lighting What lights should I use in this case?

H

harmonica44

For my next short, I was wondering what lights I should use. Before I was using 500 watt halogen lights, but this time I would like something brighter. Bright enough to shoot at f8, with the ISO at no more than 800 if possible, for indoor lighting. I was thinking maybe 1000 watt halogens, but is there anything brighter that would be better for f8 and ISO at 800, do you think?
 
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Sounds like you need an illuminated response. Pity I don't do those. Make your friggin film. Stop your stalling with these inane questions. If you want to know your best option, do some tests and come to a conclusion. Let us know how each way went.
 
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Light.
There is more to it than f-stop and Watts.

ISO, fps (and thus shutter speed) together with f-stop define how long and how 'bright' the sensor is exposed.
Light falls off as the distance from the light source increases.
Watts is a measure of powerconsumption, not of light output.

But yes, if you want brighter lights, use lights that are brighter.
Is it enough light to properly expose at f8?
I can't tell: you left out 4 out 5 parameter that matter to calculate it.

The fastest way to find out: make stuff.
Stop this micromanaging smartsounding, but uninformed questions.
Imagine we gave you all the answers: you would still ask whether it's better to arrange the colors of your paperclips alphabeticly or rainbowly, just to avoid shooting.

Bikeshedding indeed.
 
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Well I just don't want to go out and by like 8 out of those lights to light an interior scene, and find out they are not what I was looking for. I have a budget, but the budget cannot consist of doing several trial and error tests, as that will just make the budget go higher, so I was wondering what lights are just the overall best for that.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well I just don't want to go out and by like 8 out of those lights to light an interior scene, and find out they are not what I was looking for. I have a budget, but the budget cannot consist of doing several trial and error tests, as that will just make the budget go higher, so I was wondering what lights are just the overall best for that.
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:lol: After all this time my man you're still asking question like it's your first day on the board.

The "best" are going to be way out of your budget range.
And without saying what your budget is, it's not possible for anyone to give you a meaningful answer.

You've asked another "how long is a piece of string" question
Personally I use DIY LED lights and I'm happy with them.

If you have a fancy camera that is amazing in low light then you can adjust the aperture for a deep focus and then just pump the ISO to something crazy with your existing lights.
 
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Okay, thanks. Well I was thinking of getting lights that did not cost more than $100 each. I was also thinking of getting a Sony A7s camera, for low lighting but figured I should probably just stick to the Canon T2i I got for now, and work with others would have better cameras later maybe.

I guess what I will do is get either 500 watt or 1000 watt halogens, and then if I have to shoot at a high ISO, I will clean it up later in post maybe.

Are your LED lights as bright as a 1000 watt halogen? They don't look that bright, when I sees others use them. They also often look daylight balanced, where as I am looking for something tungsten balanced, cause I like the skin tones that tungsten brings out. But if there are tungsten LEDs than that's good.

But then again, if LEDs work better I can change the skin tone after, if I want something else of course.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay, thanks. Well I was thinking of getting lights that did not cost more than $100 each. I was also thinking of getting a Sony A7s camera, for low lighting but figured I should probably just stick to the Canon T2i I got for now, and work with others would have better cameras later maybe.

I guess what I will do is get either 500 watt or 1000 watt halogens, and then if I have to shoot at a high ISO, I will clean it up later in post maybe.

Are your LED lights as bright as a 1000 watt halogen? They don't look that bright, when I sees others use them. They also often look daylight balanced, where as I am looking for something tungsten balanced, cause I like the skin tones that tungsten brings out. But if there are tungsten LEDs than that's good.

But then again, if LEDs work better I can change the skin tone after, if I want something else of course.
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You can use either color balance of LEDs, warm and cold. and depending on the scene sometimes I'll mix them together with warm on the actors but daylight balance on the background, etc.

Yes my DIY LED are 1000W equivalent and very simple if I want to increase that I just add another row of LED.

What I do are power strips + adaptors (outlet to light bulb) + splitters (one light bulb to two) and then i put that in a box with white diffusion over it mounted on a light stand

So two power strips, one with 6 bulbs and one with 4 bulbs. (one strip is plugged into the other) and with 10 LED light bulbs that are 100W equivalent it's like a 1000W bulb, high quality LED. If any piece breaks it's easy as can be to replace it yourself and get everything working again. You can upgrade it, you can take it apart and use the pieces for your house in the future if you stop filming.

In reality its only 140W so it won't blow your circuit like those halogens would.
2000W of halogen i think is going to pop some circuit breakers.


I know i should made a DIY youtube video at some point for my lights but it's probably not going to happen.
 
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Just a quick note about LED's.
The cheaper the unit (in general) the crapper the light quality. Poor LEDs can have frequency deficiencies particularly in red. Or, they can have green or magenta spikes. If your using all of the same LEDs and there is no other light source to match, it can be dialed out easily. However, if it's mixing with "real" sources like true daylight or HMIs, the color shifts in the LEDs become very noticeable. Just saying... you get what you pay for in almost all situations.
 
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RRW said:
Just a quick note about LED's.
The cheaper the unit (in general) the crapper the light quality. Poor LEDs can have frequency deficiencies particularly in red. Or, they can have green or magenta spikes. If your using all of the same LEDs and there is no other light source to match, it can be dialed out easily. However, if it's mixing with "real" sources like true daylight or HMIs, the color shifts in the LEDs become very noticeable. Just saying... you get what you pay for in almost all situations.
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I agree with that and I haven't done any testing, but the LEDs I used weren't cheap. Not the little tiny christmas looking lights where there are 300 of them. These are big LEDs like $10 and the size of a normal light bulb.
 
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