{"id":41682,"date":"2026-05-18T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=41682"},"modified":"2026-05-18T02:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:25:08","slug":"tip-jar-21-modifying-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2026\/05\/tip-jar-21-modifying-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Tip Jar 21: Modifying light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"staged
A ‘studio’ subject: main light to right, fill light left and behind to faintly counteract most of the shadows<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Learning how to manage light is an important part of getting the images that you want, and improving those subtle little nuances that can affect your images negatively. Yes, you can spend beaucoup bucks on lighting units and modifiers and reflectors and diffusers, and these will certainly make your life easier if you’re doing portraiture in a studio – but not so much anyplace else, since they’re bulky and heavy and need lots of power. Plus, you may only occasionally need such things in your own pursuits, too rarely to justify the hundreds or thousand of dollars you could easily spend. There are simpler ways.<\/p>\n

First off, direct light, like that from a flash unit directly on the camera or the little LED of a smutphone, is boring<\/em>, often unflattering and diminishing in detail. It’s the shadows that provide shaping and textures – when they don’t obscure details or produce harsh contrast, and we’ll cover handling these. So let’s break it down.<\/p>\n

Off-axis.<\/strong> Getting your light source away from directly over the camera can help tremendously. Just a simple flash bracket to move the flash unit off of the hot shoe gives you greater control and ‘modeling,’ the aspect of making the shadows work for you and not against you. The more versatile your bracket is, the more you can do with it, but this (like a lot of things we’ll cover here) is a matter of taste and purposes. I do a lot of macro photography, so my brackets are geared towards throwing the light down close to the end of the lens, but portraiture might require getting a lot higher or wider.<\/p>\n

The key to this, of course, is being able to trigger the flash when you need it. Usually, this is best done with a dedicated off-camera cable that retains all of the communication that your camera and flash are engaging in, but it might be a two-piece radio unit (which can be obtained for surprisingly low amounts of money anymore) or even a basic sync cord that only triggers the flash at full power. But you’ll need something<\/em> when working with a bracket.<\/p>\n

Reducing the ‘spotlight’ effect.<\/strong> Bright highlights where the light is reflected the most and deep shadows where it doesn’t reach produce high contrast, made worse because photos capture a narrower range of light than we see, thus increasing contrast. This is sometimes useful and artistic, but often far from ideal. There are multiple factors to consider with this.<\/p>\n

Difference from ambient light.<\/strong> If you’re trying to improve your shutter speed, or stop down the aperture for greater depth-of-field, ambient light becomes less of a contributor to the image and thus the shadows thrown by the flash become more prominent. Whenever you can, if you’re using a single light unit with no diffusers or reflectors, getting as close to an ambient light exposure as possible will help. The major manufacturers offer various methods of managing this (E-TTL with Canon, i-TTL with Nikon, etc.), which can help, but they can also slow down the shutter speed to capture lower ambient light, causing motion blur.<\/p>\n

[Side note:<\/strong> “TTL” stands for “Through The Lens” flash metering, meaning it measures the light that the flash provides directly through the lens of the camera, rather than just what gets bounced back to a light meter on the flash itself, or those with no metering whatsoever. Letters added to these indicate a proprietary algorithm or function to improve upon this, which can be handy, as long as you know how it works and what might defeat it.]<\/p>\n

Light angle versus shape.<\/strong> Different angles will of course throw different shadows, and occasionally (perhaps often) these will obscure details that you wanted to keep, or simply create harsh dark areas. This is one of the few occasions where ‘chimping’ actually helps, in that you can see how the shadows have popped up and how they affect the subject you’re tackling. Sometimes, all that’s needed is a slight tweak, or even turning the camera sideways. But there is a reason the main flash bracket that I use with macro work is reversible:<\/strong> I can switch sides in a minute or so as needed.<\/p>\n

\"eastern
It’s the shadows around the neck that provide a lot of the ‘character,’ yet they’re not too deep<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Many studio light units come with a ‘modeling light,’ one that can be turned on and off, that aligns directly with the flash tube so it will throw the same shadows as the flash and let you judge before tripping the shutter. And this is occasionally available with smaller units too, or you might simply make your own, that may also help focusing in dimmer light (again, you can see the macro influence here.)<\/p>\n

Diffusers.<\/strong> There are lots<\/em> of options here, from factory-made caps that fit directly onto your flash, through large softbox units that spread out the light over a broader area, to a simple tissue. The idea is to reduce the single direction that the light comes from and spread it out a bit, bouncing it around to come from a broader area, or simply reducing the harshness. It’s not hard to find thin white fabric, mostly sheer, that can fit over the flash head, or you can use wax paper, semi-translucent plastic (like plastic drop cloths for painting,) tissue paper – whatever works. But<\/em>, it works much better when it is wider, sitting some distance from the flash tube and capturing more of the cone of light emitted. This is what a softbox does, or a light umbrella. Better still is something that encloses and reflects the entire cone of light from the flash tube, bouncing all of that through the diffuser material. But in a pinch, just a tissue over the flash head can help a lot.<\/p>\n

The broader softbox also allows you to ‘cover’ your subject, allowing light from a much greater angle to blanket your view. There’s the tradeoff between usefulness and bulk and\/or portability, of course, but if you can create a light source wider than your subject or frame, you’ll greatly reduce shadows while showing off more of the subject and getting details down in areas not directly facing the light source.<\/p>\n

Bounce lighting.<\/strong> It’s amazing how well this works, in the right conditions. With a white ceiling or wall over\/near your subject, you can aim the flash unit at that<\/em> instead of directly, and the light it reflects over a much broader area will completely eliminate that spotlight effect, and will often look perfectly natural, like ambient light. This is why so many flash heads can tilt (and fewer can swivel, but I’d recommend looking for both if you’re shopping for one.)<\/p>\n

Be aware that you want to aim not at the ceiling\/wall directly aligned with your subject, but about the halfway point – aim to ‘ricochet’ the light to your target. Also be aware that this requires a lot<\/em> more flash power than direct, and it doesn’t take a very big room before you’d better have a powerful flash (high guide number.) And if you’re calculating this manually, you have to take this distance into account, roughly adding half-again to double the distance to your calculations for light output. The advanced TTL options will usually do this for you, though.<\/p>\n

Reflectors.<\/strong> A different approach to more even lighting and fewer harsh shadows, a reflector can be used on the opposite side of the light to bounce some light into the areas that the light source doesn’t reach directly. Naturally, you want this to still illuminate the portions facing the lens, so typically, your reflector will be positioned on the opposite side of the camera as the light source, just outside the frame, where it will capture the edge of the light cone and reflect that towards the subject from another angle. Again, think ‘ricochet,’ but getting as close to both the light source and the subject as possible, while remaining out of the frame, will give the greatest percentage of light to fill those shadows.<\/p>\n

So many things can work as reflectors, including the dedicated foil reflectors intended for exactly this purpose and costing about four times what they should. I use one of the old-style windshield reflectors to keep your car cool, one that’s round and twists down to 1\/3 its diameter for storage. Or you can use a foil-covered board, or a simple whiteboard, or even a index card for small, close subjects. Shiny is better, but an actual mirror will usually work against you and make a spotlight effect on the opposite side of your subject;<\/strong> something that diffuses the light is usually better.<\/p>\n

But of course, managing<\/em> this reflector and getting it at the right angle is key, and this is where an assistant comes in. Lacking that, some kind of arm that permits specific positioning is more useful.<\/p>\n

Secondary lighting.<\/strong> This is a big part of studio portraiture:<\/strong> the idea of lighting carefully balanced to maintain the modeling shadows but not get too<\/em> deep. Usually, there’s a ‘key’ light that is the primary illumination, and a secondary ‘fill’ light that’s lower in power. Easy to do with light stands and adjustable output lights, a bit harder to do portably, especially mounted onto the camera itself.<\/p>\n

\"Vivitar
Vivitar 285HV variable-power flash unit with slave foot attached; will work with nothing further<\/figcaption><\/figure>[For macro work, there are dedicated two-light units that have adjustable output between the two and the ability to turn one off. These are often expensive, and I have yet to use one – my present rig offers more versatility than small flash tubes flanking the end of the lens, as these usually are. However, there’s a distinct benefit to simply dialing in the light ratio that you want.]<\/p>\n

Syncing two (or more) lights can require specialized equipment, whether it is as simple as a sync-cord splitter or a dedicated power unit that takes the signal from the camera. Most times, however, it’s even simpler than that:<\/strong> only one flash unit receives the signal of the shutter tripping, and the others are ‘slave’ units that trip as soon as they pick up the light burst from the main flash, and yes, this happens fast enough. You can find slave sync shoes for any basic flash unit for, really, not much money at all, and many kinds of lights come with them built-in – I have two that just screw into standard light bulb sockets and can be positioned as needed from any old table or floor lamp.<\/p>\n

Light output.<\/strong> This is key to multi-light setups, but also to manual flash work. For instance, you can easily get a cheap, used flash unit to use as a secondary light, attached to a slave shoe, but you usually (not always) want it producing less light than the primary flash. You can calculate guide numbers and distances and so on, but it’s often easier than that, though it might take a few tests to get right (much easier in the digital age.) You can reduce light output as simply as aiming the flash unit slightly away from the subject, or moving it further away, or covering the head with some tissue paper – I’ve even done adjusted lighting with those tiny little on-camera popup flash heads by covering part of the head with my finger. And this doesn’t just have to be the secondary unit, either – you can reduce the primary so its output isn’t as out-of-proportion with the secondary unit.<\/p>\n

Of course, with flash units that possess adjustable output, you can dial in what you need. Just be aware that these are proportions of the highest output, the guide number, and only correspond if your slave unit is the same guide number. If your slave has a significantly lower GN, then you have to adjust accordingly.<\/p>\n

[Stupid trick that I’ve done a few times. The light sensors on slave units will also respond into the infrared. And black slide film (unexposed, but developed) blocks visible light but passes infrared. Covering the primary flash tube with a bit of black slide film will still allow it to trigger any slave nearby, great for not having a sync cord of any kind with you.]<\/p>\n

Ringlights\/ringflash.<\/strong> Larger ones are routinely available to the influencer\/content-creator folks, and smaller ones are made to go on the lend of the lens for macro work. This provides even, shadow-free lighting by illuminating from all angles around the lens. Sometimes helpful for very close subjects<\/a> that are hard to get the flash aimed it, but again, this removes all of the shape-modeling and makes subjects appear flatter. Suit to taste, but I’ve rarely liked the results of using them, so they stay packed away most of the time. And they look horrible in direct reflections.<\/p>\n

\"closeup
Direct reflections.<\/strong> Glass and shiny surfaces, wet surfaces, eyes, and many insects will reflect the light back into the camera, sometimes very distinctly. These are usually called specular highlights, but regardless, they can get out-of-control easily. They may also betray the shape and appearance of your lighting unit – you’ve probably seen it, at one time or another, in someone’s eyes. This is why my custom macro softbox heads are always round, even when rectangular would be far easier to build and manage:<\/strong> they just look like the sun. While a softbox can help, on very reflective surfaces it only reduces the effect. And two lights or reflectors will still show up.<\/p>\n

Bounce lighting off of a wide surface or ceiling can be the solution. Otherwise, you might resort to a gobo, which is only a light blocker, often a little piece of black cardboard or plastic cut to shape and stuck on the end of a supporting wire. This goes between the lights and the subject, and blocks only that light which would bounce directly to the camera<\/em>, allowing the rest of the illumination to pass by. Easier to use with a direct light unit rather than any diffusers or softboxes, since this means it doesn’t have to be big at all – a hair larger than the flash head itself. The positioning, however, is absolutely crucial, and this means studio work where everything is in a fixed position. I’ve done it once, and probably could have used it a few more times if I wanted to mess about with it, but very few of my subjects would ever benefit from it, or hold still long enough…<\/p>\n

Also note that such reflective subjects will also show anything else that the flash might catch inadvertently<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your subjects and approaches will dictate what works best for you.<\/strong> This is important, since what I use most often may not work for too many other people – I’m trying to be broad-minded and cover as much as reasonable here, but I’m likely missing things. Experiment freely, and look at your results closely, to work out what is most beneficial to you. Just know that there are lots of options, and multiple ways to achieve almost anything, even on a budget.<\/p>\n

Good luck!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
For illustration, the various iterations my macro softbox has gone through:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first, to fit a Sunpak FP38 flat-panel flash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The second, to fit an ancient Sunpak Auto 322 variable-power unit after I stupidly fried the flat-panel flash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adding a focusing\/modeling light to that version<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Almost the latest, 3D printed to fit a Canon 300EZ<\/a>. I have two of the Sunpak Auto 322s, both of which stopped working, and it’s a project of mine to swap parts and get at least one working again, since they were small, variable-power units and that’s quite handy. This Canon is filling in until I get off my ass on that project – not variable, but decent light output, and I adjust aperture or angle to modify the light depending on the distance to the subject.<\/p>\n

The diffusing panel has been sheer white fabric, a single 3D-printed layer of white, and a double-layer of clear, which beats the others – best light transmission while still diffusing over a broad area. As you can see below, the clear filament isn’t exactly clear<\/em> when printed, but less opaque than the white.<\/p>\n

\"two
Current softbox iteration with focusing light; direct flash on left, bounce flash from ceiling with handheld flashlight to provide highlights on flash body on right<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Learning how to manage light is an important part of getting the images that you want, and improving those subtle little nuances that can affect your images negatively. Yes, you can spend beaucoup bucks on lighting units and modifiers and reflectors and diffusers, and these will certainly make your life easier if you’re doing portraiture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[1981,8699,251,652,4046,2084,4320,7316,4322,8698,3156,1129,767,653],"class_list":["post-41682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo","category-reference","tag-contrast","tag-diffusers","tag-fill-flash","tag-fill-lighting","tag-light-angle","tag-light-quality","tag-macro-softbox","tag-modeling","tag-modeling-light","tag-multi-light-work","tag-reflectors","tag-shadows","tag-softbox","tag-softening-shadows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41682"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41696,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41682\/revisions\/41696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}