Is expensive a must

dlang

dlang

Well-known member
First off I have to let everyone know I am incredibly new to lighting, with that out of the way here's my question. I have been looking all over the place for some clear direction on lighting. I have noticed that there is two extremes on the subject. I have read articles, one from a professional with a pretty amazing light kit, who chooses to use some cheap home depot lights for interviews, and I've also read your nuts if you don't spend thousands on a light kit. So which is it? am I wasting my time thinking I could pull it off with some inexpensive stuff, or can it be done? If it can be done on a lower budget, does anyone have some footage to demonstrate? Even stills would be fine. What I would love to see is a comparison of cheap lights/good light tech vs. expensive lights/good light tech. thanks for looking

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Expensive lights will not give you a good product. You knowing how to use them will. I bought a couple of expensive Arris and have just ventured into learning how to light. Of course I will not be able to produce first class results yet because I'm still learning. If you know how light works, then I'm sure you could get a very good product out of some cheap work lights. Keep studying, learning, and experimenting. That's the best thing you can do.
 
Lighting is as much art as science, so to produce beautiful work you must have the artistic touch, you are litterally painting with light. The more detailed you want your final work of art to be the more you will have to put into it. You can take work lights and open face lights and create some nice images. But it is very hard to take those instrumenta and make breath taking images. The reason some lights are more expensive is one the quality of the fixture and two the ability to have a predictable output from it. In the pro instrument when it is rated for a color tem you know its is going to be within a certain tolerance of that temp. You also know in the case of the fresnel, that your going to get a fairly even light output over a fixed beam width and it'll drop off quickly. Being able to know that you can start to plan how you want to manipulate light. Do I want a higlight in the hair or eyes. Do I want to create light rays that lead the viewers eyes to a focal point of the scene. Do I want to soften her features. Where do I want the audience to look. Have I created the mood of the scene.

Expensive is also a realative term. If I had to light a scene with only open face lights, it would take nearly twice as long trying to control the light. When your production costs are in thousands of dollars an hour, fresnel lights are not expensive. When your on the run set up here light him taking a drink of this product and you are a two man crew and your production cost is a few hundred dollars an hour then they may appear more costly, but it always comes down to the saying that Wabbit uses;

Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick any two
 
Ok so what I understand so far is that with cheap it is possible to get a good picture, however it will take a little more work to get to the stunning aspect, if even at all. I've been messing around with a 500 watt work light, some foam core, and a regular 75 watt house lamp. Bare with me I'm really anxious to learn..hehe. Anyhow I've noticed that with those three things and some CC I've been able to get some decent results. Maybe it's just my rookie eye. My plan will be to try to get the best results I can with nothing, then when I move up to some good lights I'll be that much better.
 
Gopher Greene that is a good point about the cost per hour ratio. I'm not quite to the point where I'm doing thousand dollar an hour projects, but point taken. That is good knowledge for when I get there.
 
I second what gopher said. My first gig I did an interview with home depot lights and it came out looking great , but I've also had the luxury now of being able to see more "expensive" lights in action and use them. I must tell you that using Professional lights is much easier when trying to setup you lights and in the end will save you lots of time. Plus the fact that they look more professional also helps when dealing with clients. I remember someone on the forum stating that he went to do a job with the home depot lights and the client said "Oh hey I have those in my garage".
 
SilverWolf said:
I remember someone on the forum stating that he went to do a job with the home depot lights and the client said "Oh hey I have those in my garage".
Click to expand...

That must have been an odd situtaion. Do you know how it turned out for him?
 
If it lights the way you need it to, then it... well it lights the way you need it to. The key is to understand the different types of bulbs and the specific color of light they will produce... oh and how that color of light will look on DV.

Check out this book:

Lighting for Digital Video & Television
By: John Jackman

He also used to have a VHS tape out (yes, VHS). I don't think that it is around anymore. Maybe on ebay.

I used his book to learn all about lighting for DV. It helped me put my (small) lighting kit together and to learn the different techniques of lighting.
 
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Thanks for all the tips fellas. It's cool to here that there is that much flexibility in lighting...also clarifies that I'm not wasting my time with what I've got. I've been studying like crazy the past couple of days and have learned quite a bit. To be honest I didn't even know the difference between a fresnel and a scoop were. Even learning that stuff has helped allot cause now I know what ya'll are talking about..haha. I have another question regarding levels. Do all of you use a light meter or a wave monitor to set up your scenes, or have you been able to get by with just your eye. I've just been looking at my lcd and using my zebra pattern set at 95% to make sure that I wasn't clipping.
 
I use the zebra bars as a guide, and then check the true look on a small Sony PVM-8020 field monitor. If it looks good, it looks good.
 
SilverWolf said:
I use my zebras they help out a lot.[/QUOTE
Do you trust your eye and zebras to shoot for clients, or do you shoot for fun. Just wondering what your risk factor was. I have shot some decent paying gigs (live stuff, uncotrolled lighting) and used my zebras. The footage looked fine, however I'm still not getting the kind of footage that I'm seeing around. I know there is more than one aspect to getting a good picsture. This is my attempt to disect the process.

oneinfiniteloop. Thanks for the link that was really helpful...cheers
Click to expand...
 
Well I use the Zebra when shooting for clients. Of course if the clients pay enough then I'll use a monitor. The main thing I use the zebra's for is to check if / where I'm overexposing
 
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