Large DIY Softbox
While the soft boxes supplied with flash kits are very useful there are many occasions when much larger versions can provide a better quality of light, particularly when lighting a full figure shot. Many commercial studios have large soft boxes as a matter of course. They are also available from the flash manufacturers at a price. I personally like, if possible, to adopt a DIY approach to my lighting. The following description is about how I made mine. The illustration here will show you what it looks like. Usually soft boxes are small and light enough to hang on the front of your flash unit. Because this one is too large and heavy to do this, it is a question of hanging the flash unit in the back of the soft box. Even so it pays to make the box itself as light as possible otherwise handling it can become a problem.
The box described here was built on a rectangle of thin plywood with a hole cut in it for the flash head to poke through. This forms the base to which is attached the wooden frame work. To make this I used strips of hardwood thin enough to keep the weight down but strong enough to hold the whole thing together. They were fastened to each other with thin metal plates and very small screws. The sides were then covered with thin fabric; it this case an old bed sheet. The fabric was then given several coats of white emulsion paint to make the surface more light reflective. In this way the whole thing weighs as little as possible without being too fragile. Mine may be 1.75 x 1.05m in size but it is very easy to move around the studio. Outdoors it is not so useful unless it is a windless day; flash units do not windsurf well.
Back to the actual construction; a small wooden platform, see the sketch on the right of the illustration, is how the flash unit can be fixed to the S/Box reflector. The flash unit is located on a peg screwed to the floor of a bracket fixed to the plywood reflector base. This peg was made from a 50mm section of 15mm copper piping held in place by metal washer and a long wood screw. The actual diameter of this peg depends on the attachment point of your flash unit. I use Elinchrom units which just drop onto a peg this size and can be fixed using the side locking knob as it does onto a normal stand. The platform bracket in turn pivots on a short length of 50 x50 mm wood by means of a bolt and thumb nut. The bottom end of the wood is drilled to fit onto the top of a standard lighting stand. The whole platform Flash unit and reflector is now able to swing around this bolt which can be tightened to hold it in position. The unit it too large to tilt much but the movement is enough for most practical purposes. When finished, the whole thing is light enough to use on a normal lighting stand with care. A heaver stand would make it more stable.
In practice, just like the other lights described on this site, there are several ways of using it to alter the quality of the light output. The rectangle of opal plastic suspended on string or wire suggested earlier in the previous technique sections, see the top right sketch the main illustration, softens the light considerably. Covering the reflector front totally with translucent material softens the light even more. It is purely a question of the sort of lighting effect you require for a particular shot.
Examples
This picture shows the large softbox being used as a main light. The plastic baffle described in the previous section is in place so the unit is working like a giant beauty light. The only other light used in this shot was placed behind the girl and directed at the background obliquely to show its texture. This light also throws a small amount of light on her dark hair. The light from this lamp would have spread further if it had not been filled with a simple cardboard baffle. The main light is big enough to provde soft direct lighting and at the same time fill in the shadows to a degree.
In this set-up the large softbox as before is used as the main light. It has been moved more to the right of the girl so she is almost side lit. The white background is strongly lit from a light near the studio ceiling overhead and is directed straight down towards it. Because the studio is small and white painted, the amount of light bouncing around from the two lights fills the shadows on the the girl’s unlit side making it unnecessary for an more lights to be used. I find it makes things simplier to use as few light as possible in any situation and in this case is one of the advantages in using a small studio.
The difference between this and the previous example shots is that the large softbox is now being used as a fill-in light. The front of the reflector was also been covered with translucent fabric to soften its light further. As the girl is lying on the floor on the bright red fake fur, if bouce light had been used on its own to fill the shadows, her face would have picked up too much colour from its redness. So here the power of the overhead background light was increased and the power of the softbox was reduced. By bringing it back toward the front of the girl, it provided just enough light to stop the shadows going bright red.
This shows the large softbox in use out of the studio in a room setting. It is another two light set-up. Here the light has to work with a full figure. The second light to the right of the girl and slightly behind her provides some highlights on her body and help her stand out from the background. It is important when using this sort of lighting plan not to have the accent light set too strong in relation to the main light or the highlights it makes can burn out.
