studio lighting
Light sources Tungsten Vacuum tungsten lamps are widely used forms of artificial lighting in photography, film and television. They have a color temperature between 3200K and 3400K. Despite the extensive use of flash in a commercial studio, prior to any flash exposure the way a subject is lit is determined by the tungsten modelling lamps built into the flash heads. Flash gives a much shorter exposure time and a comparable quality of light to tungsten. It should be taken into account when learning the use of tungsten light that all film and television lighting is tungsten based. Generally they all fall into two major categories, floodlight and spotlight.
Floodlight A floodlight produces a spread of light across a subject. The light from the globe bounces off the reflector in which it sits and travels forward as a broad light source. This diffuse light gives ‘soft’ edges to the shadows and some shadow detail. The quality of the light is similar to that of sunlight through light cloud.
Spotlight
Rodrick Bond
A spotlight can concentrate light at a certain point. The light is directed forward by a hemispherical reflector and focused to a point by a focusing (Fresnel) lens. The shadows will have ‘hard’ edges with no detail. The quality of the light is similar to direct sunlight. Spotlights can be flooded to give a more diffuse quality. This change from spot to flood is achieved by moving the lamp and the reflector inside the lamp housing away from (spot) or closer to (flood) the lens at the front of the light. On ‘full spot’ shadows are harsh with no detail, on ‘full flood’ shadows are softer with some detail. Most spotlights come with barn doors and nets. Barn doors are metal flaps attached to the front of the light and control the shape and amount of light. Nets are pieces of wire gauze of varying densities that reduce the output of the light by diffusing the light at its source without greatly affecting the shadows. They are manufactured in half and one and two stop increments.
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