Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

We do a lot of interior photography for interior decorators and need to light up a chair or plant across the room, generally 15 to 30 feet away. It must have the appearance of looking somewhat natural and a soft shadow. What would work best a snoot or a honeycomb grid? Or is there something better that we might use? Will gels help make it look more natural? We're using the X800's.

If you are just going to isolate a smallish object like a chair or plant, you would need a small modifier with a moderate spread, or a larger modifier with a tight spread.

In order to keep shadows soft, you need a large modifier in order to keep shadows soft at 30' you need a really large modifier, then a really tight grid to isolate the object.

This does not exist in the normal realm.

A snoot is the anti-large modifier, and will give the harshest shadows, and our reflectors will also give harsh shadows, with or without grids, at 15-30 feet. Even our beauty dish.

A couple of suggestions. Get a gridded soft box closer. This may require hiding the light, booming it, or taking multiple photos and composite.

Another suggestion would be to use a gridded light, but at just enough power to highlight the intended object, but not enough to overpower "ambient" light. This would then mitigate any harsh shadows caused by the gridded light.