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Lighting on white background


cody chaban

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Hey everybody, I have a question about lighting. First off I will tell you the specifics.

-Shot on 16mm

-Vision2 200T

-Éclair ACL

I am lighting some one in front of a white background, similar to some gap commercials from a few years back. My question is how should I light/Expose the background in relation to the person and how far back should the background be to the person in the interview.

 

Thanks, Cody

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Hey, Sadly I don't remember the commercials you're talking about. I assume the Mac commercials are close enough. A couple questions:

 

1. Is your subject standing? Sitting?

2. Is it a full body shot of the subject, or just a Head&Shoulders?

3. How much room do you have?

 

 

The reason I ask is because you will need a place to hide the lights, and the best place is usually behind the subject. Otherwise, you're looking at lights from above, and from the sides. I'm mixing in a little bit of Still Photography Lighting into this equation, but I'll try to keep that at a minium.

 

You will want an evenly lit background, and you will not want the background to be blown out. You want it white, so you will want to go about 3-4 stops above your setting. I have not shot with Vision2 200t, so I am unaware of its latitude, however, I think you would be safe, and need to go to 4 stops due to its wide range. Someone who has shot with Vision2, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Now in order to get the crisp quality that you see in the Mac commercial, you'll want to be at around an f/11, on a longer lens (50-70mm). Again, I'm not sure how much room you have, but ideally you want them about six-eight feet from the background.

 

I hope this helps,

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You will want an evenly lit background, and you will not want the background to be blown out. You want it white, so you will want to go about 3-4 stops above your setting. I have not shot with Vision2 200t, so I am unaware of its latitude, however, I think you would be safe, and need to go to 4 stops due to its wide range.

 

Why wouldn't you want it blown out? White is white. The caution that I have is that you don't blow it out so much that the edges of the talent in the forground start to blow out. I've lit these type of situations on video before and lit the background to about 110 IRE and the talent to about 70 IRE. This worked well.

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  • 5 months later...
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Hey everybody, I have a question about lighting. First off I will tell you the specifics.

-Shot on 16mm

-Vision2 200T

-Éclair ACL

I am lighting some one in front of a white background, similar to some gap commercials from a few years back. My question is how should I light/Expose the background in relation to the person and how far back should the background be to the person in the interview.

 

Thanks, Cody

 

If you shooting at daylight location then I would just forget the background and left it unlit having it play with existing ambiance. I would light the subject close to what the Ambiance is (little more) just for separation. I would try not to have Subject's Light spill on Background.

 

In Night Location... You can come up with some bounce of the ceiling for ambiance and to keep the walls white and continue in similar manner as for daylight location.... sure you will need more lights as will need to create that workable Ambiance.

For standing subject it is good to have the subject at least 6 feet from the wall just to avoid shadows.

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