Key light for outdoors in daylight?
 

Hi All,

I'm looking for recommendations for an on camera or smallish battery powered light that I can use as a Key or Fill light when shooting in full sunlight. Basically, if the sun is in back of the subject, their face is a dark shadow and I want to light them up. I want to try not to use a reflector though so please recommend battery powered lights that are very portable.

thanks,
Scott

Why not use a reflector? It'll be the best bang for your buck, and makes use of the available "wattage" of the strongest source you have: the sun. Anything on-camera will never be able to compete with the sun, even for fill. An HMI would be the closet thing you'd need and that's definitely not mountable on cam.

I'm not looking for an exact match to the suns power, just something that allows me to expose the faces better while not blowing out backgrounds and the sky so bad.

Like I said, please recommend something portable, battery powered and not a reflector...so, can you show me the battery powered , portable HMI?



thanks.

Scott

Frezzi makes the most powerful battery operated HMI on the market, 400w. That will cost you close to $4500. I'm not sure if it's available yet.
EFPlighting.com-Frezzi

K5600 makes a 200w with AC\DC ballast that can be operated with two Anton Bauer bricks or with a 30v battery belt.
EFPlighting.com-K5600

If you are looking for any quality your best combination is an overhead silk to reduce and soften the sunlight, a double black net to reduce the background by about 1.5 stops and then use a HMI. Even a 400w HMI alone will not be enough to control the background in sunlight, all you'll be able to do with an HMI is to reduce the shadows on the face.

Sachtler makes a HMI sun-gun which is small and lightweight. On the other hand it's only 21 Watts (12V) and it will not be brighter than a 50-75W tungsten light. A little better than nothing, I guess, but surely not enough to compete with sunlight.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...us_Flood_.html

Somebody mentioned a few months ago an HID spotlight for the situation you're describing. I actually bought one but haven't tried it for this yet (gotta get around to that...). The thing is very bright, daylight color, and rechargeable. The light is harsh, but with some diffussion I think it might work. Here's the link http://boatandrvaccessories.com/SLH100P