Essential/Basic Lighting Kit. Which lights?

H

Homunculus

Carbonite Member
Hello everyone.

What would you recommend for a bare bones essential lighting kit that would handle most indoor scenarios well?

For example let's say you had to have only 3 lights is something like this good

1. one 1k fresnel

2. one light bank like LED's or Flo

3. one smaller like 650watt, or perhaps a bigger instead like one 2k so that the 1k is the smaller.


Is this roughly a good start? Or would a basic kit by definition require more than these 3 things?

Please give advice.
 
So I went through this same question about 6 months ago. I think the biggest question is what are you shooting with as certain cameras require a lot more light than others to keep the noise away.

Because I was starting and didn't know exactly what I needed, I decided on this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/518056-REG/Lowel_DV_9013Z_DV_Creator_1_Kit.html

I'm happy with it. I think for huge rooms where I need a lot of coverage this might not be ideal, but for every set we've used it on to date, it has been MORE than enough. We shoot with a couple 7D cameras which are pretty good low light so we look to these lights more to add in that extra attention to light detail (backlight, fill, etc).

We are actually considering playing around with high power LED lights that are full range to hide in scenes to add extra accent lights as we tried it out with a couple flashlights and got some great results.

In any case, hope this helps!
 
hi thanks for the response grimepoch. can you clarify the wattages on those things, I had trouble seeing it. am I right in seeing that your kit has 3 lights with roughly two 750watt and one 650watt or something along those lines?
thanks
 
The listing names the three lights as Pro, Omni and Tota.

The Pro light is 250W
The Omni is 500W
The Tota is 750W

Which totals 1450W which it also says in the listing.

Scrolling down in the listing it shows the replacements bulbs and their wattages. If you want to see the various lights from Lowel go to http://lowel.com .
 
What he said :) But yeah, that's what they are. At first I was going to go for a lot more wattage, but I am glad I didn't. I think if anything in the future I will add a few larger lights with huge diffusers for brining up the ambient light of an entire room, but other than that, this set has been perfect, especially size wise. Easy to bring around, easy to set up.
 
wow thank that's interesting to know because I would have thought that's very low wattage. Because I just ordered me a 1k mole. And am wondering what to supplement that with, i thought maybe with 2k etc etc but now starting to think that I should supplement only with much smaller ones like 500w and 750 etc.....
 
Really depends on your camera. The rooms we've used are not huge so if you were doing a larger room, you might need more, but so far, we're happy.

I'd say wait till you get the light, play around with it, and with diffusion, and see how you feel about it. A lot will depend on how you light as well.
 
Hi grimepoch,

Do you have any examples of anything you have shot with this lighting kit and your 7D? What would be especially helpful is if you could also remember which exposure settings you used (aperture/ISO/etc). I ask because I'm trying to gauge how much light I need for my T2i before I buy any lights.
 
Sadly, the scenes where I used the light kits are hard to tell, because they were green screened. Most of the stuff we've done, found light has been MORE than enough. For example, these two videos used only my light kit for the intro scene which we darkened in post for part 1 and the newscaster.

Here is part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMrwNz24j_g

Here is part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia9Ms_fVEHI

This just shows you how much light is not needed for fill. But if we wanted more contrast in the shots, we would have used them.

We mostly shot at ISO1000 and below on these, but a few were 1 or 2 settings higher. We used NO noise reduction filters on this.
 
What kind of projects are you doing? I think that this is the biggest question. If you are doing corporate videos, then you would want very simple, well constructed, professional looking lights that are very good at portraiture, like quick set up soft boxes, or various fluorescents fixtures. If you are doing fictional narrative guerilla projects, then that is a different story.

There is just no way that 3 lights are going to do everything that you are going need, especially if you are doing fictional narrative guerilla projects. If that is where you are at, then I would suggest getting 4 or 5, or more (I have about 12 of them), scoop work lights from Home Depot, and collecting various bulbs from high out put CFLS, of various color temps, to photo floods, to regular incandescent bulbs for them. I know that there are a lot of pros that will poo-poo this, but these lights are the handiest little f**kers out there. Next I would get 2 or 3 open faced quartz lights, of at least 650 watts, and get a soft box set up for at least one of them. Umbrellas are cool also, so I would get a set up for that also. I would then get a few Par64 cans and trick them out for use on stands. I picked up 4 of them, from a stage lighting joint in eBay for $90, and they will take bulbs up to 1000 watts, of various focus quality. Then, realizing that "Light is light" I would build my light kit with various DIY fluorescents and other lights I could find on eBay under searches for "Movie lights" or under "Continuous lighting". I have been buying a lot of open faced quartz lights that were made for use with Super 8mm film, and they are great lights. They are cheap, plentiful and are dying to be used by a new generation of filmmakers. Get off of the B&H Photo site and build your light kit off of eBay, and at Home Depot. Light is light.
 
Hah, I forgot we used home depot halogens for the basement scene. A different film was being done upstairs so we borrowed them as we though the floodlights actually looked good in the shots.

And "what you are filming" as David said is a really important point. Although I will say I was going to go the eBay route at first, but then met someone using the kit I bought. We were using his kit for a bunch of stuff. After reading TONS of research, I felt that particular Lowell kit was good for the money as a starting point. I'll agree that 3 lights is NEVER gonna cover all the bases, but for me, it was an excellent starting point. I also don't need 500 lights either! :) Now that I've had a chance to use this kit more and more, I love it. But what I really want to add for us to use in bigger locations is a few larger lights like the 2ks for fill with a good method to diffuse or bounce over big areas. I am going to wait until I have a shoot that will need them and then purchase based on that shoot. So far, the size rooms I've tested these lights in, they were FAR overkill.

(I also liked that the kit came with a lot of extras like an umbrella and gels which for me was good to get going).

If you have more time though and want to go at it more slowly you can get more for your money without question following David's advice.

Although I will warn one thing, the lights from home depot have CRAPPY stands that break easy. And, they don't go as tall as I like. The stands that come with the lowells are pretty good, although there is still even better out there. I can say one thing though, they are a lot lighter to carry around then any c-stands! hahaha.
 
Actually the Home Depot lights I was talking about are the spring clamp types, with the E26 standard bulb screw in socket, not the halogen work lights with the sh*tty stands. I don't particularly care for the halogen work lights. The scoop lights, with the spring clamps are just too handy. I love them. From used lights on eBay, I think that you can find much more useable lights than the halogen work lights with the sh*tty stands.
 
Yeah, those stands are crap. Always breaking. I do have some spring clamp lights, but having good light stands is ALWAYS good when you need to get the lights high. Especially on green screen stuff.

And I've seen used stands go for CHEAP so it is good to be on the lookout.
 
Thanks for sharing those videos grimepoch. They look really good. It looks like you made good use of natural light at most of your locations.
 
Thanks! We had the lights and bounce cards with us if needed, but we were so amazed at what the cameras were pulling off, we ended up not using them. There was a scene where we did, but it got cut from the final edit.
 
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