Ideas for "warm" scene in church using 250w photofloods?

B

barant

Well-known member
I just went to the photo store and overpaid for some Smith Victor 250w phtotfloods (3200K). I have a scene in a church and I dont want to light the whole place up, but I do want to get nice warm lighting on the 2 main characters. Now should I bounce these open faced lights onto the subjects using some warm reflectors or should I use a warm umbrella? Also, if I get a dimmer and am not using the bulbs at 100% intensity (lets say I go down to about 60%), does the color temperture change, or does that not make a difference? Thanks
 
I would say to get a warm look you could try using the color temp settings in the DVX, or also try white balancing through a piece of 1/4 blue gel onto a white piece of paper. You could also just find some really subtle orange gel and gel your lights with it to give you the warm look....and then you could also do all of the color correcting in post, just make sure you get a good clean image in camera.
 
Using a dimmer and dimming the bulbs will lower the colour temp and warm the light up. The thing I would be most concerned with is trimming those lights. I'm assuming they don't have any kind of barndoors? I would definitely have some black wrap and some diffusion to go along with them. Also most of the 250w photofloods only have a 3hr life on them before they blow. Make sure to carry a few or I find the 500w to be better value, just make sure the socket is rated for the higher wattage if you go that route.

In regards to the warm tones all the previous suggestions will work quite well. I would maybe go with the colour temp settings/white balance approach on the camera to give everything a nice tone and then add 1/4 CTO gel to your lights for some extra warm kick. It all depends on the degree of your look that you're trying to achieve.
 
Do you want to light the 2 actors in a warm light, or do you want the whole place to have a warm feeling?
 
2 actors in warm light, kind of like they are next to a stained glass window...so i think ill get some black wrap to controll the spill a bit and bounce the key off a gold card and drop the fill light about 50% and gel that so the temperature is right. I do want the background to not stand out as much so I'm wondering how the heck im going to light that...
 
I would definitely bounce the lights off of foamcore or something similar.
Open face lights are usually too harsh to use directly on your subjects.

You can warm up the picture in your camera, or do it in post.


-BillP
 
I would suggest just setting up your lighting how you want it to show, and dont worry about gelling, and then just lower your color temperature in camera, or adjust the colors in post. Doing it in camera though will give you an immediate look at what your getting, where at the same time, its hard to go back in post if you shot it too warm.
 
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