Studio Lighting

Field Lighting

Light Controlling Equipment

All studio lighting is accomplished with a variety of spotlights and floodlights.

These instruments, technically called luminaires , are designed to operate from the studio ceiling or from floor stands.

Spotlights  produce directional, well-defined light that can be adjusted from a sharp light beam.

Like the one from a focused flashlight or a car headlight to a softer beam that is still highly directional but that lights up a larger area.

Most studio lighting uses two basic types of spotlights: the Fresnel and the ellipsoidal spot.

 Named for the early-nineteenth-century French physicist Augustin Fresnel (pronounced “fra-nel”) who invented the lens used in it, the Fresnel spotlight  is widely used in television studio and film production.

 It is relatively lightweight and flexible and has a high output.

It can be adjusted to a “flood” beam position, which gives of a widespread light beam; or it can be “spotted,” or focused to a sharp, clearly defined beam.

A favorite for theater lighting, the ellipsoidal spotlight  produces a sharp, highly defined beam. Even when in a flood position, the ellipsoidal beam is still sharper than the focused beam of a Fresnel spot. 

A pattern cut out of thin metal when placed in or in front of spotlight produces a shadow pattern. Also called a Gobo

The cookie causes a shadow pattern on any surface. Most often it is used to break up flat surfaces, such as the cyclorama (large cloth drape used for backing of scenery) or the studio floor.

Floodlights  are designed to produce great amounts of highly diffused light.

They are often used as principal sources of light (key lights) in situations where shadows are to be kept to a minimum, such as news sets, product displays, and commercials for skin lotion or makeup

You can also create a floodlight effect by flooding the beam of a spotlight and diffusing it further with a scrim —a spun-glass material held in a metal frame—in front of the instrument.

There are four basic types of studio floodlights: the scoop; the soft light and the broad; the fluorescent floodlight bank; and the strip, or cyc, light.

Named for its peculiar scooplike reflector, the scoop  is one of the more popular floodlights. Although it has no lens, it nevertheless produces a fairly directional but diffused light beam

Softlights  are used for even, extremely diffused lighting.

They have large tubelike lamps, a diffusing reflector in the back of the large housing, and a diffusing material covering the front opening to further scatter the light.

Softlights are often used for flat (virtually shadowless) lighting setups.

The broad  (from broadside) is similar to a softlight except that it has a higher light output that causes more distinct shadows.

Broads also have some provision for beam control. They are generally used in digital cinema production to evenly illuminate large areas with diffused light.

The fluorescent floodlight bank goes back to the early days of television lighting, when the banks were large, heavy, and inefficient.

Fluorescent banks are relatively lightweight, are much more efficient, and can burn close to the standard indoor color temperature (3,200K), giving of a warmer (more reddish) light

This type of instrument is commonly used to achieve even illumination of large set areas, such as the cyclorama (cyc) or some other uninterrupted background.

 Some have a Fresnel lens, and some have no lens and are, therefore, called open-face spots.

These include low-powered (up to 750W) Fresnel spots, the much smaller (125W to 250W) spotlight with a prismatic lens or simply a glass cover, and the HMI spots.

The portable Fresnels are identical to the ones hanging in the studio except that they operate with lower-wattage lamps.

They are usually mounted on a tricaster light stand

Mainly because of weight considerations and light efficiency, the open-face spotlight has no lens.

This permits a higher light output, but the beam is less even and precise than that of the spots with a lens

Any small instrument that consists of a large (500W) incandescent quartz lamp mounted in a V-shaped metal reflector

The V-light is highly portable and easy to set up and can light up large areas relatively evenly

The soft-box (250W to 1kW), also called light box or tent, is simply a black heat-resistant cloth bag with a scrim at its opening

This softlight is a more durable version of an actual round or bulb-shaped Chinese lantern. It is usually suspended from a mic stand or a microphone fishpole

Fluorescent floodlights use much less power and generate practically no heat, they are frequently used for indoor EFP lighting.

Small portable fluorescent floodlights are considerably bulkier and heavier than comparable incandescent instruments.

The LED light  looks like a small computer screen or a stretched foldout monitor, but instead of displaying an image it simply emits soft white light

You can make it produce various colors as well as white light of different color temperatures

The pipe grid consists of heavy steel pipe strung either crosswise or parallel.

A counterweight batten can be raised and lowered to any desired position and locked firmly in place.

The lighting instruments are directly attached either to the batten by a large C-clamp or to other hanging devices.

 If the studio has a fixed pipe grid, or if you need to raise or lower individual instruments without moving an entire batten, you can use sliding rods.

A sliding rod consists of a sturdy pipe attached to the batten by a modified C-clamp; it can be moved and locked into a specific vertical position.

For small lighting instruments, you can use the collapsible light stands in most lighting kits.

A crude beam control method is very effective for blocking certain set areas partially or totally from illumination.

Consist of 2 to 4 metal flaps that you can fold over the lens of the lighting instrument to prevent the light from falling on certain areas.

Rectangular metal frames with heat-resistant cloth or thin metal sheets of various sizes

Flags are mounted on light stands and put anywhere they are needed to block the light from falling on a specific area without being seen by the camera.

Mirrors are the most efficient reflectors.

You can position them to redirect a light source (often the sun) into areas that are too small or narrow for setting up lighting instruments

The standard units of measuring light intensity are the American foot-candle (fc)  and the European lux 

You can simply figure lux by multiplying foot-candles by a factor of 10, or you can figure foot-candles by dividing lux by 10.

You can measure the two types of light intensity: incident light and reflected light.  

An incident-light reading gives you some idea of how much light reaches a specific set area.

You are actually measuring the amount of light that falls on a subject or a performance area

This general light level is also called baselight. But incident light can also refer to the light produced by a particular instrument.

Gives you an idea of how much light is bounced of the various objects. It is primarily used to measure contrast.

 You must use a reflected-light meter (most common photographic light meters measure reflected light).

Point it closely at the lighted object then at the dark background—all from the direction of the camera (the back of the meter should face the principal camera position).

It generates light by heating up a filament with electricity. ( Like household lights)

They usually have more wattage and therefore produce higher-intensity light.

The disadvantages of regular incandescent lamps are that the higher-wattage lamps are quite large

The color temperature becomes progressively lower (more reddish) as the lamp ages, and they have a relatively short life

This lamp generates light by activating a gas-filled tube to give of ultraviolet radiation.

This radiation in turn lights up the phosphorous coating inside the tube.

Despite improved fluorescent lamps that produce a fairly even white light, many still have a tendency to give of a slightly greenish light.

 These lamps generate light by moving electricity through various types of gases.

This creates a sort of lightning inside the lamp, which is the discharge that creates the illumination.

HMI lamps produce light with a color temperature of 5,600K, the outdoor standard

Although not a lamp, the light-emitting-diode panel lights up when voltage is applied and then illuminates an area close to it. 

 The panel itself can change colors without the use of color filters.

Because the LED light does not “throw” a beam, it is—so far—restricted to small- and close-area lighting.

 One foot-candle (candlepower) is the amount of light from a single candle (1 lumen) that falls on a 1-square-foot surface located 1 foot away from the candle.

One lux is the light that falls on a 1-square-meter surface (about 3 by 3 feet) generated by a single candle (1 lumen) that burns at a distance of 1 meter.

Light intensity is subject to the inverse square law.

This law states that if a light source radiates isotropically (uniformly in all directions), such as a candle or a single light bulb burning in the middle of a room, the light intensity falls of (gets weaker) at 1/d2 where d is the distance from the source

The inverse square law also applies to lux. In this case the light intensity is measured of a surface of 1 m2located 1 meter from the light source of 1 lumen.

The beams of a searchlight, a flashlight, car headlights, and a Fresnel or an ellipsoidal spotlight do not radiate light isotropically (like a candle) but are collimated (the light rays are made to run parallel as much as possible) and therefore do not obey the inverse square law.

Color temperature has nothing to do with physical temperature; it is strictly a measure of the relative reddishness or bluishness of white light.

This reddishness and bluishness of white light can be precisely measured; it is expressed in degrees of color temperature, or Kelvin (K)  degrees.

The color temperature standard for indoor illumination is 3,200K; Outdoor is 5,600K.

You need to white-balance the camera to ensure the correct color reproduction even if the illumination has different color temperatures.

 Choose one of the color filters on the filter wheel inside the camera

You can use Gels to change the color of light.

LAMP – the bulb

LIGHTING INSTRUMENT – the fixture

Creates a sharp, distinct shadow.

Creates an indistinct shadow.

SPOTLIGHT – Produces a sharp, directional beam.

A SPOT LIGHT COMMONLY USED ON STUDIO GRIDS.

Flood Light – Produces a diffused, nondirectional light that spreads over a wide area.

A FLOOD LIGHT COMMONLYUSED ON STUDIO GRIDS.

Barn doors – moveable metal flaps attached to a lighting instrument

Flag – a flat piece of metal that is placed in front of the instrument

A device used to soften the intensity of light without reducing its color temperature.

Umbrellas

Reflectors

Scrims

Use a diffusion device Bounce the light Move the instrument away from

the subject Use a lower watt lamp Use a dimmer

KEY – The main source of illumination

FILL – Placed opposite the Key light BACK LIGHT – Placed above &

behind the subject

A scale developed by a scientist (William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin) that measures color temperatures of light in degrees Kelvin (i.e.: 32K).

2000KRed2500KYellow3200KWhite4000KGreen5000KBlue7000KViolet10,000K Black

3200 degrees Kelvin equals White Light. In order to reproduce colors properly on TV the light hitting the object must be WHITE (32K).

A function of video cameras that forces the camera to see an object as white no matter the type of light hitting the object.

A plastic sheet that is placed in front of a lighting instrument to turn the white light from a lamp into a colored light.