Light for outdoor bridal shoots

[Richard Andrewski]

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.

[Jeff Harper]

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?

[Dean Sensui]

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.

[Jeff Harper]

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.

[Nino Giannotti]

Originally Posted by Richard Andrewski

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.

[Richard Andrewski]

Originally Posted by Nino Giannotti

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.

[Khoi Pham]

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.(-:

[Nino Giannotti]

Originally Posted by Richard Andrewski

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.

[Richard Andrewski]

Originally Posted by Nino Giannotti

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.

[Bob Grant]

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.

[Heiko Saele]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

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!)