let it, allow it to look around the body. 
So that’s a beautiful light right there. So the advantage of the soft box, the square soft box, is that we have more control of our light compared to a reflector. It also gives us a square highlight in the eye. 
So we have this square highlight in the eye. That’s just by virtue of its shape. But it certainly softened our light and gave us a much prettier light. So now let’s go on to an octo-dome or a round soft box and just see what that looks like.
Hi, my name is Yasi. I’m a touring music photographer and here is what’s in my SKB case. I’ve got two camera bodies. One is digital, the Canon 5D Mark V. Over here I’ve got the Canon EOS 3, is my film body. And I keep my lenses all over here: the 70-200mm, the 35-85mm and the 16-35mm. 
I’ve got a whole stack of batteries over here. I’ve got my big flash, the 600. Got a little backup flash, just in case. Very, very, very important are my fitted earplugs. Also very important are my snacks. Don’t forget your charger and your cards. That’s literally it. So yeah, that’s what’s in my SKB case!
So here’s our octo-dome. I’ve taken a couple of shots with it. Look right here. 
This gives me a great combination of a lot of the advantages that the square soft box had. I have control because I’ve got a dark area that allows me to cut and to feather the light and to narrow the area of coverage. I’ve got a beautiful soft light. But the box is a little wider so automatically I’m getting that same wrap that I got with the horizontal square. 
I’m getting that same wrap on the face with this octo-dome. Also I’m getting a round catch light in the eye which is a just a nicer look to me than that square. 
So that round catch light just gives me a beautiful light on her face and a beautiful catch light in the eye. 
So there’s a look at the octo-dome. It’s a beautiful light. It wraps and just gives me a great look. So now let’s move on to our last modifier, the umbrella.
So I’m going to put the small 5-in reflector on that allows me to keep the area of coverage inside the umbrella, not bouncing out into the ceiling and around the room. That’s going to help keep control with this umbrella. But I’m going to do this as a shoot through. I’m going to shoot through the umbrella because it’s a beautiful look. 
So looking right here I see that light is pretty much in the umbrella. 
So is this a mistake most people make? They buy an umbrella? Or is it the soft box? Let’s keep going and see. 
So here’s our image with that umbrella. Let’s compare that to the soft box. They have a very similar look. You get that round catch light in the eye. You get a nice kind of soft light that transitions. It’s round, it’s bigger so it’s going to transition around like the horizontal soft box did. And it gives us a beautiful light on the face. 
So there’s the shoot through umbrella. It gives us a lot of the advantages of the round soft box in that we see the light around her face. It gives us a beautiful round kind of catch light in the eye. But it’s a diffused catch light. It’s not as hard. It kind of diffuses out on the edges. So it’s a really beautiful look. 
It’s not near as round and defined as either the square soft box or the round soft box. It just gives us a beautiful soft light, soft kind of round look in the eye. It does in this case because it’s a shoot through. It bounces light everywhere. We’re bouncing light back into the room, behind it. 
We’re bouncing light into the ceiling. I’m far enough away from those that it’s not giving me a lot of fill. But it is giving me some. So it’s going to give us more fill than we got with a soft box. So you have less control because it’s giving you bounce light everywhere.
Now you can turn this around. You can put the black cover on it and you can shoot with a bounce light. It’s not as soft. It’s not as pretty. But it gives you more control. You don’t have light bouncing around the room so much. Let’s take a look at that really fast. So this is pretty easy. It’s just little caps that go on to the umbrella and give us a black, kind of back. Which allows us to have more control because the light’s not going to pass through it. It’s not going to bounce around the room quite so much. And it’s also going to give us a little more directional light as we bounce than what we got shooting through it. I find it to be not quite as soft and as pretty. But let’s just take a look and see what we got.
Now let’s take a shot with that bounce umbrella and see what we get. The first thing is it’s not near as efficient. I’ve lost a lot of light in that bounce because it’s having to bounce and then send the light back. So I’m going to have to up my exposure by probably at least a half a stop. 
And you see, when you look at the image, you see the transition. The transition from highlight to shadow is looking much closer to a reflector than it did to the other soft boxes that we had. 
So I feel like this use of an umbrella just as a bounce with a hard light on with the cover on the back of it really gives us a harder looking light. It’s not near as pretty. But shooting through it gives us a beautiful light that looks very similar to that round octo-dome or round soft box.
So let’s take a look at the images. Here’s our reflector. Here’s our square soft box. Now here’s our round soft box. Here’s our shoot through soft box. And last of all the bounce. Let’s get rid of the reflector and the bounce and let’s just take a look at those three square, round soft box and umbrella. 
Take a look at the quality of light of each one of those. Which one do you like the best? Which one do you think looks the best? Leave us some comments below. Let us know what you think is best of the these three.
And now I’m going to wrap it up and tell you the mistake most people make. So let’s wrap this up. Most people buy for the first purchase a square soft box. It’s just a common thing that most people buy. Unless you’re doing product stuff in studio you don’t need a square soft box. If you’re doing people things outdoors you’re going to want some kind of a round light source. I believe it gives you a beautiful catch light in the eye. 
It’s broader so it gives you a better wrap around the person. So I think any kind of an octo-dome, this is a 36 inch octo-dome. It’s fabulous. The octo-dome gives you control. It gives you the ability to keep the light from bouncing around the set. And it gives you a really soft beautiful light on the face.
The unsung hero in lighting is an umbrella. It’s a beautiful light. That shoot through umbrella just gives you a gorgeous wrap. And it’s the cheapest solution here by far. You can get into a nice modifier for under $50 bucks and give you a beautiful light on the person’s face. So I think the biggest mistake most people make is they probably spend more money than they need. But I guarantee you, even if you buy a shoot through umbrella you’re eventually going to want some kind of a round octo-dome to take out on location. This is my go-to. This is what I use all the time. But if you can’t afford it, that shoot through umbrella gives you a beautiful light. And then go to that octo-dome. Don’t buy a square soft box unless you’re doing products. That’s my recommendation. So if you don’t agree with me then you probably don’t know what you’re doing! So keep those cameras rollin’ and keep on clickin’!
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