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Lighting your home


James Tanouye

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Hi everyone. This is my first post and I just wanted to say I've learned so much from this forum and that I view films completely differently now (In a good way). I am itching to film and start experimenting with lighting. Anyways, I was just wondering. Seeing how DPs are truly lovers of light, how do you guys light your home? As I have just moved into a new apartment, I couldn't help but look around and fantasize how I would want to light each room. Any unique setups? Thanks.

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Speaking just about what is actually in my home. Not trying to make it look a certain way. I have installed those blue temp 60w "daylight" bulbs in most of my lamps and ceiling fixtures. Some have compact flos which are pretty "white."

 

I have some flo units in my camera room that are all lamped with Chroma 50's and I've got some Kino 32's on standby if I need to shoot a test on tungsten or something. Then I have a china ball hung in the living room as well as one in my editing room, both lamped with 100w "daylight" bulbs on dimmers. I like a "whiter/cleaner" looking light.

 

I also have those cool windows that you open with a crank and they're big. They let a lot of sunlight in. This house was built in the early 40's to house military famillies close to what was then a SAC base. Carswell AFB in Fort Worth.

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I personally hate the trend here with recessed little 12V MR16 halogen spots. Almost to the point where I don't like entering shops that have this design feature. They're so ugly and have such a horrible light - people look sick under them. Toplight can be beautiful, but hard toplight rarely is.

 

To make things worse - almost everyone has this now, it really is THE trend of the mid 90's and early 2000's with interior designers.

 

I have sworn to decorate my house with very big, soft sources when the time comes. In my house everyone will look beautiful. :D :D

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I personally like the MR16 "pinspot" lights, but NOT for lighting people (in real world situations, not talking photography here). Those types of lights are really designed as accent or task lights, not ambient lights. Best used when pointed at a wall to highlight something, or as a task light directly down onto a countertop, for example.

 

The basic division that most interior lighting designers use are ambient lighting, a general wash of light to see by; task lighting, such as a desklamp to read by; and accent lighting, to highlight an artwork for example.

 

I'm a big fan of indirect light for ambient lighting; I've got torchieres and other uplights on dimmers to bounce off the ceiling for an indirect, soft quality. Try placing multiple units around the room so that the ambience "wraps" the entire room and avoids a directional quality. Simply using two lights in opposing corners can do the trick. I've got 60W "reveal" bulbs, just slightly bluer than conventional softwhites.

 

I've got a 6500 degree fluorescent bulb in a lamp on my desk near the window, so that I can augment the natural daylight with a similar color. Photographically it would have green in it, but by eye you don't really see it and it doesn't bother me.

 

But I also love the warmth that tungsten lights through lampshades give off, and I also dim the bouncelights (making them warmer) when I view movies. To counteract the warm orange color (TV is balanced closed to daylight), I've got a couple blue-green party bulbs I bounce off the ceiling at the same time. It sounds cheesy by description, but it really does make a soothing environment for watching movies while also keeping the overall color temperature more complimentary to the image on the screen.

 

I think the basic central ceiling-mounted fixture found in most bedrooms gives the harshest, ugliest quality of light no matter how large or decorative the shade. Rip that sucker out of there and put in a ceiling fan instead!

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If I could, I'd light my house with Kinos!

 

A camerman I know actually had Kino give him a quote for his house. The problem is, if you read the labels on them, they are "Not for Residential Use". If you have them and your house burns down, this would be an easy way for your insurance co to say 'too bad'.

 

You can however buy high-frequency, dimmable fluorescent ballasts from several residential lighting manufacturers, and bulb them with high CRI (color rendition index) 3200k or 5600k bulbs. These are the ones I like: Advance Electronic Ballasts

 

I have also found some 120v halogen strips that look great under my kitchen counters, and can be dimmed with a normal dimmer/no special wiring.

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I'm restoring a 1926 building, so what we live with is a lot of bare bulb worklights. But the finished rooms are lit mainly with wall sconces and chandeliers, in the style of the time. Given the dynamic range of human vision, white walls produce enough soft fill, especially around the sconces. You can kill the hard component with a shade if you want, or keep it. All the final lighting is tungsten/argon/borosilicate, again in keeping with the period. I hate flourescents. I'm also considering hanging small lights in front of the windows, in the Scandinavian tradition.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Huzzah college, my room's lit by a single 4 foot flouro, complete with green spike :D

 

Hey, even in my college dorm rooms I never turned on the overhead fluorescent. I didn't know much about film lighting at the time, but I knew I hated that kind of light. :blink: All I had was a desk lamp to work with, but the soft warm bounce from down low was far more appealing than the big green wash from above.

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