How to light a dental lab?

G

GregJ

Active member
I'm shooting in a fairly large dentist training room and a lab. Both rooms have a lot of fluorescent lights in the ceiling. My lighting kit is a couple of Lowel Pros, a Tota (all halogens) and a 5-in-1 reflector.

I can't turn off the overhead fluoros because I want the settings to be realistic--these are fairly large, fluorescent rooms that people work and train in. But if I leave them on, won't I have problems with mixing color temperatures? If so, how I fix that? There are no outside windows in either room.

I should add, I'm shooting an individual interview in each location. THe rooms will be background.

All suggestions/solutions appreciated.

--GJ
 
The light should be very flat unless there are any windows in which case you can motivate some suddle shadows. I would keep it as white and bright as possible.
 
Hi Greg,

It wasn't clear to me how you intend to use the Tota with the reflector. Unless you use diffusion, the Tota is too hot/hard directly on a subject unless you bounce it off the reflector. If so, you may still need a fill light (depending on the fluorescent lighting).

I'd consider using some CTB (blue gels) so the Lowel Tota lights would match the color of the fluorescent lights. Depending on the mood you're trying to create, you could either color balance using warm cards or tweak it in post. You'll probably want to use your Lowel Pros either to motivate the background or dental gear (with a different colored gel, cookie, etc) or as a fill, kicker, backlight, hair light, etc.

Good luck, Michael
 
Depending on your budget, I would cut all of the practical florescents and rent a few 575w Hmi Pars and bounce them off of the ceiling (you can shoot them into the reflective florescent grids in the ceiling). You could also use a daylight balanced kinoflo to light a particular subject if needed. That will give you a very soft and "clean" look and you will match color temperature.
 
Or ,you could color correct your lights to match the fluorescent lights, if there are no windows.
Putting gell over your pro ights and using a gel frame infront of your Tota light would work great.
On a gorilla budget, I even have bought a few shop lights ( flo work lights with standard length tubes, not those 500 watt "work lights") Ask the custodian (in advance) to borrow the same type of bulbs in the ceiling and use these fixtures(probably 2 or 4 bulb shop lights) as your key and fill lights during your interviews. I have bought "Baby nail on plates" ( see www.msegrip.com) I attached these to the back of the flo lights.
Color color your camera using your White balance.
Blue gels (CTB) are not the correct gel to use for correcting to Fluorescents. Look up what-minus green and +plus green gels can do for you, as well as what magenta gels can do for the ceiling light fixtures, if you need to go daylight.
 
Great advice!

Great advice!

I got great advice here and on dvinfo.net and I want to thank everyone who responded. The shoot turned out okay, I think. Still much to learn, but these boards are a godsend.

I hope I'll be able to contribute my own expert advice some day.

Really appreciate it.

--Greg
 
GregJ said:
I got great advice here and on dvinfo.net and I want to thank everyone who responded. The shoot turned out okay, I think. Still much to learn, but these boards are a godsend.

I hope I'll be able to contribute my own expert advice some day.

Really appreciate it.

--Greg
Click to expand...

How did you light your location ?
 
filmat11 said:
How did you light your location ?
Click to expand...
I ended up using one Lowel Pro with a CB gel as the key and the tota in a softbox as the fill. I threw another CB gel on the softbox but doubt it had much impact. But the color of the footage came out looking lifelike, so I guess it worked.

BTW, I didn't light the background because we wanted to portray real working conditions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top