starting out with soft-but-directional light

Looking for suggestions on getting my first softbox - or something along those lines. The goal is to get maximally soft, but maximally directional (i.e., sharp drop-off), light in something small enough to carry in a backpack and use outdoors (and not overkill for a mid-range Speedlite). The main use I have in mind is non-professional, single-person portraits.

I have been using bare speedlights on- and off-camera more and more over the last year, but I have limited experience (only three sessions) with portraiture and light modifiers. I've been reading Strobist and Rob Galbraith for years now, as well as many threads in this forum more recently.

I currently have:

3x Speedlite 430EX II
3x PocketWizard FlexTT5
1x PocketWizard MiniTT1
1x PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController
1x 43" Westcott shoot-through white umbrella
1x 43" Westcott silver umbrella
1x 43" 5-in-1 reflector
2x compact light stands + umbrella adapters

The umbrellas have been, well, not ideal. With the shoot-through, I get a hotspot and light spilling everywhere. With the silver, the light is much harsher, and I'm still getting light going all over the place.

The PocketWizards mean I don't need to access the flashes after I have set them up. I'm thinking about a 28" Apollo, which I briefly used once. Is that going to be big enough for anything looser than a headshot? Are there better options, given my situation, both in terms of size and light quality?

Or maybe a beauty dish? Is there really a big difference in light quality? Because I imagine a beauty dish is a pain to carry around.

Or maybe a silver PLM? But it seems you can't use the white front diffuser fabric with a speedlight.

Finding the absolutely cheapest option is not a top priority for me. Far more important is that the equipment is portable and quick to setup - and, of course, gets the job done. I do not have a studio, nor imagine I ever will. I am not much into DIY. On the other hand, I am staring in disbelief at the cost of an Elinchrom Strip Light. Speaking of which, are there ready-made, collapsible strip lights for speedlights?

Usually "soft" and "directional" lighting are mutually exclusive. Lighting is consider soft when you have diffused light coming from all directions. If the light were directional, then it wouldn't really be soft.

Can you explain what you mean by "sharp drop-off"?

When I think of soft light I see smooth transitions from highlight to shadow. If I had a large softbox with a grid, that would produce soft, directional light.

There's soft light on one end of the spectrum and there's hard light on the other. The degree of transition (or contrast) between the highlight and the shadow would determine the softness and the directionality of the light. The more directional the light, the more it leans towards hard lighting. The less directional the light, the more it leans towards the soft lighting. Putting a grid on a large softbox moves the attribute of the light closer to the hard end and further from the soft end of the spectrum.

Another way to look at it is, the softer the lighting, the less contrast there is. And the more directional the lighting, the more contrast there is between the highlight and the shadow. So, a softbox without a grid would produce softer lighting than one with a grid. And the smaller the angle of coverage of the grid, the more contrasty the light becomes.

PacAce wrote in post #12073627
There's soft light on one end of the spectrum and there's hard light on the other. The degree of transition (or contrast) between the highlight and the shadow would determine the softness and the directionality of the light. The more directional the light, the more it leans towards hard lighting. The less directional the light, the more it leans towards the soft lighting. Putting a grid on a large softbox moves the attribute of the light closer to the hard end and further from the soft end of the spectrum.

Another way to look at it is, the softer the lighting, the less contrast there is. And the more directional the lighting, the more contrast there is between the highlight and the shadow. So, a softbox without a grid would produce softer lighting than one with a grid. And the smaller the angle coverage of the grid, the more contrasty the light becomes.

All true Leo and that's why I used a large softbox as an example. Since the quality of light does change slightly with the grid, you can compensate to some degree by having a large light source. It won't be as soft as with no grid but I've seen some awfully soft light from large gridded softboxes.

I'm also thinking in terms of generic grids, which seem to be between 40 and 50 degrees.

What I meant by soft but directional was that the light is coming from a large solid angle when viewed from the subject's location, but which does not spread over a large angle from the light's perspective. One of the differences between a shoot-through umbrella, which spreads light in every direction from the surface of the umbrella, and a softbox with a recessed front (in other words, a fixed snoot/barn doors) that prevents the light spreading in any direction but forward. Both of them provide a large direct source of light from the viewpoint of the subject, but the umbrella lets light escape to bounce off walls and ceilings to both fill in shadows on the subject and light the background. I'd like to avoid those two consequences of letting stray light escape.

And that leads me back to a large gridded softbox. I understood what you meant.

TMR Design wrote in post #12074079
And that leads me back to a large gridded softbox. I understood what you meant.

Yeah, I knew you understood me, but I just wanted to be sure PacAce did too so I tried to explain it in my own words.

So by "large", are you talking bigger than 28"? And if so, is there something larger than that ready-made for a Speedlite 430EX II? Or are we talking about AC-powered strobes (and the wider selection of light modifiers available for those) to really do this right?

PacAce wrote in post #12073442
Usually "soft" and "directional" lighting are mutually exclusive. Lighting is consider soft when you have diffused light coming from all directions. If the light were directional, then it wouldn't really be soft.

Huh? "Directional" means it is coming from one direction. Soft means it is not hard. I use soft directional lighting all the time. Below you will see a two images lit with soft directional lighting, one available light and the other a softbox.

Benji

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acornsarebitter wrote in post #12074115
Yeah, I knew you understood me, but I just wanted to be sure PacAce did too so I tried to explain it in my own words.

So by "large", are you talking bigger than 28"? And if so, is there something larger than that ready-made for a Speedlite 430EX II? Or are we talking about AC-powered strobes (and the wider selection of light modifiers available for those) to really do this right?

Technically, I really mean 'apparently' large, relative to the size of the subject. A 24" x 32" softbox that is 24" inches from the subject is an apparently large light source. That same softbox placed 6 feet from the subject isn't an apparently large source relative to the subject.

When I think of or use a large light source it's typically 36" or larger. If you're shooting couples, groups or full length work and can't get the modifier close without it being in frame, then you need to increase the size of that light source to have the same kind of soft light you would have when it's closer to the subject.

It would also seem that you're thinking more in terms of controlled light and not just directional.

If there's a single light source at camera left then that's directional light. If it's diffused light and the source is large relative to the subject then it's soft light. Adding a grid, flags, gobos, etc. give you added control in terms of spill and more precise control over where you want light and where you don't want light.

Benji wrote in post #12075742
Huh? "Directional" means it is coming from one direction. Soft means it is not hard. I use soft directional lighting all the time. Below you will see a two images lit with soft directional lighting, one available light and the other a softbox.

Benji

Those are very nice shots, Benji.

Benji wrote in post #12075742
Huh? "Directional" means it is coming from one direction. Soft means it is not hard. I use soft directional lighting all the time. Below you will see a two images lit with soft directional lighting, one available light and the other a softbox.

Benji

Do you know why soft light is soft and not hard? Have you ever seen hard light that is not directional? Softness/hardness and directionality are interrelated. The most directional light makes the hardest light. And the most non-directional light makes the softest light.

I think I am seeing an issue created entirely by semantics, about 'directional'. On one hand a specular light is hard and directional in nature, while a large source is soft and 'not directional' ' -- that is, not 'directional' in the sense that for every one of the countless points on the surface of a softbox, light is emering from that point in all directions in a hemisphere of light, so that array of points makes for a very non-directional source (compared to the single specular source).

OTOH, even a large source can impart a 'sense of direction' of the source (or not). Here are two examples with a single, very large source. The sense of directionality of light source's position is more apparent on one shot, even though it is very soft (that is, no shadow penumbra), whereas the second shot has a much reduced sense of directionality about the source position. In this example pair, the directionality of the source's position is related to the contrast between highlight and shadow regions, which is entirely due to source-to-subject distance and the Inverse Square falloff.