What is the difference between hard light vs soft light?
If you’ve been delving deeper into your photography and video lighting setup, you’ve probably come across the concept of hard and soft light but what does it mean? In this blog, we’ll cover the difference between hard light vs soft light, show you examples of the two and how you can create it with either a DIY photography light hack or a professional light kit.
Lighting is an important part of photography and videography but also in stop motion too as it helps tell your story through the mood your lighting conveys. As a stop motion app, Life Life Lapseapse allows users to create stop motions using their phone so lighting is especially important in getting professional looking results.
What is hard light?
Hard light is a strong, bright light that will cast a harsh and defined shadow to your scene and photo. Think of it as the sun on a hot day in the middle of summer. The sun is beating down at you with harsh shadows and you see a strong contrast of your shadow to the ground. With hard light, you can usually find distinct shapes in the shadows, as the rays of your lighting are directly facing your subject. Hard light can also be called direct light.
Example of hard light
What is soft light?
Soft light is diffused with either minimal shadows or if you do have shadows, it’s a smooth gradient transition. Think of this as a cloudy day where the sun is not strong. It does not provide a distinct shadow or contrast and everything is gentle and blurred. Soft light is also called diffused lighting in photography.
Soft light example
How to create a hard light or soft light?
When using a DIY photography light hack like household lamps…
Hard light: To create a hard light with your household lamp, point the lamp directly at your set up. There shouldn’t be anything blocking the light bulb so you can create shadows. The closer you bring your light to your scene, the harsher your shadows will become.
Soft light: There are a few ways to get a soft light using household lamps like pointing your light towards the ceiling instead of directly at your scene. Alternatively, adding a cover to the front of your lamp like wax paper or fabric - although be careful with this as your bulb can get to hot and become a fire hazard!!
When using a professional light kit…
Hard light: We love this Godox light from Amazon! You purchase it as a hard light but you can purchase a light box that will diffuse the light for soft light.
Soft light: Adding a soft box to your hard light will diffuse it or you can point your light away from the scene too.
Hard light example
Soft light example
We hope this article was helpful in learning more about hard light vs soft light when it comes to lighting your photos, videos or stop motion animations. If you’re interested in learning more about lighting, check out our free Life Lapse Academy with learning modules on it.
