From the course: Photography 101

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Size matters

Size matters

From the course: Photography 101

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Size matters

- I'd like to introduce you to a basic concept of flash lighting or strobe lighting. Starting off with this little strobe here. Now this is a simple, on or off, camera light. It is a very, very bright light coming out of a quite small surface. Very small surface. If I was to take a picture with this strobe of a subject from about this distance, we'd have some pretty hard shadows on my face. If I want to make those shadows a bit softer, would I move this light closer to me or farther away? Most people are gonna say farther away. But the answer's actually closer. Now, here's why. Think about this diffusion panel. If I was to take that same flash and put it here to take a picture of a subject and put this diffusion panel in between them, would the light be softer straight off the flash or through the diffusion panel? Through the diffusion panel, everybody knows that, right? So that's going to be a softer light. Why is it going to be softer? Because of the size. It's all about the size of…

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