First Light Test with Home Lights

E

etrust

Well-known member
Hello,

this is my first test using home lights. I have a 1k light but i didn't know where to positioning. If i turn it on i loose the night look in my room.

Equipments:

- home lights
- one 500w construction light
- self made dolly
- flycam 5000

please help me to make it better.

Her face was to dark, maybe i need a softbox on the left side near her?

Fell free to help me. IT WAS MY FIRST TEST!!! SO PLEASE BE NICE :cheesy:

http://vimeo.com/8039592
 
It's not bad. Having the lamp be properly exposed help quite a bit. I would raise the ambience level of light by using the 1k. There's really no need to point it directly at the talent, simply pointing it into the wall or the ceiling will produce a soft bounce source that won't take away from the "night" feel but still raise the existing light level. if there is undesirable spill, use anything that's solid black to act as "negative fill" to increase the contrast of the scene.

Backlight helps quite a bit as well. If it was me I would have move the couch forward and use that space to set up a backlight for the talent.
 
Hi Huy Vu,

thank you. I will try next time to use the 1k light and and point it to something black. I pointed to the inverted position of the girl, but i killed the night feeling.

Thank you.

I wan't know what other dvxuser have to say too:=)
 
etrust said:
Hi Huy Vu,

thank you. I will try next time to use the 1k light and and point it to something black.
Click to expand...

If you point it at something black then it's useless because black doesn't reflect light, which is the point of "bouncing" a source to begin with. Negative fill is used to reduce the amount of light being bounced around by absorbing some of the reflected light.
 
Hi,

sorry for asking again, but how do i exaclty realise "negative fill" with my 1k light ?
 
Try bouncing a light off the ceiling. Try the 500w or 1 K and see how it looks. Stop down or ND if it is to bright. Possibly bounce 2 lights off the ceiling. Play around till you get the look you want.

I'd try the 500w first, set away from the actor and bounced off the ceiling or ceiling wall joint, placed camera right, since her practical is to her left (camera right). Depends on the size of the room. Larger room maybe the 1 k camera right off the celing back quite far and the 500w camera left. Walls and ceiling can be your friend.

Make sure that worklight isn't a daylight bulb. Some are some are not.
 
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It's difficult to explain in a short post, but if you are trying to illuminate, then if the ceiling is white you can bounce your 1K of it and it will be bright, pretty even and have minimal shadows, BUT it won't have any mood. For mood you need shadows - but, the camera is not good at picking out detail in shadow, so you use one (or more light) source to create shadows, then fill these in with some fill so they're still there, but not so deep. This means more lights, or maybe crafty use of reflectors. What I'd do is use the girl as a model, and experiment with what the camera sees as you move the light source left to right, and up and down. Certain angles look more natural than others. extreme high or low angles produce unusual shadows under the nose, in the eye sockets, or under the cheekbones - also try out back lighting - this makes the back of the head, and hair have a kind of glow, and isolates the person from the background. A minimum of three, but possibly many more are needed for clever, arty, moody lighting that looks good.
 
Study these:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...gTktHxngqlQGgoonSYkkAAAAA@@ni=21&fr=yfp-t-701

Ask yourself the following:

1. Where is the light coming from.
2. Is the light soft or harsh
3. On the side of the face that is not light, how dark is the shadow
4. What is behind the subject being lit. What's in the background
5. Can I plainly see both eyes or just one.


Then read this:

http://photography.about.com/od/takingpictures/ig/Rule-of-Thirds/

Examine the photographs. Then examine your work and see how close you've come to this.

Once you have a basic idea of what good framing and lighting are, your work will improve greatly.
 
paulears said:
It's difficult to explain in a short post, but if you are trying to illuminate, then if the ceiling is white you can bounce your 1K of it and it will be bright, pretty even and have minimal shadows, BUT it won't have any mood. For mood you need shadows - but, the camera is not good at picking out detail in shadow, so you use one (or more light) source to create shadows, then fill these in with some fill so they're still there, but not so deep. This means more lights, or maybe crafty use of reflectors. What I'd do is use the girl as a model, and experiment with what the camera sees as you move the light source left to right, and up and down. Certain angles look more natural than others. extreme high or low angles produce unusual shadows under the nose, in the eye sockets, or under the cheekbones - also try out back lighting - this makes the back of the head, and hair have a kind of glow, and isolates the person from the background. A minimum of three, but possibly many more are needed for clever, arty, moody lighting that looks good.
Click to expand...

Very true. My reference was to what equipment he has at the moment to work with. Work lights with no barn doors etc.

Small rooms can be a pain in the ass to light properly without the right lights, as the same lights that will bring up the ambient light also kill shadows, so you have to build those back in with small controlled lighting.

a 250w with a barn door form camera left at the right hight might help build back the shadows from the practical (seeming to come from the lamp). If the shadow is to harsh, maybe some light diffusion on the 250w.

Of course that depends on what lights you can get a hold of.
 
ahhhhhh! double shadows my only weakness! if you look to camera left there is a faint shadow that is driving me crazy. And how come the shadow goes to camera right if its supposed to be "keyed" by the practical. You should try and either use a softer fill light or if its already a soft light push it in a little bit more. And figure out that rogue shadow on the wrong side.
 
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