First lighting kit - High Contrast/Product lighting - Recommendations?

[azonicbruce]

Hey there. I'm looking into purchasing my first lighting kit, and would like some recommendations from the experts here.

Ideally, I'd like a lighting set that is versatile, compact, easy to setup, and cheap. Of course that's probably setting my expectations too high. So, rather, I'd like my first lighting kit to be something that would work well for dramatic, high-contrast video project, like is used for many corporate product shoots. The best example of the "look" I'm going for is here:

http://www.lifecyclesfilm.com/visuals/film/30sec-saint

Any ideas? My guess is some type of fluorescent lighting with softboxes, and something that can vary the intensity.

 

[PerroneFord]

"I'd like my first lighting kit to be something that would work well for dramatic, high-contrast... "

" My guess is some type of fluorescent lighting with softboxes..."

These two statements are in directly conflict with each other.

 

[azonicbruce]

Guess it shows how new I am to all this, and how bad of a guesser I am. I guess I thought this because his shots don't appear to have any harsh hot spots. I guess I thought that diffusing the light but keeping the intensity up would create this effect.

The other thing I'm looking at is how "white" the light appears to be. Can this be achieved simply through white balance tuning, or will I need to find something a specific bulb that emits a specific temperature/spectrum of light?

 

[PerroneFord]

Harsh hot spots are simply a matter of light intensity. This is controlled by distance of the light to the subject, camera, aperture, and some other factors. Note how the rest of the background is totally blacked out in your example. This allows for the use of VERY intense light, and small apertures since nothing else really needs to be shown. In fact, on a black background this is a benefit. You want those small apertures so very intense light is preferred.

"White" to a camera is merely an electronic choice. However, given the option, you want light with a fair amount of blue in it. Something near 5500 degrees kelvin or higher. It generally gives much less noise in the image, and this is of particular importance when shooting a black background.

 

[David Jimerson]

Guess it shows how new I am to all this, and how bad of a guesser I am. I guess I thought this because his shots don't appear to have any harsh hot spots. I guess I thought that diffusing the light but keeping the intensity up would create this effect.

Diffusion affects the shadows, not so much the intensity (though it does dim the light); you can have diffused light which is too bright and creates hot spots just as easily as non-diffused light.

But diffusion specifically lowers contrast because it softens shadows and makes light wrap around a subject more. If you want contrast, with well-defined dark and light spots, you don't want diffused light. Plus, diffusion makes a light source larger (usually), and larger lights produce softer, less-contrasty light, simply because a larger light will, again, wrap around a subject more.

So, you don't want fluorescent. You want something with a small pinpoint of light, not a large panel of light. Bulbed lights do this.