Please Help Me Figure Out My Lighting

[Richard J]

I recently got fired from my job and am looking at this as a perfect time to shoot a home remodel video I've been contemplating for a while now. I have a DVX-100, a good Manfrotto Tripod with 501 fluid head, a glidecam stabilizer, quality sennheiser 416 shotgun mic as well as various lavaliers, a script, locations, and a cute blonde who is well spoken and willing be my talent for free!!! My only drawback was no lighting kit and most of these shots will be indoors.

I just picked up a kit on Craigslist for $300 that consists of 4 stands (2 are Manfrotto and seem good quality, 2 seem cheap but sturdy enough) a lowel "softlight 2" with barndoors and 2 tungsten bulbs with a switch for powering each bulb independently, and 4 smith victor open faced 500w tungsten lights. So I have one more light than I do stands but think I probably did alright for 300 bucks (he also threw in a dolly). I need to be able to light half of a large room where the talent stays in relatively the same spot and shows how to do basic home remodel projects.

When I set up the equipment it appears to be putting out "enough" light but I am interested as to tips and recommendations to get the best results. Should I buy umbrellas to shine a couple of the Smith Victors off/through? The barndoors on the Lowel have clips. Should I buy a sheet of diffuser material to clip over the Light to soften it up? Should I get some dimmers to bring the light levels down if necessary? Does Home Depot have dimmers that suit my needs? Lastly, would using the softbox as my key light and 2 dimmed smith victors as a fill and backlight and maybe another couple smith victors bounced off the ceiling sound like a good place to start with my setup? Sorry for being long-winded but it's my first post and i figured the details of what I'm trying to shoot and what I'm already thinking might help y'all point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance. -Richard

 

[David G. Smith]

For a Home remodeling video, the lights you have should be fine. You can pick up stands that will work with that SV light off of ebay for less than $20.00 all day, and twice on Sunday.

I was looking at that Lowell "Soft light" and the backing material in it looks very reflective (i.e., shiny) and may be relatively harder than a lot of "Soft lights". Also, the texture of the backing, may add some "Crinkles" to the light that may, or may not be noticeable. I would get some diffusion material and hang it in front of that before I would use it as a direct light for portraiture . Look around on-line and and you should be able find some packs of multiple types of diffusing material you can pick up. Mix and match sheets of these and see what you find pleasing.

For a set up like you are describing, I would set up the Lowell light, with diffusion, as my key light, about 15 to 20 degrees to camera left (Imagine your subject as the center of a circle, with the camera on the radius at 0 degrees). While it is hard to get real modeling with a soft light, the closer to the camera the light is, the "Flatter" the light is, and to many (myself included) this can be unpleasing.

Experiment with the light height to get what you want. Set the height to just above lens height to kind of suggest window ambient light, lower to suggest a table top lamp ambient light, or higher to suggest a ceiling/sky light ambience.

When the key light is set, take one, or two of the SV light and set them maybe 15 to 30 degrees to the camera right, to act as your fill light. With these, I would set up bounce lighting and not use them directly on the talent. To do this, I would get some white foam core, or just plain old white poster board (called "Show card") and clamp it to an unused light stand, facing the talent or even tape it to the walls. Shine the SV light on to it and then adjust it to what you find pleasing. If the ceilings on your set are white, you may just be able to shine the SV lights on it and get a very pleasing, general ambient fill. Move the light around and play with the angle on the ceiling to get what you want. I can't tell you how many times I have just set up an open faced quartz light, pointed into a ceiling corner to light a scene. You may want to lower the intensity of the light from the SV lights, and you can do that by using lower wattage bulbs, using ND filter gel or scrims (metal screens, designed to lower light output) or by moving the lights/reflectors to lower the light on the subject.

With that, the Lowell as you key light and use the SVs bounced as you fill, you should be able light a pretty good sized room for a how to video. The key is experiment and test, try different things and see what you like. It should be great.

Now, there is something that do want to stress. You said that you have a "Cute blonde" that will be your talent for the shoot. When setting up your lighting and shooting the video, you want to make sure that she looks as good as possible. So bring her in early and test how she looks, through the camera, with your lighting set up. I'll tell you why. I shot a low budget horror film which that had a cast of a large group of young ladies (scantily clad "Sorority girls, stuck in a haunted hospital). I had made up a main portraiture light that was a white acrylic globe, used for outdoor lamp posts, which we duct taped to the front of a Home Depot clamp work light, with near tungsten rated CFLs on them. The light was beautiful, and worked great. We placed it close to camera, just a little bit below lens height and it gave us very beautiful portraiture lighting. Except for one girl. When we brought her in, and light her like the other girls, she looked horrible and it was kind of a shock, because she was just as good looking as the other girls, until we lit her with this light, in that position. What we had to do, is put the light higher than lens height, and a little further from the camera, to make her look good under this light. So I learned to always get the talent on the set, under the lights that are set and double check how they look, before we shot. I would advise that you do the same on your shot.

 

[Richard J]

David, Thanks for the thorough response. I set the lights up the way you recommended and I think it will work well but I haven't had an opportunity to do any recording with my talent in the shot yet. I imagine having the girl show up early is prudent advice.

The lowel does seem too harsh/overpowering not to have a diffuser in front of it. Does anyone have any recommendations as to specific diffusers that work well to get a "softbox" type effect? I may try to order one off of B&H in the next day or two.

I could also pick up an umbrella or two for the smith victors for pretty cheap. I have never worked with umbrellas though. What would the effect be compared to bouncing them off of a Show Card as was recommended? Do you bounce off of umbrellas or through them?

The only diffusion filter pack on b&h is http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/554087-REG/Rosco_11009020LKIT_Diffusion_Kit_20x24_.html and costs 80 bucks with 15 sheets of 20" by 24" The individual sheets are only about 6 bucks. Are there maybe three of the sheets listed in the variety pack y'all could recommend that would probably get me by? Also, is there a sheet I could use to daylight balance the tungsten bulbs for use outdoors? In terms of umbrellas I was contemplating a couple of these http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...&sku=423634&is=REG&si=rev#anchorToReadReviews Would they make good umbrellas for softening my 500 watt smith victors? Is it possible to "jury rig" them to your light stand or should I purchase an adapter/holder. Are there photography and videography specific umbrellas/ are these qualified for continuous lighting as opposed to strobes? Thanks again everyone.

 

[David G. Smith]

You know, I buy a lot of stuff from B&H, but I would not buy expendables from them. Google "Rosco diffusion" and a ton of places come up. There is some listed on Amazon at this url:
http://www.amazon.com/Rosco-Diffusion-Thirteen-Assorted-Materials/dp/B000B7A2DC

For other gear and expendables, book mark Film Tools:
http://www.filmtools.com/

Yes, I have some cheap umbrellas that I use. Yeah, if you pick up some of them, you don't need to jury rig them to your stands. Pick up something like this:

http://akces-media-llc.amazonwebstore.com/Photo-Umbrella-Adaptor-Universal-Mount-Requires/M/B0015DCLMQ.htm?traffic_src=froogle&utm_medium=organic&utm_source=froogle

I think that one is kind of expensive, so I would look around on-line for those. I use umbrellas with some 600 watt open faced quartz lights. What I like to do with them is use a white umbrella (without an opaque backing) and flip it so that I am lighting through the umbrella, so the full expanse of the umbrella becomes the broad source for the lighting. I have found that to be a very beautiful soft light that is almost shadowless and provides nice wrap and is outstanding for portraiture. However, there is a trick to that. Because I am flipping the umbrella, the open end is also putting out a good bit of light and, if used in a small space, would light the walls beyond the light, throwing that light on the scene also. Where I have used this technique to the best effect is on night exteriors, where the light from the open end of the umbrella is pointed towards the night sky and does not contaminate the light from the front of the umbrella. You can control this in a smaller space by rigging up negative reflectors behind the open end of the light (large sheets of black velvet like duvetyn), but that always seem to me to be way too much trouble, when there are simpler ways to set up soft light in a small space.

In a smaller space, you could also use umbrellas with opaque backings and use the light from the open end (the way they are supposed to be used), but, it may be a personal thing, but I just don't like that light. It seems too hard to control this kind of light. When you set up an umbrella, besides the normal control of height, and angle on, and distance to the scene/subject, the only other controls, with a specific light, was the spot flood ability of that light, the ability to dim the light, and the length of the umbrella main supporting rod. I just never got comfortable using umbrellas. I like setting up bounce lighting much better.

It just seems to me that bounce lighting offers much more control. Not only are you able to modify the height, angle on the scene/subject, and the distance from the bounce source to the scene/subject, you can modify the distance of the source lighting to the reflector and adjust the quality of the light better. You can also adjust the quantity of light better, by adding other lights, focused on the reflector at roughly the same spot, your light output can increase, without affecting the quality of light you are getting. I just like using bounced lighting better than using umbrellas. Experiment for yourself and see what kind of lighting you like best.

As far a using the S-V lights outdoors, yes you can gel them to match by using CTB (Color Temperature Blue) gels, but those gels have a very high filter factor and will cut your light out put drastically. What you should do is get some daylight balanced Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) and put into those S-V lights. Go here, a DVXUSER sponsor site:
http://www.coollights.biz/

I didn't want to bring it up, but those S-V lights are designed for use with photoflood lights. Uhmmmmm!!!...., I am going to be blunt... photofloods suck. They don't last very long, and change color temp over their life span. Search around this board for info on the use of CFLs, such as offered by Cool Lights, and those S-V lights will be very much more useful for you. Check out this thread where "Cool lights" and I debate CFL lights.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=188133

Now that big honking light that Cool Lights offers has a mogul base, and your S-V lights have a medium base (also called an Edison Base), which is the type of screw in socket for the bulbs. You can buy mogul to medium base adaptors for around 10 bucks a piece and be ready to go. They also offer big honking lights that are balanced to tungsten light. I would most definitely check into it.