dslr lighting...hallogen or tungsteno?

U

unasemana

Member
Hi, how you doing? hope is all good.

Im having doubs about what kind of lights shoud i use to record videos with my dslr camcorder (canon 60d)

I mean, i can go to the store and buy a tungsteno light or an halogen one, but i really dont know which one is better for this type of camera or video.

Can you people give some advices?

thanks for your time.
 
unasemana said:
Im having doubs about what kind of lights shoud i use to record videos with my dslr camcorder (canon 60d)

I mean, i can go to the store and buy a tungsteno light or an halogen one, but i really dont know which one is better for this type of camera or video.
Click to expand...

Same thing. Tungsten halogen is just one type of lighting.

Tungsten lighting for film/video runs a color temperature of around 3200K. The problem here is that 3200K is deficient in the blue end of the spectrum. This is turn can starve the blue photo receptors in your camera's sensor -- which makes them noisy. If you see noise in your blue channel when using tungsten lights, that's typically why.

This is one of the main reason for the move away from tungsten lighting to HMI and fluoresents, both at a color temperature of around 5600K. The downside of course is that tungsten is typically considerably less expensive.
 
I prefer the warm look of tungston, the cons are they burn HOT, You need to use a CTB gel to match daylight,( no big deal aside from losing light) They can make the actors sweat, which will cause makeup issues if to close. But overall, I still love the look they produce. I hate flourescant lighting whether it be in a cafetaria or film set. To me they just produce ugly lighting. Even if they are daylight rated bulbs (lamps) Oh yeah and they cause flicker.
 
There's a bit more to it than that!

Tungsten lamps have filaments - usually quite compact ones - so their light comes from a smallish source, stick a reflector on the back and a lens or two on the front and you have an optical system capable of concentrating the light and if you move the lens or the lamp, you can adjust the width of the beam. If you use a lens with a stepped front - looks like concentric circles from the front, then the edge of the beam will be a little soft - so it can blend nicely with another. If the lens is the familiar magnifying glass type, then it will have hard edges - and can even in some designs, have a metal pattern inserted to projects shapes, logos and effects. Other tungsten lamps are longer - like the familiar garden lights - these have open faces and a reflector - and just flood the area with light. The edges are a bit naff, but we can chop these off with barn door flaps. Ordinary tungsten lamps, are the same as old fashioned domestic lamps - and as they get older, they start to go black, as the tungsten evaporates and then condenses onto the inside of the glass. eventually, the weight of the filament is more than the thin wire can support, and they die. Sticking a halogen gas into the envelope makes the tungsten tend to return to the hot filament. Loom up the halogen cycle for more info. Tungsten halogen lamps work at higher temperatures so have quartz glass envelopes, and it's vital you do not touch them with your fingers. If you do, the grease from your skin on the glass starts to darken as the glass is so hot. The light then burns the grease blacker, which gets hotter, which then gets darker - not good. alcohol dos a pretty good job of removing the grease if you accidentally touch the glass when putting one in. Fluorescent tubes have a gas inside that is made to fluoresce when electrons pass through it from the electrodes either end. Most tubes have tiny amount of mercury inside with the inert gas - hence why people get upset. You have a long length of tube emitting light, not a small concentrated filament - so tubes create less shadows than the other types - so they are a soft light source. They don't really do shadows. Many people like to use a hard key light, that does produce shadows then fill it in with a soft light. You can use a tungsten lamp with diffuser on it, or a flu fixture. As said, the colour balance of the different sources needs watching. Fluorescent does tend to have a green spike in the spectrum - a result of the gas in the tubes not having even output at all frequencies. Filter is available to assist the matching. Fluorescent fixtures use a ballast to limit the current, and cheap designs tend to be less smooth in operation which can produce flicker - if the shutter speed of the camera is set to higher rates, then the flicker at mains frequency multiples doesn't align with the camera open shutter period. On my UK camera, the 1/120 shutter speed flickers with flu lighting as out mains frequency in the UK is 50Hz, not 60 as in the US - so the result is flicker. Better flu ballasts smooth this flicker and then the 1/120 setting works fine. You can see it in the viewfinder, so not too bad a problem.

In practice, you need to select a lighting kit, or individual items that will do what you need. Big space, small space - are hot lights a problem, or maybe there is little power available? That's the snag. cheap rubbish work lights can works for some things, but if you want quality light, it will come from quality equipment.
 
"I mean, i can go to the store and buy a tungsteno light or an halogen one, but i really dont know which one is better for this type of camera or video."

Tungsten lights designed for photographic use will have a temperature about 3200K, which looks pretty good on faces, enhancing the orange/red skin tones.

Halogen lights from Home Depot will probably be more like 2700K and make everything too yellow.

Digital sensors are tuned to daylight, about 5600K, which means they perform best and have lowest noise (particularly in the blue channel) with that color light. That's why sunlight generally looks richer and more vibrant on them (except for the highlight clipping).

Gelling a 5600K light toward orange (3200k) loses much less light than going the other way.

Tungsten/Halogen lights are extremely hot, even dangerous. They will burn your hands and make everyone uncomfotable after 15 minutes. They do, however, offer a smoother distribution of light frequencies with less spikes than florescents.

If going florescent, try to get the highest CRI bulbs you can: 90CRI+. Going under 90 means ugly off balanced color. LEDs also have CRI issues and spikes, which the manufacturers don't like to talk about, especially with the outrageous prices they are trying to get.

It's good to have a fresnel that can focus the beam for sharper noir like shadows. It's also good to have soft boxes to have nice soft facial lighting on the actors.

Search this site for lots of discussions about lighting.
 
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