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soft light on super low budget


Josh Bass

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If I remember correctly, the "Book Light" technique pioneered by Cronenweth works by bouncing light through a frame of diffusion (Griffolyn), and then through a frame of gridcloth.

Bob, your booklight seems very interesting in comparison to this big contraption I used to hear about.

Can you provide some pictures?

Thanks

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Yes. . .me likey book light. I have a problem with "clip it to a stand". How? I have spring clamps, and these weird things I bought from a photography store, made of plastic. They're clamps, and have two. . .uh. . .screw holes at 90 degrees from each other, to attach to a baby spud mount that also has a screw on it, but either way you screw it on, it oriented the wrong way (make any sense?) to attach to something like the booklight. Other than that, it sounds like a brilliant idea.

 

Here's something that's always troubled me about bounce cards/boards/thingies: angle of incidence = angle of reflection, right? So, if your original light source (say, a fresnel) is at a low angle, bounced up into the booklight/foamcore, does the reflected light bounce "up" more than straight out? Or does it just go everywhere, regardless of the angle of the original source? Also, I'm assuming, when bouncing like this, you want to fill the entire surface of your bounce surface with light, i.e, make sure your fresnel or whatever's "spread" covers the entire board, not just one part of it? And which is better, or, which gives softer results, if using a fresnel: spot or flood? Does it matter?

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So, if your original light source (say, a fresnel) is at a low angle, bounced up into the booklight/foamcore, does the reflected light bounce "up" more than straight out?

 

Yes, it bounces more up, but by tilting the foamcore down you can angle the "sweet spot" precisely on your talent. And yes, you should fill the entire bounce surface, that is if you want a soft light ;) The bigger the source, you know the rest.

 

I don't think it matters if you use spot or flood, that is if you can fill up a whole foamcore with spot. That means your light is going to be pretty far away from the foamcore...Sounds more practical to flood somewhat and fill the whole bounce surface that way. I know I've never had space to fill a foamcore with full spot.

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Hi,

 

An eggcrate is usually a square grid, designed to sit in front of a soft light and make it directional without making the source smaller. By default a soft light has a nearly 180 degree spread; with an eggcrate you can define where it's going, so it doesn't go everywhere and turn into an omnidirectional fill, without making it less soft.

 

There's a picture of one about halfway down this page:

 

http://www.meansst.com/scstore/store_index.html

 

Phil

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Eggcrates are basically a square or rectangular grid that is a few inches deep that fits in front of the light. This in effect creates columns and rows of of tubes, that fit in front, to channel the light, rather than have it spread all over the place. if you go to the Mole Richardson website, you will see what the eggcrates for the soft lights look like when you click on the spec sheets, they have pix of all the accessories.

 

Still photographers use "grids" which are similar, though they're sometimes plastic, which melts. And that's bad.

 

If you are using smaller (less hot) lights, or fluoros, you can use the eggcrates that are used for overhead fluorescent fixtures. Typically 2'x2' or 2'x4'. They are stocked by places like Home Depot and retailers who cater to electricians and janitors. They're usally silver, don't know if painting them black makes a diference, or not.

 

I have also used black foamcor to create an eggcrate for a large 3'x6' gridcloth frame I hung off a wall spreader. The foamcor was about 6" or 8" wide and was notched every 12". I had three pieces going across and six going vertically. They were notched so that they interlocked, but taped here and there to prevent them from unlocking.

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Here's something that's always troubled me about bounce cards/boards/thingies: angle of incidence  = angle of reflection, right? So, if your original light source (say, a fresnel) is at a low angle, bounced up into the booklight/foamcore, does the reflected light bounce "up" more than straight out?  Or does it just go everywhere, regardless of the angle of the original source?  Also, I'm assuming, when bouncing like this, you want to fill the entire surface of your bounce surface with light, i.e, make sure your fresnel or whatever's "spread" covers the entire board, not just one part of it? And which is better, or, which gives softer results, if using a fresnel: spot or flood? Does it matter?

 

A white bounce card throws light everywhere, since the surface is filled up with light. Angle of incidence doesn't matter much, unless the material has a sheen to it (like foamcore) that can give a small amount of specular reflection (this is why beadboard often gets foamcore taped to one side; so there's a "hard" side and a "soft" side). But the angle of the board to the subject DOES matter, since angling the board away makes the size of the source relatively smaller to the subject, giving less light (and making it less soft).

 

Flood/spot also DOES matter, since what you're trying to do with a soft source is fill up the material with light. Spotting the unit onto the board might give you a hot spot that's maybe 1 foot across; making a relative small and hard source. Flooding the same light out to cover a full 3 feet or so (example only) makes the bounced light much softer. The actual brightness of the bounced light usually doesn't change much, but its softness does.

 

Open-faced lights like 1K redheads and 2K blondes are great for bouncing, since they put out a wide, even hard light that can be placed close to the bounce for compactness. The glass in a fresnel lens eats up a lot of light, so you also get more efficiency from an open-faced unit.

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Yes. . .if I had it to do over again, I probably get some open faced lights, instead of all fresnels. However, isn't a fresnel with the lens off (or the. . .um. . .er. . ."housing" open) kinda the same as open face? I know the parabolic reflector makes some difference, that open face lights are designed somewhat differently, but how different are they really?

 

Is the difference in the softness between foamcore and beadboard severe, or barely noticable. Is there a way to "soften" the foamcore? What if you score the crap out of it with an exacto or something?

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Josh as a cinematographer you should be thinking about the quanity and quality

of light you need,want. What mood do you want to achieve,convey? There is no

law against using hard light. If you want to use a light box(soft) then you need to

make sure that it has even lighting from the center to the edges(all the edges).

It would be possible in small spaces to use a soft box as two lights(key,fill). You

have your actor stand at the rear of the soft box(this is the key light).If possible

have him or her face the key light (much better way to light). The back portion of

the soft light is the key. The front edge of the soft box is the fill light. Of course

you know there are other things to consider. If you are going to use film you need

to be thinking about what kind of film you are going to use. I'm assuming though

that you are shooting in dv,video. You could use a baby(1K)aimed at a reflector.

Basically you want to create some shadows and then use fill to bring out the de-

sired detail in the shadows. You could use white reflectors on the floor to help with

the fill. I usually start out with too much fill and then adjust it after rehearsal. One

of the problems with soft light is that it falls off into shadows fast, it spreads out in

all directions. You can however control it.

 

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer/Student Cinematographer

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However, isn't a fresnel with the lens off (or the. . .um. . .er. . ."housing" open) kinda the same as open face?

 

Is the difference in the softness between foamcore and beadboard severe, or barely noticable.

 

Open- faced generally have more spread than a fresnel with the lens swung open. Most fresnels have the housing and reflector designed to focus most of the output onto the size of the lens, in other words a relatively narrow round pool. Try opening the lens on something like a Baby 1K and you'll see what I mean.

 

The difference between beadboard and foamcore is closer to "barely noticeable," although nothing gives quite the luminous pearly glow of a brand new sheet of beadboard. I wouldn't bother scoring foamcore, since beadboard is so cheap and plentiful.

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Ok, thanks. I wasn't trying to say that softlight is perfect for everything, but for me, at least, hard light is much easier to work with, in that it's far more controllable, and predictable. This is not to say, of course, that I've "mastered" hard light by any means, but I understand it much more than soft light, which has always been somewhat of a dark mystery to me--and therefore I need more help working with it. Also, to me, harder to do on a low budget with good results. Good results = slick looking.

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Two things to keep in mind with softlight: flagging and falloff.

 

Softlight usually needs larger flags to control the spill and spread of a soft source, compared to hard lights. What you might cut with a barndoor on a BJ fresnel, you'll need a 4x4' floppy when using a 4x frame of 216. Otherwise, the same principles apply (light is light): a flag close to the source gives a soft edged shadow, and you sharpen it by moving the flag farther from the source.

 

Falloff -- soft light falls off much quicker than hard light, so you need more distance and a brighter source to achieve a simlar throw to hard light. Or, you can use it to its advantage and use a low-level soft light up close and not worry about the source spilling onto the background too much.

 

A third tip: a hard light can be made to appear more soft soft my simply lowering its level, or in other words the ratio of key to fill. Contrast is how your eye defines edges, so when you lower the contrast of a shadow you notice the hardenss of the shadow that much less. I use this trick all the time in lighting deep backgrounds for wide shots. You can get away with hard lights for that as long as the key/fill ratio is low enough.

 

Don't be afraid of hard light -- it's beautiful! Just take care to sculpt it with flags and control it the same way you would hard light, just on a bigger scale.

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You are correct sir, but nevertheless, I would like to work "softer" a little more often than I have in the past.

 

One more thing I thought of, regarding the booklight: Does anyone know approximately how much light, in terms of stops, you lose when using 216? 250? It occurred to me that your original source used for the booklight would take two "hits" to its level: one when it bounces off the foamcore, and the other as it goes through the diffusion material.

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Hey Josh,

 

The cheapest, easiest, thing to do is move the lights you have closer to the axis of your lense. :) Beyond that , how 'bout building your own "chimera" out of foamcore? If you can't afford grip stands and flags, then you should steer clear of book lights. Further, as you have guessed, w/ a book, you've got to start out w/ more light. (More light, more juice, more $$.) Last, book lights - w/ all those stands and flags to control them - are a labor intensive pain-in-the-A.. to set up and move around. If you're working on the cheap, a 2k soft light w/ a 2'x3' diffusion in front is way more sensible.

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I think the best use of softlight that I have ever seen is in Sophie's Choice. the scene when the Merryl Streep character has the conversation with the Nazi officer in that ugly green room. The quality of that soft light was so fcuking gorgeous, I can just watch that scene again, and again.

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I guess you're saying you use the grip clip to secure the foamcore to the spud itself, and to one the legs on the light stand? That's the only way it makes sense in my head, unless your stand is super skinny (so you can clamp around the main body of the stand), which would mean the foamcore'll drag it down, without sandbags.

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Ooooooooooooooooooh. Ok, C-Stands. Well, I actually don't have any of those. I have el cheapo stands from eBay $50, go up thirteen feet, little bit light for anything heavier than a $650 fresnel, when fully extended. Served me well, however. Too thick in most places to get one of those clamps around.

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I think one of the hardest things to learn is not to overlight. You do not need

a ga-zillion lights. You should know what every light is doing and why its there.

 

"PHOTOGRAPHY KNOWS HOW TO AUTHENTICATE ITS

MISREPRESENTATIONS"

_Mason Cooley

 

"TAINT'T WHAT YOU DO,ITS THE WAY YOU DO IT."

_FATS WALLER

 

"THE NEGATIVE IS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE COMPOSER'S

SCORE,AND THE PRINT THE PERFORMANCE."

_Ansel Adams

 

 

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer

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Ooooooooooooooooooh.  Ok, C-Stands. Well, I actually don't have any of those.  I have el cheapo stands from eBay $50, go up thirteen feet, little bit light for anything heavier than a $650 fresnel, when fully extended.  Served me well, however.  Too thick in most places to get one of those clamps around.

 

I'm a little confused about these stands you're using -- you say they go up 13' and are too thick around for a #2 clip, yet they're too light for anything heavier than a 650 fresnel??? What are they made out of, aluminum foil? :P Maybe they're wimpy still photography stands, made for lightweight strobes.

 

Normally a #2 clip fits around a standard baby stand. But if your stands are too thick you could at least clip the foamcore at the top and tape it into place at the bottom. Or use a #3 clip.

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They might well be yon wimpy stands ye speak of, but they've worked for me (did I mention they were air cushioned? They won't collapse in half a second from being fully extended and shatter your bulb). Perform pretty well, as far as stability, until the final extensions are out. Then it's time to be careful. Yes, very lightweight, probably aluminum. I think in my quest to be uber cheap and low budget, I have probably bought a lot of crap meant for other purposes.

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