I am so tired of getting my footage downloaded and finding my bride's beautiful faces underexposed during the outdoor shoots that I do along side her photographer.

I cannot take a light stand or anything even close to that. One of our sessions we walked a mile or more and I just cannot imagine carrying a light stand, and I'm not yet ready to pay an assitant for this kind of thing.

Is there a powerful camera-top light available with diffusion available?

I have a lowell id light, but haven't tried it outdoors, thought I suspect it wouldn't be enough at 100 watts.

How many watts would I need for a light to pump of the volume enough for my video shots in the shade so that her face is well exposed?

Jeff,
I used to use my Anton Bauer Ultralight with a 75W bulb and as long as I was within about 7 or 8 feet I would help open up shadows, much like shooting news. But since you may not be that close so your light may not help you. For anything more than 7 or 8 feet you'd probably need about 250watts and up to be any help - there are lights that will do 250 with a small softbox and run off a battery belt but I've never used them and not really sure how long it would last. I also can't remember who makes them. Sorry I can't be more help.

Don, if you have used a 75 watt light in the shade then my than my 100w should be of some help. I'll take it out this afternoon and play with it.

IF the photographer and you could work together, you could take 2 large reflectors since they pack way down and have no weight. Someone has to aim them though. Maybe the photographer could help?

So just make sure one of them is a diffusion screen to keep sun off the faces for the photographer while you do the holding and you both win.


About lights, Im not sure what the Lowell light is, but unless it has a good fresnel lens it will suffer from inverse square law losses which kill performance.

Even the lower wattage Arri fresnal lights are amazing and that's why so many people use them.

You can use the info here to help calculate the wattage you need from lighting:
THE INVERSE-SQUARE LAW (http://www.portraitlighting.net/inversesquare_law.htm)

Reflectors are easier.

yeah I agree about the ref;ectors so perhaps your light, a liteweight light stand, 1 clamp and 1 40" or so round reflector OR a person to hold it for you.
Remember though that the light is only good for a few feet in the outdoor enviorment.
I looked and can't find the light I was talking about but I've seen them. It's a 2x2 light though so it wouldn't fit on camera.

Jeff, I have mixed emotions regarding this topic.

I hear you on lighting and a coollight LED on battery power is your best bet. 5600k balanced and 600 watts with banks you can turn off.

But as a photographer, I would not want a bright video light on my bride that is paying me to produce beatiful images.

While it probably will not overexpose the images unless you are going for some shallow DOF, it might cause some strange light areas or distract the bride.

I don't think you have much chance of the Photographer helping you as this time with the bride is where the money is on the line.

How much are you willing to spend?

CWEB.com - Buy Cheap Anton Bauer UltraDAYlite HMI On Camera Light (http://cameras.cweb.com/lights-for-camcorders~1250/anton-bauer-ultradaylite-hmi-on-camera-light~12776.htm)

This thing weighs practically nothing, but packs a big wallop in your eyes and in your wallet.

A 25 watt light for $729! It is defninitely high tech based on the info I found for it but without questions too weak for my needs. I've a feeling it is for news interviews where you are no more than a few feet from the subject.

Tim, thanks for the tip on the coolights. As they are not camera top I can't utilize them, but they certainly would light her up.

Don't be fooled by wattage alone. A 25watt HMI puts out 350 foot candles at 1 meter. Thats roughly 4400 lumens!

Tim, thanks for the tip on the coolights. As they are not camera top I can't utilize them, but they certainly would light her up.

You could fit the Coolight in a backpack along with a folded up stand.

Warren, have you used the Anton Bauer on outdoor subjects at 6-8 feet?

I'm going to research the light more...I'm curious about what HMI is.

Tim, nice idea, thanks. But walking around a park, etc the photographer would often be halfway done with his shots before I got the light upacked and then I would have missed at least half of everything, and then it would be time to pack up and move along to the next location. Not practical, I'm afraid. With an assistant it would work, I suppose, but even still too time consuming. Everytime the photographer decided to move them 20 feet to the left or right what a mess that would be.

HMI is a brand name for special Osram metal halide bulbs. Actually its misleading to call that particular 25w bulb an "HMI". Its really just a metal halide bulb but people often call other non-Osram metal halide bulbs an "HMI". Also its doubtful its hot restrike like an Osram HMI bulb which means you can relight it instantly once you turn it off. Many metal halide bulbs will require a cool down period of about 5minutes before you can relight. They didn't say in the specs for the light so its something to check on if its an important point for you.

Metal halide is an efficient technology that can provide daylight or "tungsten" 3200K type colors, less infrared output than tungsten so a cooler light, and a very long life bulb in many cases.

We use regular metal halide and real HMI type bulbs in some of our products as well. Its a great alternative to tungsten.

I think I'll contact AB directly and ask them specifics about the light...Thanks a ton Richard!

Now I'll be forearmed with at least some info before calling them!

Great, tell us about it when you find out then we'll know for sure what kind of bulb is in it if it comes up again here.

I just learned that I have 90% of what I need already, the Lowell ID light.

The battery belt required for the AB light was over $1K, our of my budget, so I abandoned it immediately.

B and H guy (Morris) recommended running a 100w bulb in my light and adding a Dichroic filter. He said that should be fine.

I was amazed at what he told me...but this shows you I know nothing about lighting.

He said that my light, with the tungsten bulb will not show up outdoors. He said the filter will cut down my 100watts to 50, but that it will be effective whereas without the filter the light is nearly invisible.

He assured my the light should be effective in shade for 6 feet as a filler for my bride's faces. Does anyone have any experience with this scenario?

I've used tungsten lights with a blue color correction gel and it's very inefficient. To decently open up the shadows at a distance of about 10 feet required a 750-watt light that was slightly focused.

The blue gel will drop the output by about two stops. That means 4x less light.

It's much more efficient to use a daylight-balanced light source such as an HMI (costly), LED (not a whole lot of lumens) or a reflector (can get caught in the wind).

Another option to explore is doing spot-corrections in post. I use "Color" in Final Cut Pro to do all my color correction and grading. And it's not that hard to vignette a part of the composition to lighten or darken specific areas. And you can keyframe the position, size and character of each vignette.

It does take more time, but it does help make a good shot better.

Well Dean, it didn't seem logical that my puny light would do much outdoors.

I'm looking hard at reflectors. I'm dabbling in photography anyway, so this would be a great purchase.

I've shot only once where a photographer used reflectors, and the effect was nothing short of stunning. The face of the bride absolutely glowed, it was gorgeous.

My assistant can easily hold it, and with experimentation over time as we learn to effectively hold it, that might just be the ticket.

Thanks everyone for your helpful feedback.

HMI is a brand name for special Osram metal halide bulbs. Actually its misleading to call that particular 25w bulb an "HMI". Its really just a metal halide bulb but people often call other non-Osram metal halide bulbs an "HMI". Also its doubtful its hot restrike like an Osram HMI bulb which means you can relight it instantly once you turn it off. Many metal halide bulbs will require a cool down period of about 5minutes before you can relight. They didn't say in the specs for the light so its something to check on if its an important point for you.

Metal halide is an efficient technology that can provide daylight or "tungsten" 3200K type colors, less infrared output than tungsten so a cooler light, and a very long life bulb in many cases.

We use regular metal halide and real HMI type bulbs in some of our products as well. Its a great alternative to tungsten.

Although I couldn't tell you what type of bulb it is, I'm sure I could look it up. I have an Anton Bauer UltraDayLight going on 8 years now and I have yet to change a bulb. It restrikes in about 15 seconds, and even that is a long time especially when at the end of a quick off the shoulder interview you turn the light off and the producer suddenly says: "one more question"; 15 seconds becomes an eternity.

It is a great little light but outdoor at over 4/5 feet, like most of these little HMIs, is useless. Of course it all depends on the brightness of the existing light. The best use of these little HMI lights is with the subject backlit, no sunlight hitting the face just the little HMI.

It restrikes in about 15 seconds, and even that is a long time especially when at the end of a quick off the shoulder interview you turn the light off and the producer suddenly says: "one more question"; 15 seconds becomes an eternity.


Now that I think about it, its not all that unusual. A lot of small HID and Xenon bulbs can relight instantly. Like in the flashlight and car headlight class. I wonder what the color rendering of a bulb like that is. Some of the small HID ones I've looked at like those were terrible and had a bit of a green cast or the color temperature was kind of in the range of 4000Kish so not very flattering.

The only reason you are underexposed when shooting outdoor is because you are not using the zebra correctly and your lcd on your camera is not right, or you were shooting automatic, first thing is adjust your lcd on your camera using the builtin color bars and adjust it so that the brightness is exactly or close to your editing monitor, second is to learn how to use the zebra in your camera, 3rd is learn how to shoot manually then you will never be underexposed again, then you wouldn't be spending more money for light, more stuff to carrying around, pss... off photographer that were trying to shoot with availlable light and probably won't loose any referals from the photographer.(-:

Now that I think about it, its not all that unusual. A lot of small HID and Xenon bulbs can relight instantly. Like in the flashlight and car headlight class. I wonder what the color rendering of a bulb like that is. Some of the small HID ones I've looked at like those were terrible and had a bit of a green cast or the color temperature was kind of in the range of 4000Kish so not very flattering.

One thing that I was surprised about this little light was that the color temperature can be adjusted via a little screw accessible form the outside. In a dark room I adjusted the light until the white balance on the camera gave me 5600K. Not even my big HMIs have this adjustment, or at least not user's accessible.

This light, like any other on-camera-lights, is not intended for accuracy. I use it mainly for off the shoulder quick interviews and there are so many variables that can effect the color balance that beside a quick white balance we go with whatever is there. Color temperature vary from dusk to dawn anyway. I've never noticed any green cast but doesn't mean is not there, I seldom get to see the finished work and in 8 years that I own this little light nobody has complained yet.

One thing that I was surprised about this little light was that the color temperature can be adjusted via a little screw accessible form the outside. In a dark room I adjusted the light until the white balance on the camera gave me 5600K. Not even my big HMIs have this adjustment, or at least not user's accessible.


That's pretty amazing. I've never heard of a metal halide bulb you can change the color temp dynamically with. Wonder how they do it.

We finally got the new 15W dimmable Frezzi Micro Sun Gun last week.
Not enough to really fight the full Australian sun but with a bit of shade it provides usable fill:

http://www.frezzi.com/download/15W_Micro_hmi.pdf

Indoors I'd recommend the optional soft box or some form of diffusion, it's very bright!
Also it takes around 15 seconds to reach full output.

B and H guy (Morris) recommended running a 100w bulb in my light and adding a Dichroic filter. He said that should be fine.

I was amazed at what he told me...but this shows you I know nothing about lighting.

He said that my light, with the tungsten bulb will not show up outdoors. He said the filter will cut down my 100watts to 50, but that it will be effective whereas without the filter the light is nearly invisible.

I've used a Sachtler 100W hand-held (it is possible to mount it on camera, but it is quite huge, not made for handheld camcorders) which is pretty bright. Outdoors it can be helpful with a 1/2 ctb or 3/4 ctb max if you're in the shade and the light is relatively close.
I have also used different 50W halogen on-camera lights without ctb as a fill - why would the light be invisible without the ctb? It's brighther than with a ctb, of course, but it introduces a yellow-orangeish tone. However when there's a lot of daylight, the color shift isn't that huge - at least I think for interviews it's okay, but if you're shooting a short film, I wouldn't go without ctb as you don't want to get that "artificially lit" look.

But in the end you can forget most halogen lights if you want more than a tiny fill from close-up. I mean even an 800W Arri with 1/2 ctb won't be of much help as soon as the sun is shining. You have to think 2 or 5kW HMI if you want to light outdoors at daytime. Or a reflector (which is a lot cheaper and easier!)