Building A Video Camera Room-Lighting

[Benji]

I've been asked to build a video camera room to videotape people giving their life stories. I have the camera room all planned and the stuff bought except for the lighting. NO ONE in the organization that I am assisting knows anything at all about lighting. To them you to turn the camera on aim it at the subject and start shooting fully expecting the video to look like it was professionally done.

For years I have attempted to convince them that if they want a professional looking video it must be professionally lit in a room which allows the camera and the operator room to move around in. I think they have finally seen the light.

I know a lot about studio lighting for still portraiture. Would I be correct that the same basic lighting that I have been using for still images, background, hair, kickers, fill and main lights all apply to videography also? I am not speaking of using flash units, but constant 6500 K flourescent lights.

Benji

[Brooks]

Benji,

Yes the principles of lighting are the same. Professional studio shoots employ a mix of kino-flo fluorescent bank lights and tungsten fresnel spots. Kino-flo offers tungsten balanced bulbs that match the color of tungesten fresnels and are used because of their low heat and broader, softer illumination.

The issue with those small spiral 6500 K fluorescent lights is that they aren't true daylight or tungsten and they're very dim. Fluorescent lights also can't be "projected" and contained like fresnels which is why fresnels are used for background and kicker lights and often for main lights when pushed through diffusion silks.

Here's a setup for a simple two person talking heads while seated shot. Look at the size of the light modifiers, their distance from the subject and the use of various light units. Lots of flags and silks to cut and control the light.

[Benji]

Brooks,

THANKS! The room is about 16 x 20 with 12 foot ceilings, not nearly as spacious as your example.

What they want is a high key camera room using white seamless paper. They saw a video somewhere where someone used about 20 of those goofy clamp on lights that use a regular light bulb but they put CFL's in the sockets aimed at the background. I told them I didn't think it would would work very well, and suggested using about six four foot flourescent tube fixtures. The kind that hold two 4 foot bulbs using daylight balanced tubes in each fixture. I would use two above it, and two on either side all aimed at the background. For the fill I would use four more of them behind the camera, and for the main light using a 4 x 6 softbox with about 16 CFL bulbs. What do you think.

Benji

[Brooks]

Benji,

Make some barn doors or use flags on those four foot long fluorescent fixtures. The biggest issue will be light bouncing all over the smaller space that you have to work in. I'd try to have the background fluorescent 4' fixtures fastened on the ceiling shooting down on the background with added ones on each side and then 4'x8' flags just out of the frame behind the subject blocking spill light from the background.

You'll just have to try a couple of setups and see what works best. You know the power ratios that work in your portrait photography so try to get close to that.

I will tell you though that in the photos that I've included here, the exposure levels were fairly low, on the order of f/4 at 1/15 sec at ISO 400. ALl those lights look brighter than that but in reality they aren't.

[Benji]

I plan on using the fixtures that have steel "wings" on either side of the bulbs similar to these. http://www.esplighting.com/8055.html They keep the light pretty much constrained unlike the ones that have no sides at all. If I see any bleeding over the wings and onto the people the wings will allow me to easily attach extensions onto them.

I assume the background needs to be about one stop brighter than the main and fill combined? Can I use my digital light meter on ambient to meter these lights?

What do you think my idea of using a 4 x 6 softbox with about 16 daylight CFLs inside? The softbox will be made by the same lady that built mine a number of years ago so she can modify the opening in back to accept about anything I tell her.

Ben

[Brooks]

If the background is a really bright white paper or paint ( why not just paint the rear wall for waist up crops?) then an incident meter reading of even 1/2 stop brighter than the main and fill should be enough. You can use your hand meter as an incident meter on the ambient mode, just as you would outside in daylight.

You don't say if the subject crop is head and shoulders, waist up or full-length. Since your space is 16x20 I'd use the 20' length as the front to back dimension which should allow you as much space as possible between the subject and the background. That extra distance, the use of a longer lens on the camera, and 8' tall black flags between the subject and the background, one on each side should control any background flair.

The difficulty with using any of these light fixtures that are not properly designed for photography is with their mounting on a light stand so they can be moved about, raised and lowered and tilted, especially tilted, to properly light the subject.

I don't know how bright those 16 daylight cfls are that you are planning to put in that soft box. I might consider mounting 2 or more 4' fluorescent light fixtures vertically on a wheeled stand and positioning a large 6' diffusion panel between them and the subject. The distance between those lights and the diffusion panel will determine the softness or hardness of the light. Because the lights aren't fixed into a position inside a soft box you can vary the quality of the light that way.

Remember that if you need a stop more light than what you are getting from 16 lights you have to double the number to 32 lights. It can get out of hand quickly. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Brooks

If the background is a really bright white paper or paint ( why not just paint the rear wall for waist up crops?) then an incident meter reading of even 1/2 stop brighter than the main and fill should be enough. You can use your hand meter as an incident meter on the ambient mode, just as you would outside in daylight.

You don't say if the subject crop is head and shoulders, waist up or full-length. Since your space is 16x20 I'd use the 20' length as the front to back dimension which should allow you as much space as possible between the subject and the background. That extra distance, the use of a longer lens on the camera, and 8' tall black flags between the subject and the background, one on each side should control any background flair.

The difficulty with using any of these light fixtures that are not properly designed for photography is with their mounting on a light stand so they can be moved about, raised and lowered and tilted, especially tilted, to properly light the subject.

I don't know how bright those 16 daylight cfls are that you are planning to put in that soft box. I might consider mounting 2 or more 4' fluorescent light fixtures vertically on a wheeled stand and positioning a large 6' diffusion panel between them and the subject. The distance between those lights and the diffusion panel will determine the softness or hardness of the light. Because the lights aren't fixed into a position inside a soft box you can vary the quality of the light that way.

Remember that if you need a stop more light than what you are getting from 16 lights you have to double the number to 32 lights. It can get out of hand quickly. Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Brooks,

YOU da man! They are planning on doing everything from head and shoulders to full length, which after you said this made me think I will move the background to the right about four feet. That way the videographer can step back into an adjoining room and gain an additional 16 feet of space between the camera and the subjects.

I will scrap the softbox idea and go with yours. I am great at inventing stuff and I am positive I can come up with a way to attach two four foot fixtures to a light stand that will allow it to tilt. Back in the 1970's I was a mechanic and an automobile body man and I also assisted a master carpenter for several months. I can weld, fabricate and can do carpentry and so forth.

benji

[Brooks]

Benji,

Here are some hardware pieces from Matthew that might help attaching strip lights to a stand. B& H Photo sells lots of Matthews grip equipment.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Brooks

Benji,

Here are some hardware pieces from Matthew that might help attaching strip lights to a stand. B& H Photo sells lots of Matthews grip equipment.

Brooks,

I have two of those things at left but they are another brand.

I got the background stand built today and hung the two 9 x 36 seamless paper backgrounds they bought. I used some of my old Bogan chain lifts that slip into the ends of seamless paper and then expand out to hold the paper into the steel brackets. I also ordered 12 double flourescent lights. They had 24-5100 K bulbs so I picked them up. Will probably work on fashioning a way to attch two of the lights to a light stand. They don't have one yet so I told them to get the Bogan 13 foot HD stand. I already have the wheels for it.

Benji