This week I was in the studio testing several different light modifiers from Godox they included the 180° light sphere the snoot and the 3 in 1 beauty dish / gridded softbox. This isn’t a “right or wrong way to use them” blog, I just wanted to document the differences for every one to see. None of these lightmoidiferes are expensive so getting the light setup you want and need should be an easy task.
The basic test setup for our test
The test and light set up was very easy, the 3 in 1 was camera left in a 45° position fitted on a AD360ws flash as key light. Behind the model there was another AD360 ws flash pointed at the background that I fitted with different light modifiers, this way i could see the light spread very easily. There was a round reflector camera right just to add a bit of fill light. As a background I used a very dark grey seamless paper as its accentuates the backlighting and can easily change from black to white using the inverse square law. The first 3 examples are all shot with the 3 in 1 as a beauty dish and all I changed was the modifier on the background. All were shot at f/8, 1/125th, iso 100.
The first test shot is Godox AD-S17 180-degree Wide Angle Soft Focus Shade Diffuser, As you can see it sprayed light everywhere with a slow fall off towards the edges.
Next up was the AD-S9 snoot, deliberately from one extreme to the other. The light spread was so narrow I had to actually move to get an image of it behind my model.
My third test modifier was that standard reflector with a AD-S11 honeycomb grid that comes with a set of colour gels . I actually forgot to shoot without the grid to show the comparison sorry. A much wider and smoother light spread than the snoot.
The last important difference to document was that of AD-S7 multi softbox “3 in 1” the beauty dish and the gridded softbox. All the photos above are taken with it set up as a beauty dish and in close to the model by adding the the softbox panel and and velcro in grid it changes the characteristics quite a lot.
Would of helped if you would of got consistent exposure throughout the test .