Softening the Light

This exercise looks at the impact of using translucent material between a light source and the subject and comparing the result with the same image taken using a naked light.

I set up a home made papier mache vase with a violet crepe paper background. The only lighting was via a desk lamp to the left, firstly directly on the subject, secondly with a double thickness of tracing paper between the light and the vase.

f13, 8 sec, ISO 200 EV -1

f13, 10 sec, ISO 200 EV -1

There is not much difference on the lighting of the vase itself - I had expected a softer look to the vase in the second image but actually it is minimally different in this respect. The highlights are slightly less evident in the second image, and the colour contrast less pronounced, but not by a very noticeable amount.

There is much more pronounced contrast in the shadow; the second image demonstrates a less harsh shadow with much softer edges - the background shades merge into one another; this helps the eye to focus on the vase, without the distraction of the hard edge.

I prefer the second image because of the softer shadow, the diffusion was an improvement.

I learned from this exercise that it it worth considering diffusion in a shot where artificial light is used; it is not necessarily time-consuming or difficult and can help significantly to reduce the sharpness of shadows.