What's the difference between an octagonal soft box and a square soft box?

There are three main differences between octagonal soft box and square soft box in shed shooting: reflected light and shadow, character effect and light uniformity. Portraits are usually taken in octagonal soft boxes.

1, different reflected light and shadow:

The octagonal soft box cloth and other components make the soft box have a larger luminous surface, softer light, brighter and brighter colors, which are suitable for indoor portrait art photography and still life. It is beneficial to express the texture and color of human skin and make the skin very delicate. It has a large area of illumination and does not form a hard black shadow edge behind the model. It looks soft and comfortable.

When taking a portrait with a square soft box, the reflected light and shadow will form a hard black shadow edge behind the model, which is even worse.

2, the picture effect is different:

The advantage of octagonal soft box in use is that the shadow reflected to people's eyes is closer to a circle, while the square soft box has four corners, which is less rounded.

3, the light uniformity is different:

The octagonal soft box for tent shooting is better than the square soft box because the distance between the corners is relatively close, which is beneficial to the uniformity of light from the center to the corners.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-soft box