From the course: Learning Video Lighting
Join today to access over 22,700 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.
Understanding hard vs. soft light
From the course: Learning Video Lighting
Understanding hard vs. soft light
- Not all light is created equal. This segment is all about the difference between hard light and soft light. Usually when we say hard and soft we're talking about things we can touch, like rocks, which are hard, and kittens, which are soft. But we can't feel light with our hands, so how can it be hard or soft? What we're actually talking about is the quality of the shadow a light creates. A small light source, like the filament of a single, clear light bulb, creates a hard, sharp shadow. But a large source, like light bouncing off of a white card, casts a softer shadow as the light of different parts of the source wrap around the subject. The front get lights from the whole card, but the sides only get light from part of the card. The soft light fills in the crevices of an object, concealing some of the detail, but the hard light shows these features in sharp relief. Both hard and soft light are around us all the time. The sun, even though it's huge, is millions of miles away, so…
Download courses and learn on the go
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.