lighting cosy

[CharlesPapert]

Thanks Charles. Yeah, I wish the rental company would have the set of scrims I asked but unfortunately they didn't have any for that particular set of lights. I was still able to use a nd gel on that light. It's not too distracting, I hope.

They didn't have scrims for fresnels?? That's standard issue. I hope they rent them VERY cheaply.

If you are regularly hiring hot lights, you may want to invest in a couple of line dimmers (or add to your rental package). These do a pretty good job and are very affordable.

 

[David Evans]

Charles, i usually don't use dimmers because they change color temp. Does this one changes it?

 

[CharlesPapert]

Yes they do, but in this instance where you were warming the heads to match the practical anyway, that would just start you along. The general idea is to use scrims (or ND gel as you did) to get close, and then use the dimmer as a fine tune; dimming within a stops worth will do very little to the color temp. Worth it!

 

[David Evans]

Thanks Charles. I must say I find LED lights much more easy to use than these tungstens. You can dial in whatever brightness you want, color temp, etc, without carrying around ND gels, CTOs, CTBs, dimmers... and they don't make everyone on the set start sweating as if you were in a fire. I just keep insisting in using tungstens because most of what I read about LEDs are that they just won't render skin tones as they should. What's your opinion Charles? Well, besides skin tones, there's also the flexibility of these tungsten fresnels. The ability to flood or spot as you wish. Really, I'm just looking for an excuse to change to LED lighting but these fresnels still hold.

 

[CharlesPapert]

. I just keep insisting in using tungstens because most of what I read about LEDs are that they just won't render skin tones as they should.

Not the case with quality units, of which there are a lot of choices these days. I think it safe to say that the majority of what you are seeing when you watch TV or a movie these days is at least partially if not mostly lit with LCD's.

 

[David Evans]

Charles, I've been thinking about a kit of LEDs myself but every unit that's worth considering costs 5x the price of a tunsgten fresnel... any good led light you'd recommend that won't break the bank? (considering a good tunsgten fresnel goes for 300eur...)

Thanks

 

[CharlesPapert]

The most common units we use are Litemats (by Literibbon) and Quasar tubes. I personally own a couple of Dracast units that I picked up on sale and were quite reasonable, and have good color rendition. I'm not keeping up on all of the brands especially the cheaper ones so I don't know if there are other "bargains" out there. Unfortunately, yes, if one is comparing pure output tungsten is certainly cheaper, but from a practical standpoint it's a good idea to mix and match if you can.

 

[David Evans]

I've read nothing but great things about Litemats. I mean, if you're doing interviews, I think LEDs should be a great choice. They don't make the talent sweat, they don't drain all the power in the facility and they can be powered through batteries. And I believe these high priced LED units should have great color rendering. What about light control? If you need a sharp shadow, ie a focused beam of light. From what I looked, there's this dedolight kit that looks great. It can flood, it can focus, but costs about 10.000eur... A 1k Tungsten fresnel goes for 300eur and I can buy a used one.

But I really am trying to find a reasonably priced LED kit for my own use (personal and professional) but everytime I look, there's this voice in my head that reminds me that a 1k tungsten fresnel rents for 9 eur a day... And a good LED light seems to cost 10x that price to rent. And to buy it seems to go for several thousand euros... So I'm not sure if we're still at a very early age of LED lighting and we're paying early birds investment...

 

[puredrifting]

I have not been a huge fan of LEDs for skin tones but I recently lit a project with the Arri L-10 and a few Arri S60 Sky Panels. They rendered pretty decent skin tones overall, but that was $20k or $30k worth of lights plus a lot of modifiers.

 

[CharlesPapert]

Actually the C versions of the Sky Panels have not proven themselves notably as far white light accuracy from the tests I've seen (good but not great).

David, you've made your point that LED costs more than fresnels! That will continue to be the case as the call for tungsten drops off and the market floods with tungsten units, you can probably buy yourself an Arri kit for a very reasonable amount, or keep renting if you prefer. Yes, LED units will get cheaper, and better. And many of them are still at a premium to rent. This is the case at all levels. I'm starting a network series next month and have started discussing some of the newer units out there, but even we can't afford to rent them.

Generally speaking, the more popular units are the flat panels like 1x1's (the newest Litepanel series are excellent) up to 2x3's. They are much more compact than anything tungsten based, and more accurate than the fluorescents we used to use in that form factor. In conjunction with a variety of grids of varying spread, they can be made very controllable. A 1x1 ends up quite similar to a 650 fresnel with diffusion on the doors in terms of source size, but is a fraction of the depth, with built in dimming and color temp control, and can be battery powered, which is a significant set of advantages.

We've been working with LED units now for going on 10 years, so I wouldn't say we are at the "very early age" of all this, there have been quite a few refinements along the way. One only needs to compare an original Litepanel to the current offering to see the improvements in color rendering and output.

David, if you are specifically looking for control and cutting ability, have you tried using Source 4 Lekos? We still use those quite a bit, I would say more often than tungsten fresnels at this point (the LED versions are not quite there in output, maybe one more generation). Great for small crews because they have built-in flagging controls. Scrims for them are hard to come by--I'd imagine if your local rental house has trouble furnishing them for fresnels, that's already a bad sign! but you can do your ND trick. If you haven't tried, check those out for your next shoot.

 

[David Evans]

Thanks for all the great tips Charles! It's always a privilege to read your informative posts. I think deep down, I'm trying to believe I can own a kit of good led units and, also, drop the tunsgten fresnels for good.

I will definitly look into those lekos you mentioned! My way of thinking is that if I'm going to buy a lighting kit for versatility, i prefer a fixture that can focus the light beam as I can always diffuse a focused beam but I can't focus a soft light...

Thanks!

 

[abreu-canedo]

Thanks for all the great tips Charles! It's always a privilege to read your informative posts. I think deep down, I'm trying to believe I can own a kit of good led units and, also, drop the tunsgten fresnels for good.

I will definitly look into those lekos you mentioned! My way of thinking is that if I'm going to buy a lighting kit for versatility, i prefer a fixture that can focus the light beam as I can always diffuse a focused beam but I can't focus a soft light...

Thanks!

I totally know what you mean. In theory I feel the same way.

Your mileage may vary, but more and more I'm feeling that while hard sources are more versatile since they can be softened, after I gel a tungsten to CTB and punch them through a 4x4 silk or 1/2 grid cloth, they lose a lot of punch! Don't get me wrong, I still use tungsten, more and more I'm moving away from tungsten key lights. As much as I love the skin rendering, they are mostly kickers nowadays.

Below is an image that used a Skypanel with a soft-box as a key on the talent on the foreground, a JoLeko with venetian gobo and double CTS on the talent on the background, and a 300 watt tungsten open face fixture as a kicker on the top left of the frame. I also used a KineFlo select LED unit as a fill coming from frame left, since none of the lights were positioned well for a bounce...and the shot was wide, in a tight location. Stylistically this image may not be your cup of tea, but the skintones are not bad, in my humble opinion. This image is not a final grade, just the proxy file with on-set look.



I know your reservation is mostly due to cost, and yeah, they are pricey to rent. But $200 for skypanel, $150 for JoLeko 800w, and the rental house threw in the KinoFlo Select LED fixture in for free. That's not bad for the amount of flexibility. As such, maybe renting is the key. Plus, if you rent enough, the rental houses really work with you

I'm also loving the LiteMats. These three images below were lit with a Litemat 4 through full grid cloth, boomed overhead with a C-Stand. A c-stand! haha. It's so easy to work with. They rent for about $100/$150? Or they go for $2k. But even if you get a Litemat 2 for like $1.5k (I havent checked these prices), they are really awesome for interiors!

 

[Polaroid22]

Hey David, looks great. Do you have a picture of the lighting setup?

Cheers

 

[David Evans]

Hey David, looks great. Do you have a picture of the lighting setup?

Cheers

Thanks! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the lighting setup. It was crazy how many flags I had on, just to keep the light augmentation where I wanted it and also avoid the room from bouncing more than it should. Basically, I had a 500w fresnel on the left with a grid on and a flag to keep the light away from the wall and lamp. I also had a light coming from the right to light the mother with diffusion paper on the barn doors. That light was a 500w too, but with ND gel to tone it down and two flags to keep the light from hitting the ceiling and the wall, thus keeping the cosy ambience. I also had more flagging on the left side of the mother, to keep the ratio correct and avoid light bouncing on her left side.

Lights had 1/8 CTO gel to keep it nice and warm and consistent with the temperature on the lamp.

Cheers

 

[CharlesPapert]

David, sounds like a familiar setup! Another thing you may want to try to help reduce the number of flags (good for small spaces) with the fresnels is making snoots out of blackwrap. There are hard snoots available for most tungsten instruments but again, if your local spot has trouble coming up with scrims, they are not likely to have the snoots as well! And often you need them longer anyway. You are essentially extending the barndoors. We also sometimes make them out of black foamcore so they are quicker to re-use and can be quite long. On "Cassandra French's Finishing School" I had one actress with dark eyes and her hair would often block out the key, so we used a 1k Zip light with a two foot long snoot to give her a little pop without affecting the fair skin actress often standing next to her. However a better way is a really narrow angle grid, but those have to be custom made.

 

[David Evans]

David, sounds like a familiar setup! Another thing you may want to try to help reduce the number of flags (good for small spaces) with the fresnels is making snoots out of blackwrap. There are hard snoots available for most tungsten instruments but again, if your local spot has trouble coming up with scrims, they are not likely to have the snoots as well! And often you need them longer anyway. You are essentially extending the barndoors. We also sometimes make them out of black foamcore so they are quicker to re-use and can be quite long. On "Cassandra French's Finishing School" I had one actress with dark eyes and her hair would often block out the key, so we used a 1k Zip light with a two foot long snoot to give her a little pop without affecting the fair skin actress often standing next to her. However a better way is a really narrow angle grid, but those have to be custom made.

Charles, thanks for the tips on the original setup. I ended up following all your advices of course . About the blackwrap, i actually used a bit on the mother's light but since I had diffusion paper in there, it was getting a bit hard to really block the light. That's why I went the flags way. But maybe my cinefoil wasn't big enough.

 

[morgan_moore]

CP
Good input on this thread.

On black wrap I steer clear because if you have to go back for a pickup or recreate the set later for any other reason then it is hard to recreate a black wrap situation.

???

 

[Run&Gun]

I totally know what you mean. In theory I feel the same way.

Your mileage may vary, but more and more I'm feeling that while hard sources are more versatile since they can be softened, after I gel a tungsten to CTB and punch them through a 4x4 silk or 1/2 grid cloth, they lose a lot of punch! Don't get me wrong, I still use tungsten, more and more I'm moving away from tungsten key lights. As much as I love the skin rendering, they are mostly kickers nowadays.

Below is an image that used a Skypanel with a soft-box as a key on the talent on the foreground, a JoLeko with venetian gobo and double CTS on the talent on the background, and a 300 watt tungsten open face fixture as a kicker on the top left of the frame. I also used a KineFlo select LED unit as a fill coming from frame left, since none of the lights were positioned well for a bounce...and the shot was wide, in a tight location. Stylistically this image may not be your cup of tea, but the skintones are not bad, in my humble opinion. This image is not a final grade, just the proxy file with on-set look.

View attachment 127271

Love it. What's it for?

 

[Run&Gun]

Re: LED vs. Tungsten. I'm on the record as being a "Tungsten Guy", but LED's have come a long way(at least the higher end stuff). Looking back at my shoots over the last several months, and I hate to admit this, I have to go all the way back to June for the last time I pulled a tungsten instrument out of a case. Excluding HMI's, it's been mostly Astra's(in chimeras), Sola's and Hive's. I still do not use the Hive's on people, their preset 3200K is green, just like all of the other tests out there have shown. Hive needs to fix this with a firmware update. I can "dial it out" with the color mixing panel on the app, but you shouldn't have to. I have a client with a bunch of Litemats, but I wasn't overly impressed with them. At least not in the environment we were using them. Fidgety and fragile connections/cables and not enough output, especially vs. Astra's. Maybe the newer versions with the new connectors are better and if we were in a more controlled lighting environment...

That being said, I'm doing a "white screen" shoot tomorrow, that is almost a carbon copy of what I did for the same client this time last year, and I'm planning on lighting it 100% tungsten.

 

[CharlesPapert]

CP
Good input on this thread.

On black wrap I steer clear because if you have to go back for a pickup or recreate the set later for any other reason then it is hard to recreate a black wrap situation.

???

The more specific the light and thus the harder the pattern, yes that is true, but also true of any gobo when it comes down to it. Using blackwrap as a simple cutter is essentially replacing a flag in that instance, and if time or space makes that a better option, I think it's worth it.

I'm thinking back to an absurdity we ended up with on Key & Peele once:



which was forced by lighting through a window from an adjoining sunroom and having to shape the light in a variety of ways with a minimum of depth to do so (pool table was probably four feet from the window). This would a tough one to have to recreate!