real estate video lighting

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Propertv.be

Member
Hi all,

I'm about to start a video production company for real estate. Right now I'm in the process of buying a lot of gear and I need some advise on lighting:

When i made my first demomovie I noticed that many of the windows in the interior shots were blown out. I don't mind the windows are blown out when there is nothing to see, but sometimes a room has a really nice view (mountains, sea, pool, garden,..) and i really want it to be included in the shot. I know I can avoid this by shooting early in the morning or when the evening falls, but sometimes it's impossible for a client to let me in during these specific hours. This would also be a problem when I shoot multiple videos in 1 day.

So my idea was to use multiple battery powered LED lights, and light up the scene until the interior light almost matches the light from outside. I would bounce the lights to the ceiling and wall, to give the most natural light possible. Since most days are overcast anyway in my counrty, I hope it is possible to make a close match between in- and outside light. Ofcourse this would involve a lot of work, but I'm willing to work hard in order to get the best shots possible:)

Since i only bought a 160 LED light until now, which is really powerful, but I really don't know how many lights i would need in my kit to have enough power for most situations.

I found some 506 LED lights from Ikan which seem to give a lot of light according to some reviewers, but I really don't know if I should buy 1, 2 or maybeye 10 of them to accomplish what I need.

Anyone here knows how many of those lights you would need on average to accomplish this?

http://www.ikancorp.com/productdetail.php?id=436
 
Propertv.be said:
I found some 506 LED lights from Ikan which seem to give a lot of light according to some reviewers, but I really don't know if I should buy 1, 2 or maybeye 10 of them to accomplish what I need.

Anyone here knows how many of those lights you would need on average to accomplish this?

http://www.ikancorp.com/productdetail.php?id=436
Click to expand...


With ordinary sunlight blazing into a room, you will typically not be able to over come that with 'ordinary' lights. With a full sun light beam into a room, it may be 5000 footcandles or more. Only high wattage lamps would over come that...

What you can do us 'cut' the light coming through the windows with some form of neutral density material. You may be able to bounce light around with large bounce 'sheets', muslin drop clothes, or 'white' bed sheets may work as well for bounce. Construct frames from Home Depot PVC piping. I do have frames to spread translucent sheets, normally used to soften light and those can be used in front of windows, provided they are not in the shot, to give a soft light, or with something like the bed sheets, 'bounce' light back into a room...

Experimentation is required...
 
Agreed. You can't use the LED light you've linked-to against sunlight. As Clark says, the simplest (but not that simple) thing to do is use ND filter to cut the sun. You can get large sheets of mylar in various densities (50%, 80% reduction). Mount these to the outside of the window and then add light to the room as needed. Mounting is the issue. There is any number of ways to put mylar up. Getting it up to the second floor may be a problem. The other way to do it is to cut it to size for the window and mount it on the inside. Here is a shot of windows where some have ND on them and some don't.


Picture8.png
 
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j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
With ordinary sunlight blazing into a room, you will typically not be able to over come that with 'ordinary' lights. With a full sun light beam into a room, it may be 5000 footcandles or more. Only high wattage lamps would over come that...
Click to expand...

Any idea what lamps are cost efficient and strong enough?

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
What you can do us 'cut' the light coming through the windows with some form of neutral density material. You may be able to bounce light around with large bounce 'sheets', muslin drop clothes, or 'white' bed sheets may work as well for bounce. Construct frames from Home Depot PVC piping. I do have frames to spread translucent sheets, normally used to soften light and those can be used in front of windows, provided they are not in the shot, to give a soft light, or with something like the bed sheets, 'bounce' light back into a room...

Experimentation is required...
Click to expand...

I think that won't work, since i would only need to have a solution for the times the windows are actualy in the shot.. But thanks anyway!
 
Paul F said:
Agreed. You can't use the LED light you've linked-to against sunlight. As Clark says, the simplest (but not that simple) thing to do is use ND filter to cut the sun. You can get large sheets of mylar in various densities (50%, 80% reduction). Mount these to the outside of the window and then add light to the room as needed. Mounting is the issue. There is any number of ways to put mylar up. Getting it up to the second floor may be a problem. The other way to do it is to cut it to size for the window and mount it on the inside. Here is a shot of windows where some have ND on them and some don't.


Picture8.png
Click to expand...


Cool idea, any idea where i can get this stuff?
 
If you get a mid aperture adjustment, often you can color correct the footage getting the highlights down and room up. The outside won't be perfect, but not a blow out.
Another thing I usually do (easier in fixed shots) is to record 2 times the same scene, using 2 apertures, and mix them in post.
The ND sheet is a pro solution, but more time consuming / expensive.

Hope this helps,
Ulisses
 
Im (as a hotel bread and butter person) blown away by the 5d ML hack!

As for lighting - there just is no cheap solution I guess, IMO gelled tungsten will get you the most lumens per dollar, I cant see window gelling being cost effective timewise

I think you need to think a lot of light, or investigate some HDR magic!

S
 
I was thinking to spend maximum 4 hours in 1 house, so moving and setting up battery powered lights might be a possibility, but gelling windows looks a bit over the top for me:) I'm looking at the price of a Mark2 right now, and I think it's not a bad idea to purchase it next to my VG10. Ofcourse the 5dm2 + a decent wideangle and batteries will mean another 3k investment, but after seeing the HDR movies it might be a good investment.
 
Propertv.be said:
Woulod a hacked GH2 also be able to do HDR?
Click to expand...
Answer is no, unfortunately.
The HDR hack is available for the 60D, 600D(T3i) and the 550D (T2i) however - And you can get a brand new T2i for basically the price of nothing these days. The Magic Lantern hack also allows you to slightly bump up the bitrate for the camera, not in the extreme fashion as with the GH2, but it's something.
 
Cool, the 550D would make my investment a lot cheaper. After researching a few hours the only drawback i have right now is that it seems to me that i would not be able to make full HD recordings in HDR modus, is that correct?
 
Propertv.be said:
Cool, the 550D would make my investment a lot cheaper. After researching a few hours the only drawback i have right now is that it seems to me that i would not be able to make full HD recordings in HDR modus, is that correct?
Click to expand...
I haven't heard anything about the HDR function not working at full 1080p.
 
Well, It would work at 30 or 24/25 fps, but i would have to cut that fps in half to get HDR video, which leaves me at 15 fps maximum framerate in 1080, right?
 
Propertv.be said:
Well, It would work at 30 or 24/25 fps, but i would have to cut that fps in half to get HDR video, which leaves me at 15 fps maximum framerate in 1080, right?
Click to expand...
I would imagine you'd blend the 50% of under-exposed frames with the over-exposed frames, and the 50% of the over-exposed frames with the under-exposed frames - hence getting full resolution and frame rate of 1080p at 24fps, but only the information of 12,5fps. So you'd have the choice of either going with 720 capturing more picture data or 1080 capturing less but at a higher resolution. Can't really vouch for any since I don't own a Canon dslr and have never tried this hack myself. Technically I believe the resulting video would appear much in the same way as a video shot at half the frame rate and then doubled in post by blending frames - So as long as you don't have any fast moving subjects or shaky camera moves you'd be off fine.

[EDIT]
Obviously you'd want to shoot at 30fps capturing as much data as possible.
 
Since it's real estate video, i figure i can live with 15 fps. Most movements i make are very slow anyway. Think i'm going for the 600D, because it has digital crop mode. It would keep the investment low, since i would only need to buy a wideangle lens and still be able to zoom if needed.

On my list now are:

600d
tokina 11-16mm

Many thanks to all people for the advice already!
 
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