what lights to use

[David Kurtiz]

hi red users

this is my first post, sorry if ive posted this in the wrong area.

im using the red for the first time in a few week and i wanted to know about what type of lights to use, ive been told to stay away from tunsten lights but wasnt told why.

any other tips you guys can give me would be more then welcomed.

thanks

d.k

 

[Jon Carr]

the reason people say stay away from tungsten light is because these are CMOS sensors and the are calibrated for around 5000k I believe. So HMIs, LEDs, and daylight balanced tubes are mostly the way to go. You can shoot with tungsten just fine, but not lighting well with tungsten will really bring out noise in your image.

 

[Julian Gerretsen]

The RED sensor loves blue daylight balanced light and is not as good with the warmer tungsten (not awful, but not quite as good). Where possible, light for daylight balance if you can. If you have to light exclusively with tungsten balanced indoors, be sure not to go anywhere near underexposure in parts of the scene that you DON'T want noise in when you colour correct later.

I think the general consensus with RED seems to be that you should get good quality exposures in camera and then do all grading in post.... i.e. don't try getting too clever grading in camera with your lighting levels.... rather go for a "flattish" exposure that you can tweak later. You can always add contrast to a good exposure, but you can't take it away from a bad exposure.

And of course, uncorrected tungsten used as fillers outdoors in daylight will be completely off.

If you are wanting to stick with tungstens such as Ianiro Redheads (for budget reasons - a lot of lighting for a lot less outlay), then you can get a nice long roll of tungsten to daylight gel for not much $ from any of the film lighting supply stores. The gel will cut the light output very slightly but that's more than compensated for by the cost savings IMHO.

Some of those HMI's are very pricey - I've seen HMI bulbs (just the bulb) advertised for what a Redhead with a stand and a couple of spare bulbs costs . You can also get fitted Dichroic Daylight filters for redheads but they can be pricey too and easily broken. Gels give you an excellent amount of flexibility.

Of course for interiors, if your film lighting kit is daylight balanced and you are then shooting mixed with tungsten practicals, you'll have to gel them individually as well to avoid orange glows wherever your practicals are - or swap out the bulbs for daylight balanced ones.

If you are going down the (advisable) route of correcting your tungsten filming lights to daylight, then just keep the camera locked onto 5600K (daylight) and then preview onscreen whilst you set up the lights and set exposure about 2 stops under (just for the lighting setup). Any practicals you haven't gelled will show up like an orange sore thumb.

Also remember that the RED doesn't "lock in" your white balance setting.... it's just metadata and totally controllable after filming..... but the camera does prefer that blue light!!

I am of course assuming that like most of us, you are on a limited budget. If you have a producer with an open chequebook happy to do your renting for you, take the opportunity!

 

[David Kruta]

I'd like to add that if you don't mind mixed sources, using a couple of HMIs or tungstens with CTB will activate the blue channel and reduce noise overall. You can still use tungstens, but having one daylight balanced source does a lot of good.

 

[Mark Wilkinson]

You can also light with tungsten lights and throw a blue filter on the lens to "activate" the blue channel - and 80c is a good compromise - doesn't soak up too much light, still gets you most of the way to 5000K.

Though I admit, I've shot without any filtration, used tungsten lighting and had no problem with noise - with proper exposure at 320. When I pushed to 800 things got ugly.

Never tried to push a daylight-lit scene - out of curiosity - anybody tried this?

 

[David Kruta]

You can also light with tungsten lights and throw a blue filter on the lens to "activate" the blue channel - and 80c is a good compromise - doesn't soak up too much light, still gets you most of the way to 5000K.

I've seen this used very effectively. One of those set-and-forget techniques if you need to crank and can't be bothered gelling lights all day.