High powered Led COB vs high powered Led hard panel/brute type

[Mitch Gross]

I was helping a young documentary filmmaker who was going to embed with a tribe in Africa. This group had no electric power and for safety did not burn fires at night and rarely during the day. The filmmaker had to travel very light as she's be using a solar panel to recharge her batteries but she needed a little bit of light so took some small LED panels. She asked me about using different color temps and I asked her what she would ever be matching to. All these people were used to was daylight so who needs tungsten?

 

[Bassman2003]

Great post Paul! It is shocking when you turn on the old lights and the new more sensitive cameras can't handle it. It is a step forward for sure but you are correct, the lights are different. I admit I like flat lighting ratios and hate crushed blacks. But also agree that shadows add to look as well. We all do different work, so it is tough to keep things in the art bracket when "modern" people almost look at you funny when you want to add lighting at all! Keep being a 'knower' and try to make art when possible...

 

[Bassman2003]

LED’s have gotten really good(and most of my lights are LED, now), but you still can’t beat real tungsten and real sunlight.

When I’m in a space I can completely control, 99% of the time, I still light it 3200K, even with bi/variable color LED’s. There’s just something so off-putting to me, to lighting 5600K in a completely controlled indoor environment. It just doesn’t look or feel right to me(my naked eye). And at home, all of my outdoor floodlights are LED, but still 3200K. My neighbors are all 5600K. Every time I look over there and see his floodlights on at night(or even the day, he’s old and they’re on most of the time), I just shutter a little.

I am the same way. I also really hate it when the different colors get mixed in the same room. I look at everybody and think how can this not drive you crazy?

 

[paulears]

Maybe this is the real important bit - it out looks right, even if it's technically wrong, we are happy. We have moved away from the brilliant white artexed (soft/difused) ceilings and the magnolia walls, so when we record in modern houses, even if we carefully set our lights to 5.6K, we get carpets and walls with tints and you see these walls in the moody shots all the time - sort of a pastels hell in a way!

 

[Mitch Gross]

For many modern lighting styles I will often think, "turn on a damn light!" Far too often I find stuff underexposed or the lighting not directing the eye in a useful manner. It often looks like they just took the natural light as it fell and simply added one or two units to augment. Just because it is natural doesn't mean it is appropriate.

 

[Guest]

I wondered if it was me, out of touch with the 'new' methods, but I just completed a shoot for a dancer and I tried the 'new' techniques and they were so boring, and worse, formless. The dancer stuff I've done for years and for traditional ballet and leotard stuff, a waist high side light is really useful because it puts light into places normally in shadow. Adding a conventional key light (a Fresnel with COB source) pulled the dancer away from the white background - when she was wearing black and pink tights and footwear. I get the impression that the modern way is to light for camera positions anywhere, rather than rig for certain angles. Now, shadows are consider bad, or worse, mistakes!

Have you seen Taylor Swift's music video "Shake it Off"? Soft top light can be good too.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Have you seen Taylor Swift's music video "Shake it Off"? Soft top light can be good too.

For that industrial strength commercial gleam sure, it can work.

On a complete tangent, her new video "All Too Well" is shot on 35mm film with lots of small, directional sources that punp through diffusion or bounce off foamcore or other surface., There's also diffusion on the lens (at first guess I'm thinking classic Black ProMists or maybe Hollywood Black Magic), a low contrast look with lots of warm, and rich autumnal colors that aren't garish but still saturated. Oh, and it's in 1.33 ratio. The story is supposed to take place 13 years ago I believe and the look is certainly something that harkens back to a more classical style of lighting. It's beautifully photographed by Rina Yang and I wouldn't be surprised if one told me she used lensed tungsten sources for everything. So I guess there's that.