Lighting and Accessories for Video

PHOTOGRAPHY · GLOBAL

Lighting and Accessories for Video

Why light matters most, continuous lighting basics, audio and stabilisation

Video quality is decided by light and sound long before it is decided by the camera. Both are cheaper to improve than a new body or lens.

One light, placed well

A single light at roughly 45 degrees to the subject and slightly above eye level produces natural modelling. Adding a reflector on the opposite side fills the shadow and costs almost nothing.

Moving a light is free and changes an image more than buying a second one.

Soften it

A bare light source produces hard shadows. The larger the light appears relative to the subject, the softer it is — which means a softbox, a diffuser, or simply moving the light closer.

Bouncing light off a white wall or ceiling is the cheapest soft light source available to anyone.

Colour temperature

Mixing daylight from a window with warm tungsten room light gives faces two different colours that are difficult to correct. Match your lights to the dominant source, or block the window and control everything.

Look for a colour rendering index above 95 for anything used on skin.

Audio matters more than picture

Viewers tolerate imperfect video and stop watching bad audio within seconds. Get a microphone close to the subject — a lapel or a shotgun on a boom — rather than relying on the camera.

Record in a room with soft furnishings, since echo cannot be removed afterwards in any meaningful way.

Stabilisation

A tripod fixes most problems. A gimbal suits moving shots and takes practice, and locked-off shots from a tripod look more professional than unsteady moving ones.

Small accessories that matter

Spare batteries and cards, a lens cloth, gaffer tape and a small clamp solve more problems on a shoot than anything expensive. Label memory cards and offload them onto a computer the same day.

A variable neutral density filter lets you hold a wide aperture in bright light, and cheap ones cause colour casts and banding.

Working outdoors

Wind noise ruins audio, so use a windshield on any microphone outside. Weigh down every light stand, since a falling light is both expensive and genuinely dangerous.

Lighting a face

Eye level or slightly above, never below, since lighting from underneath looks unsettling. A small light in the eyes produces a catchlight that makes a face look alive.

Separate the subject from the background using distance or a light placed behind them, which adds a sense of depth that no camera setting can provide.

Power

Batteries run out at the worst moment. Carry spares, and for anything long use mains power where possible.

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