lighting a studio with flouresents?

awesomesean

awesomesean

Active member
Does anyone have any ideas on how to light a small set for a small budget? The set is already in a tv station and they have very little light for us and is always harshly front lit so there are shadows everywhere. I have been thinging about using shop flouros above the set to help down light. Also what about using track lighting instead with 75-100 watt bulbs pointed everywhere from above?
Any ideas. Thank you
 
If the studio lighting is based upon incandescent fixtures, then mixing fluorescents will be a bit difficult at they have very different spectral characteristics. The track lighting route would likely give you better results and you can always go the photo flood globe route (assuming that the fixtures can handle the heat) to get the illumination levels up to a decent working level.

Try to keep your lighting motivated so that it doesn't just appear to be random light from random directions.
 
so do you think the track lighting might be a better idea? I could go to home depot and buy the 5 light track lights and put 2 or 3 sets up and use 100 watt bulbs or try to find 3200 photo bulbs.
I have a 3 point lighting kit that has 2x500 watt photo floods and 1x250 watt photo flood. maybe I could use this up high pointing down. The one concern the station has is overlighting and loosing detail or underlighting and using more iris. I know there is a in between setting here but I don't have good lighting experience.
any other ideas?
 
You really don't have to worry about having too much light, you can always ND down if you need to. Having not enough light is much more of a problem as the only solution is to underexpose or add gain (which adds noise). With all 3200k instruments, you won't be fighting with mixed color temperatures. Unless you want really flat lighting, don't use too many sources, depending upon the setup, a smaller number of higher output ones will usually yield better results. Are the fixtures going to act as practicals? If so, then their appearance needs to be appropriate for the location that you are emulating.

If you want to post a sketch of your lighting plan, I or someone will likely be able to comment on your setup.
 
They actually have ballasts that are much more quiet these days- electronic ballasts with two-bulb fluorescent fixtures. Home Depot or Lowes.

They also have Fluorescent bulbs that are 3000 Calvine (Kalvine?) which is just a little warmer than tungsten. If you build one of those (around $130) you might be able to mix that with some of the set lights. Problem with soft lighting is that it will "flatten" everything out. Its best to use a mixture of lighting so you can control the background, forground, and back lighting.

Jeff Patnaude
 
If you're trying to use them as key lights, I would think the track lighting would give you even more random shadows....
 
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