Lighting and Camera Test

[4100xpb]

I was really inspired by Azmyth's thread on lighting cinematic, and really appreciated the insight from Perrone and others on that thread. With a shoot coming up this weekend, a new camera and light kit, and not enough experience putting together lighting setups, I figured it would be worthwhile to do some tests. Knowing how helpful the other thread was to me, I thought I would put what I did up in case it will help someone else.

Let's start at the beginning. Straight on keylight, just run through a diffusion gel. Ouch.



What happens when we add some umbrella fill?



And add a couple of background lights.



Hmm. While definitely better than the first shot, there are still big problems. Mainly, the face is too bright still and the shadows are downright nasty. Next step was to soften the keylight by bouncing it out of the upper corner of the room (still through the diffusion gel).




Ah ha! Much closer to what I was looking for. Lets throw in the background lights again.



Getting closer still. Turn the BG light on the right to get rid of those highlights, and shifting the fill light gives us.



Now we are almost there. This is where I stopped adjusting the lights and started testing some of the camera settings. The only one I'll put up here was upping the contrast.

 

[4100xpb]

Cont'd, ran out of pictures

Now we are almost there. This is where I stopped adjusting the lights and started testing some of the camera settings. The only one I'll put up here was upping the contrast.




I feel I was 80-90% there. It's not perfect, I'd like to adjust the shadows on the face a little bit, but I like the overall look, and love how the background shadows came out. I think the major thing that would improve it here would be proper set design rather than monkeying further with the lighting.

Technical details for those who care.
Canon 60D
EF 50mm f/1.4 at 1/60th and f/4-5.6, ISO 800. Most shots were at -1 or -1 1/3 from the recommended exposure by the camera meter.
Tungsten WB (Next time I will probably up the WB slightly, maybe 3400-3600K, just to warm it up a bit. I tried fluorescent (4000K), but that was too much)
Lights: 2 x Lowel Pro Lights, diffusion gel and umbrella. 2 x 40W practicals.

 

[Deniz Coker]

Great to see how far you came along. I think what's giving you trouble is that you're dealing with white walls which overpower the scene and distract the eye from the otherwise pleasant subtle details the shadows are causing in the face. Perhaps if you could get him away from that wall behind him and flag some of the light hitting the wall so it's just a little darker (if you can dim then that would be ideal, I do like the shadows). Perhaps use a practical on that mantle. Also if you frame him up so he takes up more of the frame, he won't be swallowed by the set. I think the large amount of headroom above him also lends itself to that look.

Edit: Just one other thing I noticed, the reflections in the eyes make him look cross-eyed. You might want to play with the positioning of those lights again. Just study how light natural bounces about in the room and how that looks on people and play off of that, no need to reinvent the wheel