reflectors vs diffusers which are better for portraits?

External Since: Oct 26, 2004 Posts: 2

In this post by reflector I mean an object that reflects light and by
diffuser I mean an object through which light is shone similarly to a
filter.

I have been spending some time researching reflectors versus diffusers
in portrait photography. I was irritated but not surprised to find
very little discussion on the net regarding choosing between the two.

All I could find was that reflectors are more well known amongst the
general population than diffusers; that some people find from their
practical experience that diffusers do not work well; that some people
think diffusers do not work because they do not increase the area of
the source of the light significantly; that european photographers are
supposed to be into diffusers as opposed to reflectors; that diffusers
take alot of the brightness out of the light that hits the subject;
and that people seem to think of reflectors as more of an outdoors
type of thing and diffusers as more of an indoors type of thing.

Coming out of my own mind as opposed to internet research, my thinking
has been that since a problem is the color temperature of reflected
light is different than the color temperature of direct light,
therefore reflected light should be used instead of direct light,
because use of direct light unavoidably leads to conflicts between
indirect and direct light; and, so, therefore, the reflector is a
better solution than the diffuser because the reflector will produce
light that does not clash with direct light whereas the diffuser will
give rise to the direct diffused light and then also the reflected
version of the diffused light.

I have also been thinking that reflectors might do a better job of
mimicking reflected light such as shade light and light bouncing off
of walls whereas diffusers would do a better job of mimicking soft
light sources such as overhead fluorescent all over a big ceiling or a
shaded ceiling light. I think I realize a truth in that I understand
that since the result in photography is an exaggeration of contrast,
partially due to the fact that the camera sees color differences based
on color temp differences that the eye does not see, therefore the
mimicking lights should be softer than the lights they mimick.

Anybody have any ideas re the pros and cons of reflectors versus
diffusers?

David Virgil Hobbs
http://www.angelfire.com/ma/vincemoon

External Since: Oct 11, 2004 Posts: 94

On 26 Nov 2004 00:41:40 -0800, vincemoon.DeleteThis@rcn.com (David Virgil Hobbs)
wrote:

>In this post by reflector I mean an object that reflects light and by
>diffuser I mean an object through which light is shone similarly to a
>filter.

By definition direct light is light that goes straight from the source
to the subject, diffused light is light that is affected by an object
between the light source and the subject, so what you are calling
diffused and bounce do pretty much the same thing.
The size of the light source is the most important factor of the light
qualities. If you think about it an ant would be very softly lit with
wrap around lighting an inch away from a household light bulb. 20
feet away from the same light bulb the apparent size of the light
source becomes quite small, and the ant now casts a noticeable shadow,
has a lit side and a shadow side.
So putting a small diffuser like a piece of tracing paper over an on
camera flash unit does nothing but cut the power of the flash and
possibly smooth out any effects caused by the internal parabolic
reflector and lens of the flash unit.