Is there THAT much of a difference between photography lighting & film lighting?

J

JaredSMark

Active member
I'm not a photo guy at all, just video. Something I've noticed over time - and maybe it's just me - is that photos seem to have a bit more depth in some particular way. Here's an example: https://vimeo.com/76253725

The lighting seems spot on and it has a great use of different colors without looking like a rainbow.

Is the lighting equipment and general setups these guys use too dissimilar from video lighting to get something like this? I'd love to get something looking like that for talking head interviews. Seems like a LOT of work though.
 
Photographic lighting is all about capturing a single frame. It's inherently a more precise process than film lighting, which requires us to make all sorts of compromises to capture 24 frames per second at a comparitively slow 1/48 second exposure.

Strobe lighting also allows far more control on a smaller budget than continuous lighting. So again, less compromises.
 
Freeze the frame and study where the lights are coming from - a light on the back wall, two backlight on either side, one of them with a red gel, and then your basic key and fill.

It is a very interesting lighting setup, and we should all be comfortable taking chances and making bold creative decisions when it comes to lighting. I think a lot of us, myself included, fall back on classic 3-point single-color tungsten or daylight balanced setups.

Point is, we can do this! :thumbsup:
 
Last edited:
In my opinion the big difference is that photography often gets to be more "arty" ( strange compositions, wacky lighting, weird colors etc). Except in a few instances what looks great for photography is way too out there for videography/cinematography and what is great for video/cinema is kinda boring for the stills world.
 
It's not an incredibly complex setup, and shouldn't take too long to set up a video equivalent for some talking heads interviews.

You'd just need a couple gels and the right amount of blacks and flags to control light spill.

You could totally do this with four lights, you'd just need the time to set it up - something which is sometimes not afforded in talking heads type shoots. Also, in music videos there's generally less stress on your lighting being motivated and realistic and moreso about it simply looking 'cool', so you can play with colours and cool effects a lot more than you might be able to on a more standard narrative shoot.
 
Coming from a theater and staging world, I love the creative use of light and color to paint a scene. Movies do this routinely. It is done so artfully you may not be consciously aware of it.
 
I don't think there's anything terribly complex about that lighting setup, and it looks like there's some post work done (the falloff to black from the center to the edge). Seems to be fairly straight on, or at least with a low contrast ratio, and an emphasis on gelled rim/back lighting. Key/fill seem to come from a pretty high angle -- though you could make the argument that the rim is actually the key and the "key" is all fill.
 
The other thing to keep in mind when comparing photography and cinema lighting is that photography is easier to post process. You can make a lot more changes on a raw still than even a raw video image, let alone a compressed one.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
The other thing to keep in mind when comparing photography and cinema lighting is that photography is easier to post process. You can make a lot more changes on a raw still than even a raw video image, let alone a compressed one.
Click to expand...

True uncompressed raw cinema DNG images are no different than still camera raw images other than for resolution. You can even use the same raw processing tools for both. The speed adapted raw processors in video centric programs like Resolve and AE aren't as sophisticated or powerful as something like Capture 1 that I used on the 2k format Bolex DNG frame posted below. But if you are willing to take the hit in processing time, you can get the same high end digital stills photography look for your movies at least with open standard uncompressed cinema DNG cameras.

10093163785_cf0755034c_k.jpg
 
Last edited:
Razz16mm said:
True uncompressed raw cinema DNG images are no different than still camera raw images other than for resolution. You can even use the same raw processing tools for both.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but. The difference being that it's easy to adjust a single frame and get it perfect. If the subject of that single frame then gets up and walks in front of a window or has an explosion go off next to them, well then you're into a whole world of masking and tracking and all that...not nearly as easy as doing a single frame, and that's if you're shooting raw with a ML 5DIII, BMCC, RED, etc. For the rest of us shooting h264 based stuff we're much more limited.
 
Not much different until something starts moving (the camera, an object, the actors, etc.). Then video lighting ramps way up in complexity in a way photographers never even have to think about.
 
I have always believed that in order to light for film/video one must first understand and learn how to light for photography first, I did it and it has payed off incredibly
 
Liam Hall said:
It was stills. Not that difficult really, just a fiddle.
Click to expand...

You're right. I couldn't see the Vimeo description earlier on my phone. Impressive on their part. Still, wouldn't it just be easier to have them lip sync with a BMCC or something else RAW? The faces seem to repeat every ten seconds or so. But now we've gotten into a workflow conversation and not a lighting commentary. I'll stop there.
 
jghenderson said:
Not much different until something starts moving (the camera, an object, the actors, etc.). Then video lighting ramps way up in complexity in a way photographers never even have to think about.
Click to expand...

Andrius Simutis said:
Yeah, but. The difference being that it's easy to adjust a single frame and get it perfect. If the subject of that single frame then gets up and walks in front of a window or has an explosion go off next to them, well then you're into a whole world of masking and tracking and all that...not nearly as easy as doing a single frame, and that's if you're shooting raw with a ML 5DIII, BMCC, RED, etc. For the rest of us shooting h264 based stuff we're much more limited.
Click to expand...

I'm not likely to be dealing with explosions, but I prefer to work with light and space so that actors or subjects or the camera can move without causing serious grading problems. I do get what you are saying though. To me shooting raw lends itself to more of a film like shooting discipline, but with far more usable latitude than any of the 16mm film stocks I ever shot with. Coming from a staging and theatrical background I tend to think in terms of lighting spaces rather than shots, still or moving. It certainly can get complex.
Couldn't agree more about the limitations of high compression long GOP codecs like AVC as original camera acquisition formats though. They were conceived as limited bandwidth delivery formats, something they do very well.
 
There is a huge difference between photography and cinematography. Photography is all about capturing a visually pleasing moment in time that can stand alone. Cinematography is all about creating images TOTALLY in the service of telling a story. There is a lot of overlap in the exact HOW the images are created in photography and cinematography but the WHY they are created is totally different.
 
aalleexx said:
I have always believed that in order to light for film/video one must first understand and learn how to light for photography first, I did it and it has payed off incredibly
Click to expand...

+1. I see so many struggling with basic fundamentals like setting optimum exposure and controlling, or at least properly using, lighting ratios to get to a desired result.
 
Grug said:
Photographic lighting is all about capturing a single frame. It's inherently a more precise process than film lighting, which requires us to make all sorts of compromises to capture 24 frames per second at a comparitively slow 1/48 second exposure.

Strobe lighting also allows far more control on a smaller budget than continuous lighting. So again, less compromises.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you're shooting. As an extreme example to the contrary, I know someone who spent 7 hours lighting up a faucet for a commercial. Meanwhile, in a lot of product photography, the product is simply blasted with flat light to get an exposure and it gets retouched later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top