Cheapest Lighting Solutions: Outdoors?

H

Homunculus

Carbonite Member
Hello all. I'm mostly a noob to lighting and such. I'd like to start getting into making films and what concerns me most is outdoor lighting. I want to do it well and not typical under/over exposed amateur crap.
I want to be able to have some powerful lights for outdoor shoots.

What would you recommend as the cheapest solution and what is the least powerful light I'll need for outdoor use?

What I mean is, let's say I'm shooting in an open field in the middle of summer with a vast blue sky and some sparse clouds and I'm trying to expose the talent's face well. What is the LEAST powerful light I'll need? Can I get away with 1000w or will I need 2500 or 5000w or what?

Second question, are there any cheap home made solutions for such things? For example, here is a 500w halogen work light http://cgi.ebay.com/STANLEY-PORTABL...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item588887ecaf

would I be able to buy a few of these and construct my own 1000w or 2000w or whatever out of something like this? Or is it extremely important that I get specifically arri/mole hmi/par's that are 1000w and up? What is the difference between stringing 2 of these 20$ 500w lights together and getting one 1000w arri fresnel?

Thanks!
 
Almost none of these tungsten-halogen lamps will do much to help you outside, especially when you have to add CTB for correction.

If you are shooting in the middle of a field 4X4 reflectors are probably your best bet.
 
phudsontx said:
Almost none of these tungsten-halogen lamps will do much to help you outside, especially when you have to add CTB for correction.

If you are shooting in the middle of a field 4X4 reflectors are probably your best bet.
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Thanks. But let's just say for argument's sake that I wanted to fill in the shadows with a light as well as the reflectors. What is the minimum power light I would need for it to have a noticeable effect outdoors in the sun, a 500w, 1000w, 2000w, 40,000w?
 
Homunculus said:
Thanks. But let's just say for argument's sake that I wanted to fill in the shadows with a light as well as the reflectors. What is the minimum power light I would need for it to have a noticeable effect outdoors in the sun, a 500w, 1000w, 2000w, 40,000w?
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Well, the minimum, that you can use without a generator, is a 2K. You could probably get away with 1/2 CTB so as to not lose to much light transmission. Now, that said, you would do significantly better with an 1.2 HMI but this is quite a bit more expensive.
 
So a 2000w fresnel light you think would just about cover it? And how much does a 1.2 HmI cost? I know HMI's I believe produce about 4 times more light than tungsten/halogen ...
 
Don't even bother with the 2k, you have to have it so close for it to do anything that it's just a waste of everyone's energy.

A 1200 HMI you could probably pick up for anywhere from 950-2000 dollars. Depending on what kind you get.(par, fresnel, electronic ballast, magnetic ballast, the brand...)

If you don't want to get a 1200 HMI, the only other way to go is 4x4 shiney boards and 4x4 frames of diffusion. You can also get a 6x6 or 8x8 ultra bounce, but that is all a bit pricey and won't do you good in a lot of situations.
 
phudsontx said:
Almost none of these tungsten-halogen lamps will do much to help you outside, especially when you have to add CTB for correction.

If you are shooting in the middle of a field 4X4 reflectors are probably your best bet.
Click to expand...

On various BTS's that show the 'on location/daytime' setup, there are often huge 10x10/12x12 white canvas on a frame reflectors. (That and additional big lights as well...

In addition, there's often a net over the heads of the talent.

But if one wants 'sky' in there, then I'd be thinking about also having a gradient ND filter setup to match the horizon line... unless its jagged, mountains, trees, buildings, or whatever... at which point perhaps I'd start thinking about a matte with a 'better' shot of the sky as the replacement. Unless the talent's heads bob into the sky region...

What I've also seen in the BTS is the talent on location, with huge Bluescreen canvases on a frame, behind the talent, and so, they can 'drop' in CGI effects, but keep the light/natural forground 'real'.

That way if you shot 5 minutes of 'plate' of the background, then bluescreened the talent at the same location, the lighting on the talent would match the background when composited with the plate. (Very similar to getting 'room tone' in audio...)
 
It rather depends on the framing of the shot, doesn't it? If you are shooting really wide, then fill is less important. I know ideally the wide would match the tight, but really, if you watch movies critically you'll see that it rarely does. On the wide its often more contrasty and on the tight its suddenly softer and more filled out.

On the big budget projects I've worked on, the sun + large (10x10, 20x20) diffusion/bounce was the go-to solution. When the sun was unreliable, we switched to hmi's starting around 2k, but often going straight for massive 10k units as a large single source that we then treated as the sun and bounced accordingly. It was sad to watch as a lighting geek, but there were usually 2 or 3 5k tungstens that were just shining into the ground to burn off the extra energy from the generator truck. heh.

Don't be afraid of the bounce. With huge lights come huge generators and everything gets very slow and expensive. Or you can use the old news rule and put their backs to the sun, bounce to fill and yer done! That still applies if your bounce is a 20' x 20'.

For MY projects, i'll use a 6x6 1/4 dif and a 6x6 bounce for mid and tight shots and let the wides go natural with whatever bounce a 6x6 provides.

This is probably obvious but for the benefit of lurkers, the tighter you frame a shot, the closer the lights can be to the talent and the less grunt you need. For CU and ECU, you can easily fill outdoors with inexpensive lights. On one music video shoot with a bunch of ECU, i had sun as a rim and filled in the face with my cool iights LED... dimmed down a fair bit. You can fight a LOT of sun with a fixture just out of frame. Back it off 8 feet and that same fixture is barely able to put a sparkle in the eyes, so framing is a huge part of the equation.
 
floop said:
It rather depends on the framing of the shot, doesn't it? If you are shooting really wide, then fill is less important. I know ideally the wide would match the tight, but really, if you watch movies critically you'll see that it rarely does. On the wide its often more contrasty and on the tight its suddenly softer and more filled out.

On the big budget projects I've worked on, the sun + large (10x10, 20x20) diffusion/bounce was the go-to solution. When the sun was unreliable, we switched to hmi's starting around 2k, but often going straight for massive 10k units as a large single source that we then treated as the sun and bounced accordingly. It was sad to watch as a lighting geek, but there were usually 2 or 3 5k tungstens that were just shining into the ground to burn off the extra energy from the generator truck. heh.

Don't be afraid of the bounce. With huge lights come huge generators and everything gets very slow and expensive. Or you can use the old news rule and put their backs to the sun, bounce to fill and yer done! That still applies if your bounce is a 20' x 20'.

For MY projects, i'll use a 6x6 1/4 dif and a 6x6 bounce for mid and tight shots and let the wides go natural with whatever bounce a 6x6 provides.

This is probably obvious but for the benefit of lurkers, the tighter you frame a shot, the closer the lights can be to the talent and the less grunt you need. For CU and ECU, you can easily fill outdoors with inexpensive lights. On one music video shoot with a bunch of ECU, i had sun as a rim and filled in the face with my cool iights LED... dimmed down a fair bit. You can fight a LOT of sun with a fixture just out of frame. Back it off 8 feet and that same fixture is barely able to put a sparkle in the eyes, so framing is a huge part of the equation.
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Yes, yes, yes and yes. I hope I got them all :happy:

In fact, as a general rule, when moving from wide to close, I follow the common practice that all light sources move in more frontal, are lowered slightly and are softened. That's when you add backlights of various types as well. Done with care it is not noticed and is flattering and effective. Besides, in wide shots you have to get the lights out of frame so you often can't position them correctly for the CUs.

Don't forget 42" shiny boards for pushing a lot of sun around as well.
 
on the cheap side try:

This
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Plus this
http://www.filmtools.com/mat3babnailp.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/2progpergaft3.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/21x24flgelfr.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/31-lee-s250.html

plus two c-stands or stands of your own invention

Plus creative blocking.

Probably easier to get an HMI - but I don't know where you can find a 1200hmi for $1000 as the previous poster mentioned.
 
Dan_Kanes said:
on the cheap side try:

This
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Plus this
http://www.filmtools.com/mat3babnailp.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/2progpergaft3.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/21x24flgelfr.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/31-lee-s250.html

plus two c-stands or stands of your own invention

Plus creative blocking.

Probably easier to get an HMI - but I don't know where you can find a 1200hmi for $1000 as the previous poster mentioned.
Click to expand...
hi i'm really dense can you please explain this to me? The home depot thing is a reflective sheet I take it, so you mount that onto the gel frame with gaffer's tape...what is the baby nail on plate thingie for though? and the gels are for what? I know gels are used to correct tungsten or halogen light to whatever you want like day light but if the mirror thing is already reflecting daylight why would you need to correct it further with gels? i appreciate any explanations thanks
 
Dan_Kanes said:
on the cheap side try:

This
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Plus this
http://www.filmtools.com/mat3babnailp.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/2progpergaft3.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/21x24flgelfr.html

plus this:
http://www.filmtools.com/31-lee-s250.html

plus two c-stands or stands of your own invention

Plus creative blocking.

Probably easier to get an HMI - but I don't know where you can find a 1200hmi for $1000 as the previous poster mentioned.
Click to expand...
Could you explain this a little more? This looks really promising. Thanks!
Edit: I guess Homunculus was a little quicker on the draw then me.
 
lighting isnt cheap. or easy. try effects or filters and shoot at dusk until you have a budget to shoot with lighting you can afford.

sound, lighting, talent, are all of greatest importance. then camera.
 
You use the mirrors for hard light reflected from the sun.

You use the diffusion plus frame to soften that reflected light - you still get a large stop because the diffusion isn't right up against the mirror - and you maintain a large source by using a fairly same size diffusion frame as the reflected source (mirror)

That's all I feel like explaining. Cheaper than a 1200 hmi and more powerful, but requires more work and adjustment to stay with the sun.
 
yeah the more I've been watching BTS stuff the more I see even top studios aren't really using HMI's and such for outdoor scenes that much...I now watched the Predators movie bts someone posted here and the Saving Private Ryan bts on youtube and both movies exclusively use big white boards for fill reflection and that's it...I never once saw an HMI or studio light for outdoor shots...and private ryan was 70 million $$$ budget
 
Well - make no mistake - HMIs are used outdoors all day every day here in Hollywood. The cost of running and putting up something like a 50k softsun for one day outweighs the ENTIRE budget of many small indies...

However...

It's no simple feat to come close to or overpower the sun - think of reflectors as lighting Jiu-jutsu - you are taking the power of your opponent - the sun, and redirecting it to suit your needs. A mirror gives a tremendous amount of output if you can catch direct sunlight with it - even bouncing mirror to mirror allows you to redirect the sun's rays with a decent amount of stop - no electricity required.
 
Dan_Kanes said:
Well - make no mistake - HMIs are used outdoors all day every day here in Hollywood. The cost of running and putting up something like a 50k softsun for one day outweighs the ENTIRE budget of many small indies...

However...

It's no simple feat to come close to or overpower the sun - think of reflectors as lighting Jiu-jutsu - you are taking the power of your opponent - the sun, and redirecting it to suit your needs. A mirror gives a tremendous amount of output if you can catch direct sunlight with it - even bouncing mirror to mirror allows you to redirect the sun's rays with a decent amount of stop - no electricity required.
Click to expand...
so why are all these top huge budget films I'm seeing all using just bounce boards instead of hmi for outdoor? Can you tell me what would make a given cinematographer say "no, screw the bounce boards, bring out the heavy guns" on a given scene? I mean obviously it depends on the look a DP wants to achieve but in similar circumstances why would a DP want to use HMI over bounce boards if they seem to do the job just fine. Or are HMI's used mostly in overcast conditions?
 
Green/Blue screens would be a big reason. Also depending on how long the set up will be, you might need the HMI to help keep the lighting consistent. Also if you in a location where you don't have a lot of room to have large bounces set up the much smaller foot print of an HMI would win out.
 
Homunculus said:
so why are all these top huge budget films I'm seeing all using just bounce boards instead of hmi for outdoor? Can you tell me what would make a given cinematographer say "no, screw the bounce boards, bring out the heavy guns" on a given scene? I mean obviously it depends on the look a DP wants to achieve but in similar circumstances why would a DP want to use HMI over bounce boards if they seem to do the job just fine. Or are HMI's used mostly in overcast conditions?
Click to expand...

Hollywood definitely uses lights all day every day for exterior shots, and there's a number of reasons for it...First of all, shiney boards and mirror boards must be adjusted constantly as the sun moves, you can't just set it and forget it, but you constantly have to have a grip shake it up.

The other very big thing is what happens when your sun goes into a patch of clouds? There goes all your light and you've gotta wait until the sun comes back to continue shooting. With lights...if something happens to your sun for extended period of time, it's not extremely difficult to throw up a 4k or 6k HMI to replicate a hard backlight the sun was giving you and then just fill with whatever you've already had up.

I was working on a film quite some time ago where we shot in a forest. There was definitely patches of sun, but since there was so much tree cover, I had to constantly be on the move with this shiney board attempting to find more light to bounce into the scene. Next thing I know, I'm half way up some hill barely getting anything. This would be one situation in which having a few lights and a generator would have been a lot easier, and made things look a lot better in the end. So...I guess the main thing lights get you is just consistency and ease.
 
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