Budget Indie Thriller, need some Lighting Advice !

T

tiborr

Member
Hi, I am preparing a low budget indie Thriller, I have a strong experience in photography (strobes-portraits-landscape) and DSLR video, but very light experience with continuous lighting.
The main shots will be done outdoors, early evening and night shots (with city lights in background), other half, indoors. I was thinking of getting 1 or 2 big portable led panels available on ebay,
my budget is very tight (less than 800$ for lights) but I'd rather not do any mistake. I was thinking of buying the ones with dimmable buttons and vari temperature or color filters such as this :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-1000-LE...ltDomain_2&hash=item35b8aee1a1#ht_1874wt_1392

or with battery mount for outdoor shots such as those :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/500-LEDS-St...ltDomain_0&hash=item2a12376c30#ht_2453wt_1392

would this be a good option ? ( I will certainly use handcrafted diffusers for a softer light on top of them)

Any good reliable sources for better quality lights ?
I' d appreciate every advice, but keep in mind that my budjet is bellow 800$ and that I'd need to move easily with a small crew carrying the gear. Is a generator more suited than battery mounted Led panels ?
Thanks a lot in advance !

tibor.
 
tiborr said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/500-LEDS-St...ltDomain_0&hash=item2a12376c30#ht_2453wt_1392

would this be a good option ? ( I will certainly use handcrafted diffusers for a softer light on top of them)
Click to expand...

I too have been making the switch from stills+strobes for artificial light to continuous light... with that in mind, some of the characteristics of a light description to look for ar:

Photometric data. Name brand manufacturers usually give some form of data on the amount of light, in footcandles, a light+fixture will give at various distances. A check of the ARRI
site and selecting one of their lights will indicate this.

The 'cheap', no name brand sellers, found on ebay and elsewhere rarely give this sort of information, and it is essential to determine what you will need.

With that in mind, the above referenced light has the following:

-Dgree angle: 60
-Lumens:4000
-Average Service Life: 50000Hours
-CRI>94

These will allow you to sort of guestimate what the light will deliver for your needs, that is give something of an answer to the real quesiton...

How many X Footcandles does this light give at distance Y.

With that in mind the following Lumen to Lux calculator
 gives:

60 deg angle
4000 lumans
yields
527 lux or 52 footcandles at 3 Meters, or about 10 feet.

For a digital video at 24 fps with a shutter speed of 1/50 (never mind the 1/48...), 52 fc at ISO 400 yields a f-stop of approximately 4

I tend to shoot stopped down from 'wide open', so, I choose 5.6 or 8, depending... so I'd want more light.

Another element of consideration here is that at 50 fc. your 'shadows' are going to be 25, and 12.5 fc, at one and 2 stops down repsectively, which may start to be 'problematic' for your camera to capture without noise.

As with all things... tests are in order for you to understand how your camera behaves, and whether the low light response is 'good enough' for your needs.
-------------

The other aspect of 'lights' that is infrequently mentioned is the CRI, Color Rendering Index, which is a measure of how 'close' the color spectrum of the light is to an 'ideal' source, the sun being an approximate 'ideal source'... well at high noon...

In any case often lights other than tungsten will have either spikes in the spectrum, or 'holes' which cause colors to be rendered differently, depending on where the spkes and holes occur.

The lights above, indicate a 'greater' than CRI 94... which seems 'pretty good' for cheap lights...

But again, the seller may be throwing '****' out and who knows if it lives up to the specs...
 
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^^^ I tend to agree with the above^^^

If you only have an $800 budget for lighting a feature, renting would be a better option, unless you are just playing around and don't intend anything other than having fun with the project.

Just my thoughts.
 
So, what lightings would you recommend in both cases ?

I will mainly use 2 DSLR cameras, one @ 24P, 1/50, the other one for slow motion, 60P 1/125, and 3 prime lenses (24mm 1.4G, 50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.4)
stopped down for better dof control. Not playing around, serious film, script, storyboard, actors, gaffer, makeup, assistant, (all volunteers) but very tight budget.

We need to move easily around with 2-3 lightings : small key light, 2 main lights with difusers and reflectors on stands. I am asking the question here, if someone could made
the sum of a few good popular indie lights and explain me when to use them or when to avoid them. I know this could sound too simple, but when someone asks me how to use a camera
or advice for lenses, I always try to help out by resuming the essential steps in a few words. I welcome all useful help, thanks !
 
tiborr said:
So, what lightings would you recommend in both cases ?

I will mainly use 2 DSLR cameras, one @ 24P, 1/50, the other one for slow motion, 60P 1/125, and 3 prime lenses (24mm 1.4G, 50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.4)
stopped down for better dof control.
Click to expand...

I think 100 footcandles is a good estimate for a 24 fps @ 1/50 with f/2.8, with an ISO 100 rating. What that 'means' is that the light that you posted, that I could 'figure out' how much light it delivered, was about 1 stop 'low'. If you are shooting at ISO 400, then you could use f/5.6, with 100 footcandles falling on the scene.

Also, recall that light falls off with the reciprocal of the square of the distance, so, my calculations were for 10 feet. You'd have to block your shots out, find out what the actual distances are, then calculate how much light you need, to cover what you have in your frame.

Using strobes and for still photography, one is lulled into a certain laziness... polaroid/digital preview, allowed one to 'see' what the strobes were doing, and boost power as required...

Most strobes deliver far more light per flash, than 'affordable' continuous lights... recall also that for continuous lights over 1/1.5 K Watts, one has to think about power beyond 'house' wiring capacities, and that means more bux for something... generator, electrician to rewire things, or transformers to take 220V dryer circuits and make them available for lighting use...

Since you mention batteries and portability, the LED's do seem to be suggested... but they may not be giving you the light you need, or if you can use a 'soft' light, perhaps several through some diffusion material
would give you what you need.

The 'ask the gaffer' is really no answer, most of the time... If I could afford a 'gaffer', and attendant 'grip truck', and attendant on site generator, out of pocket... I think I'd rather go bask in the sun on Tahiti... but I digress...
 
tiborr said:
Not playing around, serious film... gaffer...
Click to expand...

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
The 'ask the gaffer' is really no answer, most of the time... If I could afford a 'gaffer', and attendant 'grip truck', and attendant on site generator, out of pocket... I think I'd rather go bask in the sun on Tahiti... but I digress...
Click to expand...

S/he has a gaffer. That person should have SOME knowledge of lighting gear or they shouldn't have been given the job, volunteer or not, and would be familiar with the locations, required setups and local rental house inventory (or they should do their research before the job) - much more so than a stranger on the internet. That is one of the major reasons to have a gaffer, after all.

Gaffers don't require full crews and generators, they can also work with available resources as well as anyone else can.

No DP should be hiring crew and paying for gear "out of pocket", unless they are a producer on the project as well (another situation I don't recommend).
 
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nothing said:
S/he has a gaffer. That person should have SOME knowledge of lighting gear or they shouldn't have been given the job, volunteer or not, and would be familiar with the locations, required setups and local rental house inventory (or they should do their research before the job) - much more so than a stranger on the internet. That is one of the major reasons to have a gaffer, after all.

Gaffers don't require full crews and generators, they can also work with available resources as well as anyone else can.

No DP should be hiring crew and paying for gear "out of pocket", unless they are a producer on the project as well (another situation I don't recommend).
Click to expand...

I do assume that a person who asks a specific question, wants a specific answer, in general. If the question was 'where can I find someone who knows how to light a night scene, with no local power', perhaps 'hire/ask a gaffer' would be the appropriate answer.

The OP originally asked about specific lights, and gave some specifics about their shoot. That to me did not warrant 'hire a gaffer' response. Truth be told, I'd estimate 80-90% of the posters here are not financially able to 'hire a gaffer', or even get someone for free who is well versed. My presumption is that of a group someone has been designated 'gaffer of the day'.

Whether that leads to fantastic filmmaking and wide acclaim... is a different question/discussion.

But then even if the fellow does have a gaffer and that gaffer could answer all questions, how would that benefit this community online??? At least to the benefit and improvement of those who don't have access to a knowledgeable person.

And unless someone specifies, I always assume that someone is self-financing their filmmaking activities, when posting on this site.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I do assume...
Click to expand...
I never said "hire a gaffer", nor did anyone else. When it was specified that a gaffer was already involved, I asked if they were experienced and stated they are probably a better source of information than strangers with no knowledge of the specific location, script and local rental situation.

It doesn't matter what the budget level, if someone has the title "gaffer" on a "serious film" then they should have some lighting knowledge.

My responses in this thread were aimed at getting the OP to approach the situation like a professional would - renting rather than buying and relying on those with real world experience rather than internet gained knowledge (big bucks not required). This is usually the cheapest method to achieve acceptable results.

You surely know what assuming does. I have learned that there are many more professionals here than one might "assume" and I approach questions as such. Even if posters are rank amateurs, I will treat them as if they have bigger aspirations and expectations.
 
hi tiborr,
the trick for night shoots is to light up the background, motivated (car, street, house, torch etc) or unmotivated (Moon) this adds
depth to the scene and allows you to use a little extra on the action without looking like a 100w light has been stuck on the camera.
to do this effectively you need to use hard lights. which involves power and lots of it.
it would be better to hire what you need as the cheap lights you find on ebay are (to be blunt) crap.
i tend to overlight the background and then pull it down to the level the dp needs.
cheers
 
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