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April 7, 2006
lighting: par cans
by sven at 12:00 pm
I just got my par cans in the mail.
As I had hoped, these lights allow me to create more dramatic lighting.
The PAR 46 is what's lighting all the test photos here.
The PAR 16 didn't come with a bulb -- and I'm a little confused about what I need to get for it -- so it hasn't been tested yet. Just to give you a sense of scale: this one's small enough that a 60watt bulb wouldn't fit inside of its housing.
The blue gel produces the happiest results. As Gretchin pointed out, I could use it to suggest a moonlit night.
The red gel created surprisingly saturated results. If I hadn't taken this shot myself, I would have sworn it was photoshopped... But no -- the pic is unaltered.
The green gel didn't really do much for me one way or the other.
Prior to the arrival of the par cans, I'd been using lights that are made for photographers doing portrait shoots. They are amazingly bright -- the par can can't compete at all. I suspect I'll order another par can or two in the not too distant future... Maybe some PAR 64's? I'd like to be able to do a traditional three-point lighting arrangement.
I'd also really like to get dimmers for the lights -- but I haven't been able to find anything appropriate yet. If I could dim my white lights, then maybe I could use them together with the par cans... which would be nice.
posted by sven | April 7, 2006 12:00 PM | comments (4) | categories: movies, stopmo
Comments
Congrats on getting some good movie lighting! I hope you're going to get some more subtle gels, those primary colors are awfully intense and harsh. And generally speaking, you don't want to use a dimmer on lights because it affects the color temperature (red/blue bias). Probably not important unless you're going for completely realistic time-of-day type effects and actually understand how to read/use the numbering system of the gels, but generally you'd use diffusion to reduce light intensity. I also sometimes actually aim the light away from set rather than toward it. I had to do that for Buster's latest outing because his head and hands are a little shiny, so I was getting hard glare points on them until I turned my PAR 46 and the desklamp I'm using for rim lighting entirely away from the set (diffusion helped reflect a lot of it back) and opened up my iris to drink up a lot of light into the lens.
Posted by: Darkstrider at April 7, 2006 3:25 PM
you're hardly ever going to use just one primary gel in a scene. good lighting is never just one color -- it's usually strong white in combination with focused, complemetary colors. i like the dimmer idea but also think you could get/make a reflector/diffuser, too.
Posted by: gl. at April 8, 2006 2:29 PM
Yeah, I'm jealous...trying to decide what to purchase first, I think I may want to start with a better tracking system for my camera setup, like Mike has posted on his site...the lighting definitely looks cool, very moody and 'moonlit'..that set piece is nice too, I think with the right lighting (you've almost got it in the pic above) it could absolutely look like a cave wall...maybe add some small rocks or boulders at the base to give it a more curved look...cave wall or no, you've got a set piece ready to go! Keep 'em comin'...
Posted by: ubatuber at April 8, 2006 4:59 PM
Hey there... Just to say the page loads WAAAAY too slow....you should maybe only show the last 5 updates on the main page... See ya!
Posted by: Ale at April 10, 2006 4:09 PM