daytime lighting

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<fotog>

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i work in a small market, and on the weekends we have plenty of time to set up lights for every interview/ standups.
i have a few questions on lighting outside during the day...
is it necessary to use lights?
what effects can be achieved?
how do you do your lighting?
what types of stories would you use outdoor lighting? (feature, general assignment?)

we do have a lot of time to set up lights, so setups that take a while is not a problem, and # of lights is pretty much unlimited concidering that i'm the only photog on the weekends.
 

JumpCut

Well-known member
The only time I use a light during the day is either as camera mounted light with a dichro used as a fill light, or a 200w Pro light (not colour corrected) mounted to a stand, either as a bit of fill on a standup or a back/hair light.

Your biggest limitation using lights outside is getting power to them. In order for lights to be effective outside they need to be a considerable size and/or fairly close to the subject.

If you are using tungsten lights with dichro or CTB gels you need plenty of wattage because the gel will severely cut the amount of light passing through it. A HMI on the other hand can be much smaller but still needs to be reasonably close to be effective. Unfortunately they are still a little too expensive for most of us.

I find the better option for daylight lighting is using diffusers and reflectors.
 
A

<Actually>

Guest
the biggest limitation using lights outside is getting rid of the light you DO NOT want!!!

SGILA
 

David R. Busse

Well-known member
You use daylight lighting to light subjects (reporter standups, interviewees) on overcast days, at dawn or dusk and during the midday high sun.

Most common light sources for such lighting include reflectors, HMI lights and dichroic-filtered tungsten lamps, all used by themselves or with scrims to diffuse (control) ambient light sources (the sun).

I don't carry HMI's and I use reflectors sparingly (too many wind problems with reflectors on stands). I use dichroic-filtered tungsten lamps of every description, powered by any number of sources (12v camera battery, 30v belt, 120vac).

Going portable, I do like using a 30v Colortran light with a dichroic filter AND a Colortran accessory called an "intensifyer" that changes the shape of the reflector bowl and throws a narrower, more intense beam. Put this on a light stand (and don't necessarily place the light stand next to the camera), make sure the black stretch on the camera is cranked-up (Sony calls this Dynamic Contrast Control or DCC--make sure it's on) and faces look much more pleasing in adverse daylight conditions.

Experiment with this a lot. It sounds like you have a chance to. If you don't have a lot of fancy gear (or extra dichroic filters) a piece of blue gel over a tungsten fill light works wonders.
 

Shaky & Blue

Well-known member
I consider one of the primary goals of lighting outside in daylight for ENG to be getting light into the eyes. Especially on a perfect overcast day, having the light coming from directly above will cause shadows in the eye sockets, and the eyes will go "dead." Even if your camera light with a dichroic is not strong enough to actually fill in those shadows, just the tiny reflection of the light on the eyeball itself will help put life back into dead eyes. Reflectors work for this purpose also, even on overcast days.

Positioning your subject is probably more important than what lights you use. You obviously don't want to put the subject in the shade with a bright background. But once you have the subject positioned, look at what the light is doing on the face. Are the eyes dead? Fill them in. Does your subject seem to blend into the surroundings? You might hit him with just enough light to "lift" him out of the background. Experiment with the lights you have and see what works. If something doesn't work or takes too long to use, change to something else or modify how you use it.

Also, realize that a light that is too weak to significantly impact your exposure may still serve a purpose. You may not get enough exposure to affect your iris setting, but the light may still give just enough to soften an unwanted shadow or give a little lift to the subject. Or it may just give a reflection in the eyes. If your own eyes register any effect from the light on the subject, it may register on the video as well.

Try to avoid spotting down a light to the point that the fall-off at the edge of the spot can be seen in frame. Sometimes, in order to compose a shot with something specific in the background, photographers will end up with the subject either backlighted or in a dark area against a bright background, and they'll try to compensate with lights that aren't sufficient to fight the sun. To get enough intensity, they'll spot the light down on the subject's face; but the resulting circle of shadow across the chest or neck looks terrible. If you get this result, either add more light by using another lighting unit or reflector, or move to a different location that is friendlier to your shot.

Personally, I have an HMI, and it's a godsend. When I didn't have one, I often used a reflector on a stand with a Bogen arm holding it. When it was too windy for the reflector, I just used Lowel Omni lights with dichroic filters and stacked the lights up next to each other if I needed more intensity. If all my wishes were to come true, I would have silks and scrims to fly above and around the subject to knock unwanted light off my subject, as "Actually" suggested above. Since I don't have those, I have to choose camera positions that solve those problems.

Play with what you have and let us know how it looks.
 

Lensmith

Member
Originally posted by David R. Busse:
Going portable, I do like using a 30v Colortran light with a dichroic filter AND a Colortran accessory called an "intensifyer" that changes the shape of the reflector bowl and throws a narrower, more intense beam.
David,

Seeing someone mention Colortran brought back memories. Then I went to their web site and had a flashback to my early days using Colortrans. Is this the light head you use?

http://www.colortran.com/lminipro.html

It looks the same as the old one I have stashed in my gear locker here. Mine still works but it's so heavy I haven't used mine in years though I refuse to throw it out.

I remember some of your earlier posts and the sport we share. Dumpster diving ;o)

Is your Colortran a DD trophy? Is your shop still buying them for staff use?
 

Murman

Well-known member
Generaly speaking I light when the situation warrants. Daytime lighting includes stand up and live hits, overcast situations and shade to name a couple. Bounce boards and reflectors in harsh sun,,,, ect,,, ect. I usually use a 650 Arri key light with a 3/4 blue and a 150 with a "straw or Amber as a hair ligh back light ( on a C stand) sometimes I will just use uncorrected or gelled back light from the 150.

The effects are very good especially for the ladies as they are usually "made up" and generally have much nicer hair than their male counterparts. Lighting also enables me to "crush the background" into a palet of colors.

As far as power goes, with the Mic or Sat trucks power is not an issue, but doin a standup that needs light I will use the inverter in the back of my SUV. This can be a problem for me as the inverters needs to be a larger wattage( mine is 600) and powering a 650 arri is a problem. but I have used a 300 arri and 150 arri with the inverter with little problem. ( a note I have used the 650 by itself with the inverter for short periods of time, less than 5 min, with little problem, but two weeks ago I forgot and left the damn thing on and blew the fuses on the inverter)

Anyway the fact that you take the time to light even outside shows your dedication to your craft, keep it up!
Cheers
Murman
 

Shaky & Blue

Well-known member
Originally posted by Lensmith:
Is this the light head you use?

http://www.colortran.com/lminipro.html

It looks the same as the old one I have stashed in my gear locker here.
I had one of those. It was my only on-camera light at my first job until I bought my own Lowel ViP. The Colortran had a 250 watt bulb, and in a night interview during something like a spot news situation it would overexpose the nose of the subject while the ears would be dark.

To compensate, I went rummaging through our equipment mausoleum and found a set of doors that would fit and weren't broken, then used them as the frame to make a softbox out of foamcore. I had multiple layers of toughspun to vary the intensity, as well as a CTB color correction gel wrapped to the side that could be clipped across the box for daylight shots. The video looked surprisingly good with it, although the softbox was monstrous and made me very conspicuous.

I didn't use it with a stand much back then, but if I were back with that gear now I would.

Originally posted by Murman:
As far as power goes, with the Mic or Sat trucks power is not an issue, but doin a standup that needs light I will use the inverter in the back of my SUV. This can be a problem for me as the inverters needs to be a larger wattage( mine is 600) and powering a 650 arri is a problem. but I have used a 300 arri and 150 arri with the inverter with little problem. ( a note I have used the 650 by itself with the inverter for short periods of time, less than 5 min, with little problem, but two weeks ago I forgot and left the damn thing on and blew the fuses on the inverter)
I would be less concerned about the inverter and more concerned about the strain on your vehicle's electrical system. A stock alternator usually isn't designed to run much more than the vehicle's standard equipment, much less 650W lights. Are the lower wattage lights (300W) beyond the alternator's limits? I don't know. I think I would check that out before that alternator burns up on you and leaves you stranded somewhere. Have you checked this, and if so, what was your determination?

Vehicles that require more power usually either have a heavy duty alternator to provide more juice, or they use dual alternators: one for the vehicle electrical system and another for secondary electrical. If your vehicle was bought by the same cheap bastards that seem to run all teevee stations, would it have a heavy duty alternator? Mine wouldn't. :mad:
 

Murman

Well-known member
Hey Shaky,,, damn good point on the SUV's electrical system,,,, thanks man,

Murman

edited for spelling
 
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