White Backdrop / On-Location Lighting

revelfilm

revelfilm

New member
Hey guys,

I'm looking for a studio setup to light a white backdrop and bring with me on location for video shoots. I have used the F&V light panels and I had to use roughly 6 of them for a White backdrop shoot and even then I wasn't too happy with the output. I'm not looking into Arri and Kino Flo. Could someone who is well diverse in lighting please recommend so options? Any opinions on the Arri 650 watt?
 
Just for reference, how large a white backdrop are you trying to light, and what type size object is the main subject?

Also, which F&V lights are you using now, and are these 6 lights being used for just the background, or are they also lighting the subject?
 
They're the k4000 LED daylight panels... What I'm running into every shoot is there just isn't enough light to light the backdrop completely and I end up going to into after effects and masking and color correcting. It's a nightmare.

The setup I currently was running was 4 LED panels for backdrop and two to light the performer. I was looking at the (2) Arri T1's for the backdrop and Arri 300w Fresnel for the performer. Do you have any thoughts of this?
 
I use two homemade Kino Diva 200s that cost me about $250.00 each to make from scratch to light a 10x12' white backdrop, you can see one of them in the lower left in this shot. I use my zebras to check the evenness of the spread. I put grid cloth over the bare Kino tubes and the spread is fine. LEDs have wimpy output with quick falloff other than a few like the Astras or Lightstorms, not sure about your LEDs but generally, I would much prefer to use fluorescents over LEDs to light white cyc or green screen. At times, I see a little falloff at the edge of the frame with white but it all depends on how large of a frame I have in the shot. Typically for a single subject interview, I am fine. For a two person, I would prefer to use a third light to spread out the illumination on the white more evenly.
 

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puredrifting said:
I use two homemade Kino Diva 200s that cost me about $250.00 each to make from scratch to light a 10x12' white backdrop, you can see one of them in the lower left in this shot. I use my zebras to check the evenness of the spread. I put grid cloth over the bare Kino tubes and the spread is fine. LEDs have wimpy output with quick falloff other than a few like the Astras or Lightstorms, not sure about your LEDs but generally, I would much prefer to use fluorescents over LEDs to light white cyc or green screen. At times, I see a little falloff at the edge of the frame with white but it all depends on how large of a frame I have in the shot. Typically for a single subject interview, I am fine. For a two person, I would prefer to use a third light to spread out the illumination on the white more evenly.
Click to expand...

This is great info! Thank you! I like the DIY idea. Have you had any experience with Arri lights?
 
How large of a backdrop are you trying to light?

Are you removing the milk white diffusers when trying to light the BG?

Also, do you have any power restrictions for powering your lights?
 
It's a typical 9' paper backdrop that we use for video/photos. No real power issues it's more or less a dedicated room (Not huge but it works) for video
 
You should have plenty of lumens with those lights. But as indicated, a couple of Diva knockoffs would light a small screen like that as well.
 
revelfilm said:
This is great info! Thank you! I like the DIY idea. Have you had any experience with Arri lights?
Click to expand...

Glad it is helpful to you. Yes, very familiar with Arri lights, I own about a dozen of them. I made these Kino knock offs years and years ago when Kino introduced the Diva line. I've always liked the Divas but couldn't afford them at the time so I made my own. They are much heavier than the Divas (wooden boxes made of pine or ash?), are not dimmable and don't have the Kino "wing" barndoors, but they cost me about 1/3rd of the price of real Kinos. I worked right down the street from Kino at the time and got a deal on the Diva Lollipops to mount mine and on the Kino tubes, they make nice tubes. I actually put in a better quality ballast than the Divas have that operates at a much higher frequency so these lights would work for high speed shooting possibly better with less banding or scan lines. I like making my own lights when I can, it is so much cheaper and more gratifying than just buying off of the shelf. I have not made any LEDs yet but will be making an LED ring light that is a dimmable, that sounds like a fun project.

As far as Arris, for lighting cycs or green screen, fresnels and open faced tungsten are not the best tool, fluoros are very popular, they spread a lot more than a fresnel or open face and generally the throw pattern will be a big blob of soft light, rather than a hot spot with fall off. You could use Arri fresnel or open face but I would punch it through at least a 4x4 or larger sized piece of diffusion of some kind. You want a big soft block of sourceless light for lighting up a cyc if you want an evenly lit white cyc. Then again, I have used a fresnel to make a center area that is very white and then the edges fall off to off white, then gray and that can look cool too for interviews, it just depends on what you are going for.
 
I just did a white backdrop shoot for college basketball the other week. 9' roll of seamless white and lit it with two Arri 650's with some opal on each. Exposed the background to a little over 100% to blow it out from corner to corner. On the waveform it was a flat line all the way across and false color it was perfectly flat/solid. It honestly looked keyed because we were able to get it so perfect. No corner falloff at all.

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