I've been trying to understand how different lights create different fall-off lately. I'm going to lay out what I understand here and hopefully some of you will read it and hammer me straight.
With soft light sources, I've always held the belief that the closer a subject is to a light source then the quicker the light cast on the subject will fall-off. This understanding aligns with the inverse-square law and usually seems to be well received by other technicians I talk to. My troubles start to arise when I start thinking about focused light sources and fall off.
For instance, deep, rounded bank-lights like the Briese seem to operate under a different set of laws than flattened light sources. Is this because they focus the light? I always thought it was silly when people put the diffusion over the front of these banks because then doesn't it just make it a big evenly lit light source that you could achieve at a much lower price? (ie: book lighting) Could someone explain how the quality of light and fall off differ in these modifiers?
also, Is fall-off a concept that is primarily discussed when talking about soft light? I don't see a lot of people talking about fall-off in relation to hard light. Is there something I'm not understanding?
Thanks for reading :) Hope you can help!
