Re: Reflector or foam core board? by Rick Wise on Jun 30, 2008 at 11:33:28 pm
The B&H reflector will almost certainly be a bit harder than foamcore. The softest "hard" surface is bead-board, which is styrofoam. Next harder is white card. Harder yet is Foamcore.
A trick grips use to focus a board is to place a small mirror near the center of the surface, then tilt the board until the mirror reflects hard light where you want the maximum amount of bounce.
Equally, if the there is too much fill from the bounce you can reduce it several ways: move the board further away; tilt the board off its maximum bounce, or "waste" it; scrim the light falling on the board.
Remember that light intensity changes by the square of the distance. Double the distance of a light (or bounce card) you cut the light to a 1/4 of its previous intensity. Cut the distance in 1/2 and you increase the light by 4 (2 stops). In other words, moving the light a little closer, or a little farther away, makes a big difference in intensity.
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com
Re: Reflector or foam core board? by Todd Terry on Jul 1, 2008 at 3:53:05 am
Good advice from Rick....
Semi on topic, just a trick/tip that I do that works pretty well...
We use 4x4 (foamcore) bounces a lot, but for some lean-and-mean shoots when we don't take a truck it can be a little unweidly to pack 16 square feet of foamcore...
So... sometimes I will take the foamcore and using an Xacto knife I will score it right down the middle, so that it can be folded in half to a more managable 2x4 size.
If you pop it into a duckbill bounce clamp ("Quaker Clamp," the kind that's just a pair of ViceGrips with a welded-on 5/8" stud and sheet-metal jaws), the jaws hold it open and perfect flat... works just as if it were un-cut.
Usually I can use one for quite a few shoots before it is bent up or banged up and I have to replace it.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
We've bought a couple... but we've also made a couple ourselves (welding a 5/8" stud and a couple of sheetmetal "jaws" onto regular old pair of ViceGrips).
They will sturdily hold a 4x4 bounce and make it easy to adjust in any position.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
Re: Reflector or foam core board? by Jay Curtis on Jul 2, 2008 at 9:15:47 pm
Generally speaking, I'm more likely to use a reflector instead of a white board in outdoor settings. The reflector will give you more fill for your buck, so to speak, especially for a wider shot.
The foam core or bead board solution is softer and easier for the talent to look into, but often doesn't give enough kick to compare with the sun.
Re: Reflector or foam core board? by Thomas Wildgen on Jul 3, 2008 at 7:24:03 pm
A little trick that I do with a 4X4 sheet of foam cor is to buy a silver space blanket from the camping section of a outdoor store. open it all the way up and then scrunch it down as small as you can to get it wrinkled. I then go into the garage and I coat one side of the piece of foamcor with spray cement and spread the wrinkled space blanket out on the board. Don't spread it out too smooth, put it on wrinlkled, this will give a nice soft bounce that is a different quality than the white side of the board, sort of a hard side/soft side card.
I often trim the card to fit in the lid of a case and score it down one side to fold in half to take on the road.
There are variations too, you can buy one of the gold space blankets and have a warm side instead of white.
Just my 2 cents worth.
