Transcripts
1. Lighting Concepts CLASS INTRO: Hi, my name is Shannon and welcome to my
class on lighting basics. This is a Concepts class
and we're going to go over common definitions
of light, of lighting, different color temperatures,
different types of bulbs, all sorts of things
you might need to know and common definitions
in the industry. I'll be talking about some of the concepts of light
and lighting that can really improve your project
that you're working on, whether it's photography,
film or video. I will also do a
concept two class where I will cover the way the light interacts
with your camera, depth of field, some
different subjects like that. And I'll go over three point
and four point lighting for studio lighting in
that class as well. Before we get started, let
me give you a little bit of my background out
of high school. I went to college and graduated with a television
broadcasting degree. Out of college, I got a job in a Northwest TV studio and we did live and
taped TV production. I ran master control,
I ran camera, and I was also an assistant
lighting director mostly. I did photography
for lots of years. Then I got interested in basic
film and video projects. In 2012, I hosted the Central
Oregon Film Festival. We did that for five years, and we brought in
industry professionals to teach the craft
of filmmaking. We covered everything from
script writing to audio. You name it, we covered it. Then I did some video projects. I also did corporate
video projects. I feel like I have
a lot of years of experience to
bring to the table. And I'm so excited to
teach this class because light has always fascinated
me. Let's get started.
2. Lighting Concepts DEFINITIONS: The concepts I'll
be going over today are basic lighting concepts
that I think will help you with your lighting in the studio or your project,
wherever you're at. I'm just going to start
with some definitions. Light is visible light is magnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually
defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400
to 700 nanometers. There are some wave lengths that are not visible
to the human eye and that contributes to inefficiency of
certain light bulbs. White light is comprised
of red, green, and blue. For our purposes for printing, the reason why you don't
always get in print, what you see on your
screen is the screens are red, green, blue, LED. Then the print, the ink is CMYK. It's printed out in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. You don't always get the right colors when you're printing, that you see on your screen. But for our purposes,
red, green, and blue, the white light
comes into a prism. And then they separated
out into these. You can see the red,
yellow, green, and blue. It is similar to
the light striking the earth where the
light rises and it's reddish in the
morning sunrise and then it turns to
yellowish for dawn. Then as you get to
midday, it's pretty blue. Light can be pretty harsh.
It's really bright. It's the brightest light,
but it's also blue. Then the color temperature
moves back down to yellowish and then
reddish for sunset. The reason why is the length. I think of the wave length and then the angle
striking the Earth. It's also not as
bright at an angle. But those are
important concepts in lighting because whether you have man made or natural light, you're going to be
dealing with all of these different
colors of the spectrum. Whether you want
the warm lights, whether you want
the cool lights, and then the mood that is
involved in all of that. This is an important
lighting concept and I'll be discussing
it more at length later. Luminance is one of
those terms just talking about how bright
the light intensity of emitted or reflected light. Luminance is how
much the light is putting out or how much light is hitting the object,
also called luminosity. Illuminance is the intensity
of light striking a surface, also known as incident light. If you're on a film set
or a video or a TV set, you might see somebody
with a light meter going around looking
at different things. This has a little
round white bulb in the middle of it and
it reads the light. That's striking different areas. And the reason why
they do that is you don't want hot
spots on your set. You're going to be lighting the important parts of your set, at least a little bit brighter, maybe like a third brighter. Especially if you
have people on a set, you want them to be
the brightest object. Obviously, if they're the most important
thing on your set, that's what the person
will be doing with an incident light
meter or flux meter. They'll be going around
measuring the light that's hitting different
objects to make sure that the objects on the set aren't brighter than the
most important part, which is probably the
person on the set. Lumen is a term when
I was growing up, it was called Watts.
Now it's lumen. It's a measure of the
quantity of light emitted by a light source visible
to the human eye, also referred to as
luminous flux flux. Lumen is just basically the
amount of light that's coming out of an object measurement. Then lux is a measure of the intensity of visible light that hits or passes
through a surface. You have a light source,
it's emitting lumens. Then lux is when the lumens
are hitting the surface. A lot of times there
are variables. The amount of lumens
going out from the light source will
not be the amount of lumens that hit the light source because of different reasons. And I'll go over
them in a minute. Here, lux is the measurement of the light that actually is
hitting the object or surface. The difference between lumen and lux is that the lux takes into account an area over which the luminous
flux is spread. Like I said, the object
that is radiating the lumens doesn't necessarily mean that that same amount
is hitting the surface. One thing that will
affect that is the 1,000 lumens spread out over 10
square meters instead of just 1 square meter
produces a dimmer, illuminants of only 100 luck. The amount of area that spread, it's spread out over more of an area instead of
just concentrated in one little spot is going to really impact the luck of the amount of light
that hits the object.
3. Lighting Concepts LUX VARIABLES: There are various things
that impact luck, and that's the amount of
light that hits the object. One is distance
inverse square law. For all your math
heads out there, the inverse square law says the radiation intensity is inversely proportional to
the square of the distance. Basically, that means
every time you double the distance from the light
source to the object, you're going to cut your
light into one quarter, which is pretty
significant If you're in a studio and you have
a 2000 watt bulb that the manufacturer claims
that it will produce 1,650 locks at a
six foot distance. You don't want it in the shots, you move it back to 12 feet, you're going to have
a quarter of that. I can't see somewhere
around 400. That is a lot of
difference and you really have to keep
that into account when you're moving
lighting around in a studio or even just moving light a distance from
the person or the object. You have to keep that in mind. Angle does affect
the amount of luck, the lumens that are put out from the sun striking the
Earth at an angle, say evening sun is going to directly affect the amount of light that's
striking the object. Another thing that affects
the amount of light that hits the object is diffusion. How much diffusion do you have? In this one shot, we've the light striking
the surface of the water, but then the water diffuses the light on the bottom
of wherever this is, you have beautiful,
really soft light. I want to go scuba
diving. I love this. This is just gorgeous liquid would be a huge diffusion as
the light goes through it, it just goes all over. It is just beautiful.
I love that shot here. This would be an example of a studio where they're
using diffusion. They've got the soft
boxes over the bulbs. They're wanting a soft
light, not a harsh light. They don't want to spot light with a bunch of harsh shadows. Then you have three spot
lights and no shadows. Anyway, they have a
nice soft diffusion. This soft box, this
one and this one, that directly impacts
the bulb that you have, putting out maybe 1,000 lumens. What you get striking this object is not going
to be 1,000 lumens. It's going to be
quite a bit less because of the diffusion. But the diffusion is
producing a softer light. Various bulbs are more
efficient than others just because the human eye sees 400-700 nanometers and there's quite a bit more light
that is being emitted. Our eyeballs just don't see it. Then you have down here in the UV range below
the human eyeball. Then up here in the IR range, I guess infrared, what we see is in this range
and then peak is 555, which is the most
efficient light there is apparently, but
incandescence, I think they're only 2%
efficient because they emit a lot of wave
lengths that are not even in the spectrum that
the human eye can see. Reflectance is how much an object or surface reflects the light back to the viewer, depending on the texture, shape, and qualities of the
object or surface. If you're trying to light
an object that is very reflective or not
reflective at all, these are some of the
things you need to keep in mind. This is an example. The black material is pretty matt and it doesn't really reflect
the light at all. It eats the light up. This marble, I had these set up in front of
a three panel window. It is reflecting the
panel window pretty well. This black matt bead
is reflecting some. You can see the three
panel window right here. You can see a little bit
of the bead next to it. A little bit of my front
windows by my door, and then a little
bit of light being reflected off of the back wall. This bead is probably
doing the best. It's a matt, but it's white. You have the light coming
in from the window, it's a little diffused because
of the spray on the bead, it picks up the actual
two separate lights on either side of the door. Here's the light reflected
on the back wall. Then it has a little
bit more on the edges. This object is
highly reflective, but it's a little bit anyway, concept for lighting,
the Ed to keep in mind, as I would say, people's eyeballs like marbles and you can usually tell
the source of the light. If you look in a person's
eye really close, you can tell where the lights
were, the light source. You can also see
where it's striking, usually the nose and the
shadows of the face too. But the eyeball is a big
giveaway about where your light source is
and how bright it is. This would be an example of a highly reflective object
that would be reflect, The light source is
emitting lots of lumens and you're getting lots
of lumens reflected back. Whereas the map black material, you're hardly getting any of the light illuminated
back to you. It's a low Lux situation
there. All right. This LED light bulb
is seven watts, but it doesn't take much power. It gives you 470 lumens and
it's 2,700 degrees Kelvin, which is a pretty
yellowish light. I'll get into the colors
here in a minute.
4. Lighting Concepts LUX & LIGHT: This is an example. I'm going to go through some
of these examples here. I got this from Wikipedia, but it just gives
averages of how much actual Lux you're getting
in certain conditions. If you're out filming at night, you're going to be on a tripod. The moon is bright, but the light that it actually emits onto the surfaces
is not very much. You only get 5103 tenths
of lu, very small amount. For photography, you're
going to have your camera on your tripod and you're going
to have long exposures. So maybe one to say 32nd exposures and anything that moves is going
to be blurred. Sometimes that can be
nice if you are, say, taking traffic at
night and you have your camera on a
tripod and you've got the nice blur headlights and taillights and stuff of
traffic, things like that. You can use that
to your advantage, but just know that there
is not much light. And if you want any
light for night, you're either going to
have to create light or have long exposures and
blur for any movement. Okay. 20 to 50 locks for public areas with
dark surroundings, say a city scape at night. You're still going to have
your camera on a tripod. You're going to have to
have long for video. They used to light
for bright daylight. And then they would
have that, what do you call it, filter in front. It look hokey. But that's
how they used to film. Just in bright day and
then have dark blue, they're pretending it's
night for photography. Anyway, you would have your camera on a tripod and then long exposures and
blurring of movement. Probably unless you brought in additional lighting for this, this isn't really much brighter. You'd be surprised. Very dark, overcast day
100 Lucks LED light bulb. Seven watt LED light
bulb is going to do more light than this. Depending of course on how close you are to your subject with your
little light bulb. But your eye is going
to pick up a lot more than your camera
sees on a day like today. I would say for photography, you're still on a tripod, You're still doing longer
exposures than you want to, if you're trying to capture
any movement in film. You're bringing in extra
lights for this type of thing because you're
going to get blurring. If you do the long exposure
and open up everything. You have additional lighting
for that that you're bringing in for evening sun. Your sun is at an angle, you're getting the
red temperatures, the light is striking
the Earth at an angle. You're not getting as
much light approximate. These are all approximates
because they can all change. They're all different settings, but 400 lucks would be average. Still about like your light bulb here in the shadows
is pretty darn dark. You would have silhouettes from the sun like you
have in the trees. If you had a person walking
or sitting in the field, I would say the outline
will be lighted up, but their face is going to be
in almost complete shadow. You need to have additional lighting or you have to bounce or you
have to use flash. Then in video or film, you might, you probably
would bring in additional lighting or just
use this as an effect. With additional lighting,
it's still not bright, but there's something there you can use if you want to have the reddish look and if
you want the effect. 1,000 looks for an overcast day. There's a little more light
about like LED light bulbs. You maybe on a tripod, maybe probably should
be on a tripod. You're probably
bringing in additional lighting even for a film. Typical TV studio lighting, 1,000 I suppose if
you had a two K, a 2000 watt shining down, you might end up with 1,000 If it's maybe 15 or 20 feet up, that could be TV
studio lighting. You're just going
to have 2000 light. That's a spot light. You
would have more than that. You would have, your set
would be lighted and you'd have incident light
and all that kind of stuff. You probably need more than one. But for daylight, just to
compare, look at this. You've got a range of
10,000 in the shade to 100,000 that there's
so much light out there. And if you know how to use
and harness the light that is out there for whatever
look that you're going for, you can really do
some cool things. You can use bounces, you can use sheets, you
can use silk tints, which is what the film
crews do or they used to. I guess they would put a big silk tint up above
and diffuse the light. Big diffusers, you just have
so much light to work with, that can be a double
edged sword if you want short depth of field, there are some trade offs on that and things that you
need to think about. But most of the time
camera is going to, the more light you have,
it's going to love it the more the auto
focus is going to work. Well, you can close down your **** and
capture stop action. There's just a lot of
light out in the sunlight. And even in the shade
with the direct sun, there are lots of
things you can do with all of that
light available. Some bulbs are more
efficient than others. And 100 watt incandescent lamp, 1,750 lumens versus 100 watt fluorescent
lamp 8,000 lumens. The incandescent is
not very efficient. I computed the hundred
watt LED lamp. There's a range, of course, there, of what they can be. But it was about 6,500
It's right in there. The fluorescence I
think are a little bit more efficient, possibly, but there are also apparently some flicker issues with
some of the fluorescence and also flicker issues
with some of the LEDs. You just have to do some
research and figure out which one might work best
for what you're doing, whether you're filming or
you're doing photography. But they are typically more efficient than
the incandescent.
5. Lighting Concepts COLOR TEMPERATURES & BULBS: Colors of light. Light
has a lot of colors. I was telling you about
the sunrise, midday, sunset, clear blue sky. Sometimes you can have up
to 10,000 K of really blue. Sometimes your
auto white balance doesn't know what to do with it. If you know about the colors of the
different times of day, then you can correct for it. Sometimes in post
processing To start out, you've got the really warm
yellowish candle flame. Maybe 1,000 to 2000. Then these are approximate, but tungsten usually
are rated at 3,200 K. That's a yellowish,
pretty yellowish look. They will run hot, they put off a lot of heat. My tungsten scoop that I have is a 650 watt and it really
throws the light, it just throws it like crazy, but it is a yellowish light. I really need to have a blue
gel on it when I'm running, either in the daylight or
with other LED daylights. It is so hot that
it burns the gels. They probably have
thicker gels and I can make a hole for the
air circulation. But anyway, they run really hot so they have their issues. But it might be a cheap
option for studio lighting. You can use it if
you need the warmth. Some people like
to use tungsten or halogen for the warm look too. Sunrise, sunset, golden
hour is 330 500 K. It's the temperature
is really warm. A lot of filmmakers, they really like that time of day. You don't have much time. You've only got, what, 20
minutes or a half an hour. So you have to be all
ready and set up, but you will get
that really warm, reddish, yellowish look on that. When you get into midday, you're getting into more in
between yellow and blue. It's more of an even
lighting cool white LED 6,000 Midday is 5,600 It's
pretty even then cloudy day. You're getting up into
the bluish spectrum And then sometimes
clear blue sky can be all the way up around
10,000 K the cloud cover. And shade in the
bluish spectrum here. That will affect with
your white balance. It also might affect you
with post processing. If you're working with
shade versus sun. Sun will be warmer, light and then the shade. Sometimes you have to
keep that in mind. Here's an example of how color temperature
affects the background. Obviously this wall is
just a gray or off white, but then you have the
same amount of lumens. Each lamp is the same but it's just a different
color temperature. You have a bluish, this is probably
like a 9,000 bulb. Then you go into 5,600 K bulb and then you go
down toward the tungsten 3,200 in here and then probably 2000 right in
there is pretty orangish. You can see some difference
here, I would say. This picture has a
couple of issues. Shade is a little
bit different color, you can tell it's more
of a bluish grayish. Then you have a warmer green
right here in the sun light. Not only do you have different color temperatures in this shot, but you also have different
lumens and locks.
6. Lighting Concepts COLOR & LIGHT: I wanted to show you
the difference between the lighting on her face versus
the lighting behind her, and then the difference
in temperatures when you adjust the lighting
where it should be. I originally thought
that they had used a flash on the camera
from this picture, but then I looked at some
of the other pictures of her and I can see they
were probably outside. I see a house, maybe they have a square
bounce right there. It's really bright, so it
might actually be a flash. It didn't quite bring enough light to her
face to even out. The difference between
the light here and the light on her hair you can expose for the face
and the skin and then the highlights would
be completely blown. I don't think that's a horrible look if it's what
you're going for. But in order to get color
temperatures that are the same, you're probably going to have to even out the lighting
a little bit. If you want detail in
the white and the dark, you're going to have to
even out the lighting. How you do that is bring in a bounce because you have
a lot of light out here. That way you would
have the same color for the skin too, as the hair. You can bring in a flash, but then that will introduce
a little bit of blue probably or an LED light. But you would have to dial it in for probably
this type of sun, which looks a little bit warmer. I'm going to make a couple
of adjustments here. I'm going to bring up her skin, the light on her face to a little bit more
what it should be. You can see that's a
little bit nicer color. It brings out the
warmth of her skin. It's not so blue
because it was in the shade quite a bit of shadow. He brings out the
nice brown tones and sunny tones in her face, but it also blows out all of
the highlights in her hair. Bringing up the shadows gave
you quite a bit of warmth. Over here you've got the grayish and more
of a bluish look. It's in the shade
that's like that 7,500 range of Kelvin in
the color scale. But then here you brought her up to a nice warm skin tone, maybe around 4,500 or
something like that. If we try to do shadow highlight on this one and bring
in the shadows, we can lighten up her skin even more if you try to bring
down the highlights, it just brings down
the brightness. Again, that really isn't a good strategy to
fix this picture. The best thing you
could have done probably is just
expose for her skin and had additional light
if you wanted to match her hair a little bit more
to the light on her face. But you can tell the
difference in skin tone here, which is definitely cooler to warmer now that we brought up the light level on her skin.
7. Lighting Concepts CLASS PROJECT & CONCLUSION: The class project, I would like you to do
your own lighting project. And the reason that I put
this background there is because we have kids
who are very creative, just doing all sorts of stuff. That's what
I want you to do. I want you to take
something that I talked about here and just be
really, really creative. I was thinking if
you don't have a kid to watch to pick up
that creative vibe, maybe a grab your niece
or nephew or somebody, baby sit for a
minute and give them some crayons and a
big piece of paper. Don't confine them to a
little tiny piece of paper. Give them a big piece of
paper and just watch them. I'm sure you'll all of a sudden be inspired
to be creative, but I want you to
be very creative. Just do something wild or
fun. Make sure it's fun. That always really
translates well. People can tell when
you're having fun. Then I would like you to post your lighting project to
the project gallery so that we can all discuss and
give each other feedback. Join the discussion and comment on other
students projects. And I'll comment to, if you're going to give feedback
to your fellow students, please maybe put
a positive first. And then if you have something negative to say or
criticism of critique. But we really want to be
a supportive environment and encourage each other. This is art, I'm talking about being creative, wildly creative. Let's just encourage each other, people, try to be supportive. Some of my upcoming classes
will be a continuation of this class here and I will be covering some more
concepts of lighting. Also, I'll be covering
the point and four point lighting background just to give you a
really general overview of lighting so that you can
take these ideas and concepts and start doing some
critical thinking about how you might want
to do your project. I'm also going to have a studio lighting class that
will involve different ways and different types of lights
that you can take into your studio setting
for a person, or a pet, or an object, and maybe give you some
creative ideas about how to do some of your own projects
on that group lighting, that would be a little
bit different topic than just the studio
lighting with one model. If you have more than one model, I'll talk a little bit
about lighting for more than one in
a group setting. Also, I videotaped
for my daughter who released a single in Nashville with a
couple of her friends. She did an acoustic version
of one of her songs. And we're going to go
into the coffee shop, bring our lights, and I'll show you the set up
and how it looked. And you'll get a little bit of a teaser about how
her song sounded. I want to thank you for taking the class today and joining me notifications of new
classes and new content. Please follow com subscribe. I would really like you to post your project so that we can all discuss and talk about
it and give feedback. And I look forward to seeing you again.
Thank you so much.
Shannon Wine, Video/Film/Photography Techniques
