suggested tips for lighting a poker table

[Claudio Monni]

Good morning to everyone I'm very new to this forum,

can someone suggest me how the picture attached is litted up?

 

Thank you in advance

[Robin R Probyn]

Looks like it could just be the practical light in shot..maybe photo flood bulbs .. light reflected up from the table.. letting the centre of the table burn out a bit..? maybe something soft/subtle from the front too..

Edited May 10, 2018 by Robin R Probyn

[Bruce Greene]

It looks to me that there are 3 light sources used in your example.

 

1. the practical lamp in the shot lights the table and a little bit of the player's bodies near the table.

2. there seems to be a soft (ish) source that top/front lights the rear two player's faces. It's flagged from the foreground players and is positioned close to the table or even above it.

3 there seems to be a soft (ish) back light for the foreground players

 

there may also be some white reflector or minimal fill for the foreground players for when they turn towards the camera, but I can't really see this clearly from the example.

[David Mullen ASC]

Looks to me like they used a screw-in spot PAR bulb instead of a regular frosted light bulb so that there was hot spot in the center of the table bright enough to bounce back up into the faces. There may be some additional lighting but that bulb is doing most of the work.

[Curt Massof]

Maybe see if you can rent one of these. Takes up to a 1k bulb and has black duv that can be used to skirt and control where the light goes.

This would pretty much do what you need.

 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/501160-REG/Westcott_7051_PokerLite_Lantern_Softbox.html