How To Set Up Studio Lighting For Video

In the previous tutorial I installed the desk in the studio and got it every bit close as possible to the last position. Now information technology's fourth dimension to do the lighting, a crucial step.

What You Need

I accept 2 softboxes, each with five CFL bulbs. The bulbs are 5500 Kelvin colour temperature, and I find they requite a very balanced light. I got this kit virtually iii years ago, and it cost about $100—very inexpensive for studio lights—but in all this fourth dimension it has performed well. If you're starting from scratch, I recommend Dave Bode's $100 lighting kit tutorial.

There are better kits out there, sure. There are LED lights that are smaller, easier to work with and give better lite but, honestly, this kit does the chore just fine and then I cannot justify spending a whole lot more money on fancier lights.

I'm also using two other lights as background light. The housings actually have a clamp in the stop which brand them perfect for mounting on a pole, like the one I have from the background newspaper kit. The bulbs I got for these, unfortunately, are only rated at 4600 K, so they're a bit warmer than I would have liked. However, this is barely visible on camera (in my opinion) so until I get better ones above 5000 Chiliad these volition do just fine.

Now, if you lot want to read more about the kind of gear you can use, here are some resources that have helped me a great deal:

Quick and Like shooting fish in a barrel 3 Light Portrait Setup for Photo and Video
Video Lights For All: How to Build a Complete 3 Caput Kit on a $100 Budget
How to Make Your Ain Desktop V-Menu Video Lights
Lighting Basics for Video
Professional Vlogging

one. Block Out Other Light Sources

So, how practice we brainstorm the lighting process? Blocking out the sun. Yeah, sorry! Retrieve those ceiling windows you saw at the beginning of this series? They need to be covered. Nosotros're going to piece of work with artificial calorie-free only.

Image 1 The ceiling windows — The ceiling windows

The reason for this is we desire complete command over the lighting conditions. Natural light is great, and the light in this room is really really overnice. If this was a sometime shoot, I'd just use that! But using natural light means that you take to depend on the atmospheric condition outside, and that y'all have to adjust the camera settings properly every time the light changes. Therefore, I eliminate the natural light and merely use artificial. This way, I can control it and keep it abiding and consistent.

Now, a very unproblematic and cheap fashion of blocking the light from a window is to use can foil, similar the 1 you have in your kitchen. For this project, I cut a few pieces roughly at the size of my windows. Specialty photo-video suppliers sell black tinfoil, which is heavier and more durable, just the kitchen stuff works too. Blackout curtains are a nicer-looking, more operable solution, and I suggest if you want to you lot your studio long-term you actually should invest in some.

Image 2 Home made window blinds — Dwelling house fabricated window blinds

To attach your foil to the window y'all only spray some h2o on them and on the window, then press the foil on. Of course you can peel them off without issues and even though they'll leave some aluminum residue, they're really easy to clean.

A few minutes after and my windows are covered:

Image 3 Covered ceiling windows — Covered ceiling windows. In that location's nonetheless a piffling flake of light coming through, but not enough to make much of a difference in our exposure in one case the lights are on.

ii. Add the Main Light

Now you can bring in the lights, starting with your main or "primal" lite.

The look I'm going for is a soft one, with depth and finesse, then I'm using "soft box" style of lite. I desire good light on the subject field (that is: me), and I want separation from the background. I also want the background to exist lit a chip.

This procedure is probably the most finicky part in all of getting your studio prepare up. To become it right you demand to make a lot of small adjustments to the lights, followed by going back backside the desk-bound and checking the shot.

This is the office in our DIY where I recommend you lot do it yourself with a little help from others: an banana comes in very handy for getting your lighting correct. If yous can, take someone roughly the same size as yous stand in your identify, so that you can see how irresolute the position (especially distance) and intensity of the lights changes the wait.

one light set up in DIY studio — Main calorie-free on. Notice how the side of my face opposite the light is in deep shadow.

And so, set upwards your main calorie-free. Put the stand roughly in front and a footling bit to the side, so that the light shines on the subject and the scene. Then roughly adjust the height and angle of the light head, and the position of the stand up if needed, until the lighting on your subject looks OK. Nosotros'll add more lights and tweak things more later, and then it doesn't have to look perfect but nevertheless.

3. Add the Fill Light

With the principal light in place and looking OK, gear up up and place your 2nd lite, the "fill" light. The role of this light is to subtract the contrast between highlights and shadow, or "lighting ratio," cast past your start low-cal. The intensity and distance of this low-cal to your subject is how you control this ratio: closer and brighter reduces the contrast, further and dimmer increases it.

2 lights with the same light (same power, same bulbs, same light modifiers, and so on) at the same distance creates a 1-to-one principal-to-fill lighting ratio. This is flat, forgiving calorie-free, and anyone tin look OK in it, but they probably won't await swell. It lack depth and definition. A ratio like 2:ane or 3:1 is a little more dynamic.

Get-go with your lights at the same power and altitude, and effort to create equal lighting on both sides of the face. This is i:i. One time you've got one:1, plow your fill low-cal down by half. This will give you a 2:1 lighting ratio, which allows some shadow, simply still preserves detail in that shadow.

Now effort moving the lite in a few inches then out to few inches, to vary the intensity slightly. Move information technology to left and to correct to command the contours on the face until you're happy.

Second studio light in place — Second low-cal on: notice how the shadow on the side of my face has lightened and the one on the wall has reduced

Become back to your main lite. Now that yous've added the fill light, does the master need adjusting? Have a practiced look. Motion back and along between the two lights, adjusting one and then the other little by picayune until the lighting looks just right. Y'all might accept to sit and look at the scene and your subject for a long time to encounter everything clearly and be actually happy with it.

4. Add together the Kicker, Hair, or Background Lights (every bit Needed)

To create a feeling of depth, y'all can low-cal the groundwork or the subject, or both, from above and beneath. Usually one light like this is enough.

Hair light installled — The hair lights are up in a higher place my shoulder and behind me. Observe the highlights on my forehead, olfactory organ and cheek, and on my shoulders. These help create a feeling of space between me and the background.

In the end I gave up trying to light the background and instead I used two of the clamp lights to low-cal myself from the dorsum, upward and behind my head. That gave me the effect I wanted, which was to be separated from the background and as well accept my hair and shoulders lit.

I shot a fourth dimension-lapse of the lighting process so far, equally information technology unfolded for me. Here we get:

Driving Downward the Shadows

That was a tough chore. I started with the fundamental and make full lights. In one case I got those in a good position I wanted to light the background using the iii clamp lights, but I wasn't getting the issue I wanted. Instead, I switched to hair lights, which I similar the wait of more anyway.If you lot do want to calorie-free the backdrop, my proffer is to go on it subtle. Over-lit backdrops tend to await dated.

I was likewise having problems with some unwanted shadows on the backdrop. Really frustrating. That was because the chief and fill up lights were down at the same level every bit me, significant they collection the shadows right back behind me. This is hands fixed, however. Raise the lights and slightly tilt them down: this drives the shadows lower, below the line of sight.

At this indicate you lot should be pretty happy with how your scene is lit and its overall look, just we're non done.

Completed lighting look — And here'south the completed look.

5. Finishing Touches: Flags, Tapes, Plans

The final steps are to clean upwardly any stray light, marking the positions of your lights, secure any loose cords, and create a set program.

Ah, devious light, sometimes such a hurting to gear up. This is light that'due south hit the scene in a way you don't want. Mayhap information technology'southward leaking from a misjoined flake of velcro on your softbox. It might be glare off the counter-top from a hairlight, reflections in your spectacles, or a weird highlight on the wall. This is where yous need flags!

Flags, or "gobos," are a lighting accessory yous can use to block the low-cal. They can be held with a stand (normally a c-stand). Y'all tin brand your own, or purchase professional person ones in all kinds of shapes. You tin can besides brand a temporary frag with a c-stand, some of that fancy blackness tinfoil I mentioned to a higher place, and gaffer'south tape.

In one case the lighting is fix, your next task is to secure it. Lighting equipment is big and people are clumsy—it tends to cause accidents. Each low-cal stand up needs at to the lowest degree i sand purse, and all cables should be taped downward safely with gaffer's tape.

I also add together a piffling "x" in record under each leg of the low-cal stands. This is and then that when I strike the set and put the lights away I can easily put them right back into place next time. No need to fuss around figuring out where to put the lights once again.

The last pace is to diagram your layout. At that place's two reasons for this. First, the record will come up off the flooring eventually, and then't inevitably the position of your lights will drift. Having a diagram ways you lot can accurately recreate the exact aforementioned lighting, not just estimate information technology (this is important if matching shots made on unlike days). The second reasons is that information technology'southward handy to exist able to create the same lighting in a different identify, say working on a corporate video job, for case. It's squeamish to take a lighting setup you are really comfortable with in your back pocket. Here's a good lesson from Dave Bode again:

The Next Stride

I'm getting shut to completing this project and the adjacent step is to install my audio gear. That'south coming up in the next tutorial!

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