Why do people spend money on lighting for video?

[johnneumann]

I posted this question deep inside another thread, but it was buried and received only one response. I wonder if I can ask again and get some input.

I'm a complete hobbyist, with no understanding of equipment to speak of. I own a fifteen year old Sony PD150 (a standard def digital cam), and a ten year old Kron that I edit on. Other than that, I know nothing about equipment I know even less about what people in the video industry are doing and buying.


I was watching some exercise videos this week on YouTube and the room and the lady's face and body were remarkably well lit. The camera panned around and in the picture you suddenly see the two or three tripod lights. These are obviously professional lights just from the look ... classy tripod and those lights with the side flip panels that say "professional lighting".

For my hobby shoots, I've always used two 1200 watt Home Depot tripod shop lights. I think they were about $25 a piece, so I'm getting 2400 watts of light for $50. Except for one blown bulb, they've lasted years now.



Now my finished DVDs never look as bright as this exercise lady did, but I just assume that's because her studio had even more wattage than I do and probably an overhead light as well.

Question: What on earth is the difference between cheapie Home Depot shop lights versus these professional lights that motivates industry guys to pay so much more for them?

I spent pennies compared to these pro lights.

The bulbs are pretty much the same, aren't they? Or is this some special kind of light?

Where is the value in paying so much more?

[TimKennelly]

The single most important aspect is color temperature accuracy, but things like superior control of directionality through parabolic focus, barn doors, etc. and portability are others.

Wattage is a factor in lighting a scene, but hardly the most important one.

The angles of the light and how they control the shadows as much as how they control the illumination are much more important than over all wattage in making a scene and the focus(es) in the scene look the best they possibly can.

[CKNewman]

My best advice to you is to learn about lighting technique. A local cable access station would be a good place to start because you can get hands-on experience. You can also look at manufacturers' websites. Bill Holshevnikoff is an expert on lighting and has some good videos on lighting. Here's his website: http://www.poweroflighting.com/

[TimKennelly]

I have John Cooksey's Elite Video "Digital Lighting Magic" volumes one through three that retails for $150 and you can get from Elite Video for $80 plus shipping.

I'd sell mine if you are interested for $50 including shipping anywhere in the USA as I have shut down my business.

They come in three individual cases and are in pristine condition as I have always kept all of my video equipment in a temperature and humidity controlled studio.

[jimmeeker]

Hello John,

The Sony PD 150 and 170 are very light sensitive camcorders. Most newer HD models need much more light than your Sony. So I don't think you are not getting enough light on your subject for the PD 150, but you may be letting the auto iris control everything and you may have your light stand set in the wrong location for optimum performance. Just one set of lights on one stand can't light a large set adequately.

First you need to set the lights for the background and then manually set and lock your camcorder's iris for that amount of light on the background. That way your iris isn't changing all the time as the performers move around the set. Now, understanding that light falls off rapidly as the distance it travels increases, you need to set up another set of lights for the performers. These should be about the same distance away from the performers as the first set of lights is away from the background. If the background lights are 10 feet away then the forground lights should be 10 feet away from the performers. This allows movement all over the set with equal light in all positions.

Because your iris is locked down so it stays put no matter what happens in front of it, you will always have the same intensity of brightness and color saturation through out your shooting.

So if you are using one set of worklights in one spot and using the auto iris in the camera, the brightness will always be changing as the performers move around the set. That means that your depth of field will be constantly changing as the iris chlanges and the appearent brightness of the background will be constantly changing as well. This is not at all because of the quality or brand of the lights that you are using but rather the positioning of lights and the use of auto iris. If you have a large set and several performers you may need to use four sets of lights. Two for the background and two for the performers set equally far away. You will not be able to accomplish this look with just one set of lights in one position.....no matter how fancy or expensive the lights are.

If your iris is changing and your depth of field is all over the place, and your color balance is changing too......your images will take on a muddy look and will not have the professional crispness that we are all looking for in our work.

Oh yes, the second set of lights should be high enough so that the shadows that they create of the performers are cast down on the floor behind them and not projected back to the background, where the camcorder can see them.

I hope this will help out.

[johnneumann]

Thank you for the replies, guys.

It's funny how I never think to google or youtube certain things. I youtube'd video lighting and there are some exceptional tutorials.

Jim ... (or anyone else that cares to comment) ... you motivated me to fess up to something that's been bothering me for years.

When I bought my PD150, I was overwhelmed by the number of buttons and settings both on the camera and in the screen menus. The guy who sold it to me told me to leave everything on auto and it would take care of itself.

Well, it mostly has. I've owned the thing for over a decade now and I've never once taken it off the auto settings.

So ... true confession time ... I've also never learned what any of these buttons even mean! You're talking about iris and all that ... I don't know what any of that means.

I have the original PD150 manual, but it's mostly useless to me because it presumes you understand all the concepts. It only gives you the technical direction for how to change a setting ... not what a setting actually is.

Short of hours of trial and error ... how do competent video guys learn about all these buttons and settings without resorting to taking classes? I've never seen a tutorial video on all the buttons on a camcorder and what each one does. I'm especially motivated now to finally learn this stuff because my next project will be videotaping lectures, spoken into the camera, in a studio under ideal conditions. It would be a great opportunity to learn how all these settings work.

=JOHN

[jimmeeker]

Hello John,

I taught a night school class in film making and video production for over 15 years to folks who had just purchased film cameras and video camcorders. I learned by reading everything that I could on cameras. The best learning was when I was thrown into the management of a photography department after getting into the retail world 50 years ago.

I didn't know anything about cameras at all at that time but had to learn to keep the job. By being taught by someone who knew cameras and having to know the material myself .....made it important to pay attention to what he was telling me......then I had to figure out a way to say these things in the language that the man on the street could understand. The best way to really learn something is to have to teach it to someone else. Then it has to make sense to you to be able to tell someone else how it works. I survived in the business world for those 50 years by teaching others how to use their cameras. Now I put on a national video editing convention for Cassie users and this next March it will be the 8th year that we have done this.

I learned about 35 mm still cameras while I had a really cheap 8mm movie camera at the time, I didn't know what the buttons were for either.....but when I found out about the 35mm still camera the buttons on the movie camera begain to make sense as well. Then I discovered that the movie camera didn't have many of the things on it that the 35 mm did......so I upgraded to an 8mm Bolex movie camera which was the best out there at the time.....and it had all the controls that the 35 mm still camera did so I was able to learn movie making technology by transferring the still camera rules and controls to the movie camera.

I can't teach you all that you need to know here on the forum, but i'm sure there are camera clubs and video clubs in your area that would be the place to find someone who is a friendly person willing to take you through what all the buttons are actually for and show you how to use them. Find someone who really believes that not leaving it on automatic all the time is the correct way to learn anything. If you don't understand the manual setting, Auto will always allow you to get mediocre images.

There is nothing like practical experience of actually doing something while learning it. You need to know about manual focus, manual iris controls, how depth of field works and how to take advantage of being able to control it. You need to see how back lighting can screw up your images and how to avoid it.

Once you know what the controls on the camera are for and how they work, then you have to learn about lighting.

After all.....that was your basic question in the first place. If you were here in the middle of the country near the Mississippi River, I could show you some of these things.

[johnneumann]

Thank you for the reply, Jim. That was a very inspiring post.

Your suggestion of a camcorder club is ideal ... I'm curious whether there is such an animal nearby. I've actually never heard of a local camcorder group. Classes, seminars ... yes. A club? I'll have to look and see.

Throughout the day today, I've been googling and youtubing the PD150. I'm surprised that this camcorder seems to have already fallen off the map. There's not much info online. There is one very old book about the PD150, and I may resort to buying it, although it's $40. I suppose that's not too much to pay for an education, although it seems like a lot for a book.

It just occurs to me ... with regards to google and youtube ... I'm not getting much with searching for the PD150 or "how to use camcorder controls" ... but if I pull out the PD150 manual and just get a list of each button ... I can google and youtube things like iris control (like you mentioned) and hopefully find tuturials one at a time on each feature.

Yep, I wish I was down your way, too. I'd probably be camped out on your doorstep right about now.

-JOHN

[flvideo]

John Try googleing the PD170. I had a PD150 and I don't recall there being much difference in the 2 camera's except the low light capability. I was blown away by the difference I found in the senitivity to light. I have had my oldest PD170 for I think 9 years and the other one 3. I found that I had sucess with the buttons by just playing with the cameras on shoots and in down times. Theres nothing worse than getting back at the studio and finding you have something wrong with the footage you shot. If you stay in the business long things will happen. In my business if you miss it oh well the race is done and theres no redo's.
I could fill a book about things that went wrong. I shot a excercise video for a lady one time a years ago, and I went to Home Depot and bought several of those clamp on lights. I then went down to my local camera shop and bought color corrected bulbs for them and I took folding chairs and clamped them to the backs of the chairs. I set them for fill and bounced most off the white dropped ceiling. My camera at the time wasn't the best in low light but I spent about $60 on lights and bulbs, 1980's prices, and had a good product at the end. I don't know as much about lighting as I should and I've been doing this a long time but you learn from doing and if you aren't doing your aren't learning. I have a shoot this afternoon at a cracker Nursury and the lighting is probably not too good so I may need to light it. The nursery is completely under an umbrella of trees so I may be with you looking for lights. LOL! Bob...

[Charles]

Hi John
Try the search term PD150 camera controls this is what i got on Google http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&tbm=vid& ... a51a8ef0dd
HTH