Light Shaping Tools

I hope that my first article on How to Choose Studio Lighting is helpful. The choice of which lighting system to use, although important, is just the very start of your journey towards good lighting. The next step is to understand the importance of the light shaping tools (or modifiers) that fit onto the light itself and shape and control the light. It’s the light shaping tools and the way that you use them that really matter.
This article deals with the light shaping tools that are used with studio flash heads—flash is my equipment of choice. The principles laid out here apply to all types of lighting including hotshoe flashes and continuous lighting, even though the tools available for these types of lighting are far more limited in both their scope and effectiveness. Basically, there are only two different types of modifiers—those that make the light bigger and those that make the light smaller. Bigger lights produce softer lighting, smaller ones create harder lighting.