flood lights for key light?

[bobbylong]

hello, i dont know anything about lighting but i have some old flood lights with stands. they are 500 and 250 watts and i was wondering if i put a soft box around one if it would be able to work kind of as a key light?

also while i just have these flood lights with umbrellas, how should i use them for inside shots? just aim them at the ceiling or side walls to make the whole room lighter?

 

[cardmaverick]

Just about any light can be a key light. All the term means is that the light is acting as a main source of illumination. As for umbrella floods, those are typically for general ambience, as you can't really control the soft quality of the light into a specific area.

Personally, I would be really careful about starting out with softlight. I did that years ago, and I always wondered why my shots seemed so flat and dull. It had to with the fact that all my shots were just way to even, and sometimes, just filled in too broadly. If someone has a dark shadow and everyone else is fine, just fill in the problem area only. I used to just keep on bouncing off the cieling until it was better, but buy then, I had ruined everything else!

You need to learn to see the light and paint with it. Get into this mindset early on:

"Each light is a pencil stroke, its either wide or skinny, short or long, heavy or lite. soft or harsh, etc....."

Once you learn to look at a scene in smaller areas, you'll notice your lighting takes a jump up in quality.

 

[PaPa]

be a bit careful with this, if you do not defuse the light you will have a very unnatural harsh light on your subjects, its best to place a bit of diffusion paper or gels to reduce the power and soften up that light.

And in terms of using a softbox to key your subject, this will not always produce a flat and boring image. What you need to learn to do is create a high contrast lighting with your key light without any idffusion, then pop on that soft box and youll find you have a very well lit image.

also, go for the hollywood triangle

Just about any light can be a key light. All the term means is that the light is acting as a main source of illumination. As for umbrella floods, those are typically for general ambience, as you can't really control the soft quality of the light into a specific area.

Personally, I would be really careful about starting out with softlight. I did that years ago, and I always wondered why my shots seemed so flat and dull. It had to with the fact that all my shots were just way to even, and sometimes, just filled in too broadly. If someone has a dark shadow and everyone else is fine, just fill in the problem area only. I used to just keep on bouncing off the cieling until it was better, but buy then, I had ruined everything else!

You need to learn to see the light and paint with it. Get into this mindset early on:

"Each light is a pencil stroke, its either wide or skinny, short or long, heavy or lite. soft or harsh, etc....."

Once you learn to look at a scene in smaller areas, you'll notice your lighting takes a jump up in quality.

 

[cardmaverick]

And in terms of using a softbox to key your subject, this will not always produce a flat and boring image. What you need to learn to do is create a high contrast lighting with your key light without any idffusion, then pop on that soft box and youll find you have a very well lit image.

I was referring to over filling in. If you have a soft box on one side of a subject alone, you can have nice modeling, but if you over fill....you lose that gradient effect on the persons face. But good point, you can have nice images with soft light, I just see way too much being used all the time, all over the frame to a point where it doesn't look natural becasue its so even.

Also, experiment with the size of your diffusion, and how close your subject is to the screen...great way to learn about diffusion.

 

[bobbylong]

You need to learn to see the light and paint with it. Get into this mindset early on:

"Each light is a pencil stroke, its either wide or skinny, short or long, heavy or lite. soft or harsh, etc....."

Once you learn to look at a scene in smaller areas, you'll notice your lighting takes a jump up in quality.

yes that is what my problem was. i am trying to light just my subject so i can then start to light the background seperatly and put stuff infront of that light for shadows and such. my problem is i have only flood lights that can only light the whole room and cant be controlled, and they always overexpose the subject unless the lights are far away and aimed in other directions. thats why i was asking if a soft box on the floodlights would help me control the light, so maybe it would light Just the subject or background instead of the whole room, and make it possible to create shadows for the background?

 

[cardmaverick]

Bobbylong,

One aspect to understand about soft light is that it spreads all over. Diffusing the source alone causes it to just spread all over, not just be softer. You will actually have better results containing harder light as opposed to softer light. Soft light is notoriously hard to contain without using up a ton of space to erect huge flags, cutters, etc....

One technique is to use whats called an egg crate on the softbox. It just a raised grid of squares on top of the diffusion screen, however it really helps create a more narrow angle of light that is still soft.

http://www.bbplight.nl/images/ll-lc-88ec20.jpg

On a budget? Just make some out of cardboard and spray paint it black (to keep from contaminating your lights color).

Hope that helps!