Need advice - Shooting under Halogen lights

J

ja_swaer

Member
I am working on an indoor project. I am using halogen shop lights. I know these are not ideal but then this is not a big production, just yet.

Here is what I am seeing.

3 - 250W lights place at 45 - 80 and 135 degrees **Edit Using a 600D (T3i)

1/30th Shutter - F11 - ISO 200 - Light is fine but the colors look a little washed out.
1/60th Shutter - F9 - ISO 200 - Too dark, very high contrast
1/30th Shutter F9 - ISO 400 - Lighting looks okay but also very high contrast

Is there a trick with Halogen lamps ? Do I need to set the white balance manually ?

Thanks
 
Unless you know the color temperature of the lamps in the light fixtures, you need to manually set the white balance to the custom setting.
 
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Would be good to see some video examples or screengrabs to show us what you mean and what exactly you're after. Firstly, you shouldnt be shooting at 1/30th shutter, always keep your shutter speed at double your frame rate. Your first two settings should be giving you identical exposures, as you have you aperture open an extra stop but then your shutter twice as fast.
Hard to say without seeing what your WB should be, but try the tungsten setting for halogens, or manually dialling in the colour temp (can T3i do this?). Another option is to custom white balance using an 18% grey card, this should give you a very accurate balance.
 
Tungstun halogen are usually between 2800-3,500 kelvin. Most common is 3,200k. t3i has a tungston setting. Canon also has excellent auto white balance, they always have. As long as your not changing locations that have different types of light or kelvin temps, auto should be fine. Although I don't think there would be much difference between auto and the actual tutgstun setting on your cam. I would suggest some diffusion, white umbrellas work great, softboxes rated for high heat are fine, or even a piece of muslin would give a good diffused lighting. Other wise your gonna bee working with hard light which creates shadows. You can always bounce the light off cielings and other walls to knock down the shadows, but it wont help much. good luck
 
None of the symptoms you mention with your 3 settings seem to be color balance issues at all; (the usual long-skinny shop light bulbs are the same used in many open faced units - every lamp I've used in my OF lights have spot-on color temp., as 3200 is easy to achieve in manufacturing. Manual white balance would solve any problems anyway).

I don't at all mean to sound condescending, but: Contrast & washed out colors suggest you haven't learned much about lighting (as does your listing of lighting angles; numbers don't matter, what's right for the scene matters, and automatically throwing three-point lighting on everything may mean you're reading too many forums). People may knock shop lights, but I have about 6 open face fixtures (altman, L&E, Colortran, etc) that are essentially shop lights with professional yokes and barn doors (they can take lamps up to 750 being a major difference). I lit all sorts of things with those before my studio filled up with fresnels, flos and the like.

With a little knowledge you should be able to obtain a world of looks with your lights, from hard light that's very controlled (via flagging and paying attention to the distance between light and flag and flag and subject, which controls the hardness of shadows), diffusion, and bounce.

All you really need to spend on is decent stands (not necessarily C-stands, even cheap steel tripods will do) a couple grip heads and some booms (which can just be 5/8 aluminum tube from filmtools.com - generally for flags and fabric, not for your lights) and a handful of spring clamps (a-shaped hardware store clamps). Black foamcore or even corrugated cardboard for flags, bedsheets or white cards for bounce (unbleached muslin is great for giving bounce a touch of warmth), and a few yards of fairly sheer fabric for diffusion (which can be hung from a stand & boom, or from conduit suspended between two stands with grip heads).

You need to learn about how the size of a bounce or diffused panel affects things, and how the size and distance of those materials creates hardness, wrap, etc. At a bigger-picture level, you need to learn to see a scene in your head and be able to light it with the gear on hand in the room you're shooting.

I'm sure this thread could be filled with hundreds of advice-type posts; I'd really advise you hit Amazon and get some basic books on lighting for film, and then try to replicate looks you like from movies, still photos, classic paintings, etc. You can do just about anything with the gear I've listed, and if you do, you'll be an ace when you have pro lights and grip at your call.

So, my hope will be the next few posters will point you to educational materials; I personally like "From Still to Motion" and got it for my son. There's a ton of titles out there. Read, watch films, look at beautiful images, and test, test, test.

(My apologies if you are actually a professional gaffer or DP...)
 
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Michael Carter said:
None of the symptoms you mention with your 3 settings seem to be color balance issues at all; (the usual long-skinny shop light bulbs are the same used in many open faced units - every lamp I've used in my OF lights have spot-on color temp., as 3200 is easy to achieve in manufacturing. Manual white balance would solve any problems anyway).

I don't at all mean to sound condescending, but: Contrast & washed out colors suggest you haven't learned much about lighting (as does your listing of lighting angles; numbers don't matter, what's right for the scene matters, and automatically throwing three-point lighting on everything may mean you're reading too many forums). People may knock shop lights, but I have about 6 open face fixtures (altman, L&E, Colortran, etc) that are essentially shop lights with professional yokes and barn doors (they can take lamps up to 750 being a major difference). I lit all sorts of things with those before my studio filled up with fresnels, flos and the like.

With a little knowledge you should be able to obtain a world of looks with your lights, from hard light that's very controlled (via flagging and paying attention to the distance between light and flag and flag and subject, which controls the hardness of shadows), diffusion, and bounce.

All you really need to spend on is decent stands (not necessarily C-stands, even cheap steel tripods will do) a couple grip heads and some booms (which can just be 5/8 aluminum tube from filmtools.com - generally for flags and fabric, not for your lights) and a handful of spring clamps (a-shaped hardware store clamps). Black foamcore or even corrugated cardboard for flags, bedsheets or white cards for bounce (unbleached muslin is great for giving bounce a touch of warmth), and a few yards of fairly sheer fabric for diffusion (which can be hung from a stand & boom, or from conduit suspended between two stands with grip heads).

You need to learn about how the size of a bounce or diffused panel affects things, and how the size and distance of those materials creates hardness, wrap, etc. At a bigger-picture level, you need to learn to see a scene in your head and be able to light it with the gear on hand in the room you're shooting.

I'm sure this thread could be filled with hundreds of advice-type posts; I'd really advise you hit Amazon and get some basic books on lighting for film, and then try to replicate looks you like from movies, still photos, classic paintings, etc. You can do just about anything with the gear I've listed, and if you do, you'll be an ace when you have pro lights and grip at your call.

So, my hope will be the next few posters will point you to educational materials; I personally like "From Still to Motion" and got it for my son. There's a ton of titles out there. Read, watch films, look at beautiful images, and test, test, test.

(My apologies if you are actually a professional gaffer or DP...)
Click to expand...

No I am not a lighting person, just what I have read, typically shoot outdoors, sports etc. Have done a little work indoors, using the same light but a different camera and things seemed to be okay.

I have been playing around with the reflection and angles and it does seem better. I guess it is just a matter of experimenting. Would be a lot easier if I had an external monitor with an HDMI port, rather than using the red, white and yellow connectors, but that is another issue.

Thanks for the replies.
 
I've found the LCD on my T2i to be pretty accurate - more accurate than any video-form-factor camera I've used; mine seems a little off in the highest brights. I use a Marshall LCD with it often, but mostly rely on the histogram for overall exposure. I've found a magnifying loupe to be the #1 can't-live-without accessory for it.
 
ja_swaer said:
Is there a trick with Halogen lamps ? Do I need to set the white balance manually ?
Click to expand...

I don't think there is a trick with those hot lights. Just don't get burned, and you'll be okay. Shooting indoors, those lights most likely have to be softened before they can give you quality light. And as usual, do your best to avoid using direct light, unless that's exactly what you need. Otherwise, "high contrast" will be a "norm" to your footage.

Always set WB manually and only trust your eyes on this. Gray card, meter, etc, can only give you a rough idea, which may or may not be accurate. In other words, you can't trust them for shooting video - so why bother n the first place? Either trust your own eyes, or if you are blind or color blind, trust someone else' eyes.
 
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