School Lighting

[Dan Witrock]

I'm shooting inside a high school and was wondering if anyone had any experience as to counteracting the overhead fluorescent lighting of a school

 

as in...

 

other options besides:

 

gelling the magenta or green spikes of the existing tubes

 

OR

 

replacing them with 5600' kino tubes.

 

Any other thoughts?

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally I swap them out, usually to the cheaper Chroma 50 tubes, not Kino 55 tubes.

 

But if there are hardly any windows or daylight spilling in, it would be cheaper just to gel the windows (I usually use 1/2 Plus Green) or black them out and shoot under the uncorrected fluorescents. You can use a CC Magenta filter on the camera to reduce some of the green if you feel it is necessary.

 

So it depends on which is easier, how many tubes there are to swap out, etc.

[Dan Witrock]

Generally I swap them out, usually to the cheaper Chroma 50 tubes, not Kino 55 tubes.

 

But if there are hardly any windows or daylight spilling in, it would be cheaper just to gel the windows (I usually use 1/2 Plus Green) or black them out and shoot under the uncorrected fluorescents. You can use a CC Magenta filter on the camera to reduce some of the green if you feel it is necessary.

 

So it depends on which is easier, how many tubes there are to swap out, etc.

 

 

 

Thanks David. I guess I'm leaning then towards just renting a handful of Chroma 50's then because I'm worried about some of the overhead fluorescents that already exist having a green spike and then others having a magenta spike. And so that kind of rules out gelling the windows with only one color, and also putting a filter on the camera.

[JD Hartman]

You might check with maintenance/custodial to see if the fixtures accept T8 or T12 tubes. That will affect you options when it comes to swapping out the tubes.

[michael best]

If you can avoid seeing the fixtures you can bounce lights into the celling to simulate the overhead fluorescent light. But usually the best way is to switch the bulbs out.

[David Rakoczy]

(IRGRIP),

 

Per the rules of this forum, please go to My Controls and change your screen name to your first and last name.

 

The Members thank you in advance.

[Wesley Hartshorn]

About Fluresent lighting: What are some problems you'll run into when using Tungsten 3400 to illuminate objects and subjects in your scene and also using 2 kinos for fill??

 

Basically I'm interested in learning more about the techniques of getting the best fill light while maintaining 3200 - 3400. Not sure if there is a unique way or if this is even possible as I'm always learning.

 

I thought I should mention the Camera set-up

Panasonic DVX100

Letus 35mm adapter

 

Any feedback from the community is much appreciated

 

-Wes

[David Mullen ASC]

There are 3200K Kino tubes.

[Wesley Hartshorn]

Thanks David, Learning about the different temperature tubes helps out a lot and answers more than just my initial question.

 

In your experience what has worked best for getting soft fill when using the Letus 35? The adapter stops down so much lighting that in my experience it's been difficult to get soft shadow edges without blowing out some part on the talent. Aside from the adapter question basically what techniques do you use when filling an indoor scene.

 

Thanks David

[David Mullen ASC]

Thanks David, Learning about the different temperature tubes helps out a lot and answers more than just my initial question.

 

In your experience what has worked best for getting soft fill when using the Letus 35? The adapter stops down so much lighting that in my experience it's been difficult to get soft shadow edges without blowing out some part on the talent. Aside from the adapter question basically what techniques do you use when filling an indoor scene.

 

Thanks David

 

Not sure why the adaptor would cause an increase in contrast.

[Wesley Hartshorn]

It's not the adapter that causes the increase in contrast, it's the amount of light needed

for the camera to pick up picture and give a soft fall of shadows.

 

So if I'm shooting a CU of a character and I want their face 1/2 lit with a soft shadow edge

on one side of their face I would need to light their face with so much light that on some parts of their face are blown out.

 

I was wondering if you knew of any other ways to create soft shadows using fill.

 

This photo gives an idea of what I'm talking about: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3356/354680..._05f4bdf447.jpg

[David Mullen ASC]

An adaptor cutting light doesn't increase contrast because everything is cut, both highlights and shadows. It can't somehow cut the shadows but not affect the highlights. If anything, it should be lowering contrast by washing out the image since it has to be rephotographed off of a groundglass screen.

 

What's just happening is that the overall image is being darkened, and you are more clearly seeing the difference between the shadows and the highlights because you can't overexpose the shot and the highlights as much, thus opening up the shadows. But the contrast is the same, just everything is overall darker.

 

If you need to add more fill light, you add more fill light -- there are dozens of ways to fill in a shot.

 

I also don't understand how the fill would make the shadows softer -- you soften a shadow by softening the key light. Unless you mean "soften" as in lighten, not make the edges of shadow patterns softer.

[Wesley Hartshorn]

When you explained the the overall image is being darkened and you are more clearly seeing the difference b/w the shadows and highlights that helped me to understand my basic concern. It's not so much an overexposure issue as it is decreasing the difference b/w shadow and highlights.

 

I'm going for a smoother transition b/w shadow and highlights. thanks for your insight