I feel my key light looks fake

iams3b

iams3b

Member
As in it doesn't look like light from the scene but looks like I'm just pointing a light at her. I was wondering if anyone can notice what I'm doing technically wrong? I'm just trying to light basic comedy-style, nothing dramatic.

keylight.png


I'm teaching myself through trial and error. I have a 500w pointing at a wall to fill the background and her fill, and then I have a 150 to the side of her face to brighten up the key.
 
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iams3b said:
As in it doesn't look like light from the scene but looks like I'm just pointing a light at her. I was wondering if anyone can notice what I'm doing technically wrong? I'm just trying to light basic comedy-style, nothing dramatic.

keylight.png


I have a 500w pointing at a wall to fill the background and her fill, and then I have a 150 to the side of her face to brighten up the key.
Click to expand...


Do you have a spot meter?... if so, check the ratio of light from the the subject's right to left. If it is more than 1 stop darker on her left side, then you need more light on that side.

With an incident meter you can get an idea of the ratio, by aligning the meter's sensor to the 'big light' and take a reading, then align the meter to the smaller light, and 'shield' the sensor
from the big light, to get what the shadow side light is...

If you have neither and are using the camera's metering, then adjust lights by looking at the LCD display...

That would give a 'classical' 2:1 ratio. 'comedy' may be a bit flatter than that, so I'd position your big 'softbox' to right above your head... giving a 1:1 ratio, or even lighting... don't have a big soft box, then point the lamp that your using on the camera left, which gives the brighter subject's right... point that lamp at the wall behind the camera, giving an even light all over the subject.

Alternatively, drop the power on the big light, till the right and left side look more to your liking. The problem there is you may not have enough light, and may need to open up a stop or two, or change the ISO value, either one may affect the image you were trying to get...
 
Not terrible, it all really depends on the context of the scene.

Without context I might suggest that it looks like you're getting a kick from the floor, the key looks a little low to me. And purely for aesthetic reasons I would come around the front of her face a few degrees to fill in the eye sockets.

I'd also try flagging a little light off the wall, pulling the sofa off the wall a few inches, and maybe adding a plant or something off of which you can play some shadows to add texture to the b/g.
 
It's too low.

Our eyes are accustomed to light coming down from a 45 degree angle. I'd guess it's about 4-5' off the ground right? Try it at 8' off the ground and it'll look more natural.

Also swing it around so it's got a "rembrandt patch" (google for more info if you don't know...)
Or push it back the other way so it is more of a rim light rather than a side light.
 
"I have a 150 to the side of her face to brighten up the key."

What you have done is made the 150 watt on the side the key. Fill is almost always on camera axis.
Assuming you don't have a boom your best bet would be to have key slightly left or right of camera and above your subject.
Put your fill directly under the camera and on lens axis one stop below the key.
Use your small light above or behind the subject to light the hair especially if the subject does not have much contrast from the background.
Blond's on dark backgrounds and dark hair on light backgrounds the hair /rim light is not as critical.
Background should be a separate light but sometimes you can feather the key to also light the BG depending on the modifier and distance.

You also might want to avoid picture frames growing out of the top of your subjects head.

Hope that helps....
 
You can take that 500W and point it at the ceiling to give a more softer fill/ ambient light. If this takes place during the day in a room with windows, CTB your lights.
 
Lose the 150w or pull it back and get it up in the air. It's way too close and too low. It looks like it is right next to her arm. Her arm is hot. The light from below is unnatural and the shadow of the couch on the wall is distracting (from the 150 I assume). As said, bring it more forward with the camera.

Exactly where is the 500w?
 
Don't know what your going for but I would agree with the others.... key is usually at a 45 degree angle above the subject. Also, the light is too hard meaning you need to add diffusion or as others suggested bounce the light off something. Your ratio is also high, so maybe walk the light back, add a fill light on the dark side of the face.... ect. Start with diffusion which would help the most though.

You can get awesome results with daylight balanced flour bulbs in china balls for super low budget stuff. Very diffuse, and thats normally what you end up spending most your time doing with hard lights is trying to diffuse them while keeping the light output. Depending on the look your after of course.
 
Paul F said:
Lose the 150w or pull it back and get it up in the air. It's way too close and too low. It looks like it is right next to her arm. Her arm is hot. The light from below is unnatural and the shadow of the couch on the wall is distracting (from the 150 I assume). As said, bring it more forward with the camera.
Click to expand...

I agree. I would bring the 150 above the talent and closer to the camera. If you are doing a comedy, light the faces first, then the rest of the scene. ... Well, that should be done no matter what the genre.
 
Paul F said:
Lose the 150w or pull it back and get it up in the air. It's way too close and too low. It looks like it is right next to her arm. Her arm is hot. The light from below is unnatural and the shadow of the couch on the wall is distracting (from the 150 I assume). As said, bring it more forward with the camera.

Exactly where is the 500w?
Click to expand...

As I 'read' the OP's post.. the 500W light is to the left of the camera, pointed at a wall, which when bounced lights the 'subject's right side'. The OP then has a 150 W light on the to the camera right, which is insufficient relative to the overpowering 500W bounce coming from the left.

The options would be point the 500W to the back wall, or ceiling more to the 'behind the camera', rather than at about 90 degrees from the camera, giving more light on both sides of the subject. I wouldn't fiddle with the 150, unless there was some dark 'hole' to boost a slight bit, or as a catch light for the subject's eyes. A bounce card would probably do better at this point anyway... I would also probably bounce the light from the left back into the subject's 'shadow' side, but that still may not be enough to soften what I am presuming is something like a 3 or 4 stop difference from one side of the face to the other. (I've noticed my browser seems to render things 'darker' than Mac OS X Safari on occasion... so some times its difficult to estimate such things...)

In addition. I 'read' the lighting to simulate a room which has perhaps a sliding door, and bright sunlight outside... Don't know if that was what the OP was going for... but that sort of lighting is 'seen' in such situations.
 
David G. Smith said:
I agree. I would bring the 150 above the talent and closer to the camera. If you are doing a comedy, light the faces first, then the rest of the scene. ... Well, that should be done no matter what the genre.
Click to expand...

Even so, I think of 'comedy' lighting as a bit 'flatter', perhaps just plain 'even' across the face... with 'dramatic' lighting one gets... well... more dramatic contrast...
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
Even so, I think of 'comedy' lighting as a bit 'flatter', perhaps just plain 'even' across the face... with 'dramatic' lighting one gets... well... more dramatic contrast...
Click to expand...

Yes, that's right, comedy lighting is high-key, meaning low contrast, by definition. The OP photo is low-key not high-key.
 
There's often a difference between what is right, and what looks right.

In this case, even if the light is motivated by a big window to the left, it still looks a bit odd. Two things came right to the top of my head at first glance. First, the key is too low -- it should come to her face from somewhat higher, especially since she's sitting down. Second, the key should perhaps be rotated off its 90 degrees from the camera. Either rotate it toward the camera and get some light on the far side of her face, or rotate it around behind her and use it more like a rim light or a kicker. Because... what you've got makes her look "two faced" -- one side is lit, the other is not, and there's a very noticeable vertical line right down her nose. This look is usually reserved for horror films, or action films, when the audience is invited to make a judgment of the character -- is she "good" or "bad"? Not something you'd normally associated with a comedy.
 
Raise that key light up so that we don't see the sofa's shadow on the back wall. A 45 degree angle would be proper.
 
I think the biggest problems are that you need to flag off the light from hitting the back wall, and get rid of that highly-reflective white board.

Also, re-frame the shot to get that corner out.
 
Yeah, the shadow from the sofa was the first thing that popped out to me. When I think comedy, I think sitcom, and I generally think flat lighting as well. High contrast to me evokes emotion, and so I would try and get as even lighting as possible in the scene. Of course, it depends what kind of comedy you are going for.

When I am having lighting troubles, I pop in a movie that has a similar feeling as my own material and look at how the scenes look. Generally, as a starting point, that really helps me A LOT.
 
So mainly what I'm getting is raise the key light, bring it close to the camera, fix it to a 2:1 lighting ratio, push the sofa away from the wall to get rid of shadows and possibly flag it out. Got it! I'll give it a go tonight..

And I would get rid of the key, but I'm not really going for a flat "sitcom comedy" look, more-so of a... Superbad or She's Out of my League style. Not an emotionally-driven light setup but not un-pleasantly boring to look at either

I appreciate all the feedback by the way, thanks a lot !

edit: Found an example that shows what I'm talking about!
exampledy.png
 
Make sure you look at everything in that shot -- the framing, the motivation of the light, the art direction, everything. It all contributes to the look you're after.
 
Notice the difference between your shot:

keylight.png


And this one that you referenced:

exampledy.png


Notice how the light is much softer. You need to soften your light a lot more if you want to achieve the same look.

Also notice how the couch isn't just away from the wall, but how the background has elements to it. It's important to have a good set before you start lighting. A good location can save bad lighting, but good lighting can rarely save a bad location.

Add a nice hair light so that you can bring down the luminance of the back wall and still have separation of your talent from the background.

If you can, show what's motivating the light. See how there's a lamp in the second frame? Your angle of lighting would be fine if we saw that a table lamp was motivating it. But since there is no establishment of where the light is coming from, the light seems unnatural.
 
So I grabbed a friend who was dedicated to sitting there for more than an hour, and took in all your guys' advice..

This first one I put him away from the wall, flagged the wall and put a dash of daylight bulb sweeping the background.
shane3.png


I really wish I had a rim light on him, but I didn't have any way to set it up without it looking terrible :P

set-up:
shane22.jpg


then I realized if I light up side of his face, and then light the wall on the same side it will add to the effect that it's coming from a light, so I did just that:
shane2t.jpg



Then a second shot of him in the hallway frustrated that these damn bucky balls don't connect:
shane1l.jpg


set up:
shane12.jpg


Id like to say browsing this forum and doing a lot of reading is really helping me out. Opinions on the shots :)?
 
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