From the course: Green Screen Techniques for Video and Photography

Using constant lighting for photo and video

From the course: Green Screen Techniques for Video and Photography

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Using constant lighting for photo and video

- So here we are, both the photographer and the videographer. - And the videographer. - And what do we do? I meant there's a challenge. You use constant lights. I've been using strobes. You know this happens a lot. - It does, yeah and so a lot of situations, it's very common where client requests that you shoot video and stills at the same time. So you have to decide are you going to use strobes or are you going to use constant lighting. And really, the winner is video. - The winner is video and constant lighting because I can adapt to the constant lighting much easier than video can adapt to the strobe lighting. Well, strobe doesn't even work well for video. - Correct. - And you have a lot more challenges because things are moving and you need to have a nice solid background. - Right and so one of the issues with video is that your shutter speed is locked so you can't have as much flexibility as you can. So it's a lot easier to adapt a photo to video than it is video to photo lighting. - Exactly, and usually what the difference is is that the luminance are the power of the light is a lot lower with constant lighting than I'm used to with shooting with strobe so I need to adapt. And some of the things that I might need to do is either increase my ISO so I have more sensitivity on my sensor. I can open up my aperture and that can be a challenge sometimes because I'm losing that depth of field and again, there's shutter speed. And I can lower my shutter speed to match yours, which is a lot easier for me than for you to raise your shutter speed, but then I need to be careful about blur and movement. So, even though it is easier for me to do this, I just have to be aware of that same triangle and what's the best mix in the case of me shooting in your style of light. And another thing that I'm lucky is that I get to shoot raw which means I have a lot of latitude like 14 stops and as a videographer, you don't have that latitude. So once again, - Video wins. - Video wins and I don't that I wins, but I think it's much easier for me accommodate you than for you to try to accommodate me and I think that's the key is that latitude. And just as a side note, sometimes we have to shoot at the same time. It'll be nice if you can shoot and then I can shoot and we can both focus, but often the photographer needs to grab some stills while you're videotaping and a shutter can be noisy. So check your camera to see if it has a silent shooting option, that way if you need simultaneously with the videographer, you're not going to mess up their sound. - One of things to keep in mind with a DSRL or mirrorless camera is that many times what you see is what you get. Whereas in photo, there's raw but the formats that we're shooting in video are much more compressed. There's not as much flexibility in terms of the dynamic range and what you can do with it. So, you really have to get it right on set, and that means that you can't adapt as well as photo using strobes or any type of lighting like that. So constant lighting and dealing with some of the limitations. That's were we have to adapt and really come down and work with video. - So obviously, it's much easier for me to adapt to your lighting and your establishing. As a matter of fact, it's the same lighting setup then for you to have to adapt to mine. So I'm happy to work with your lighting. - I appreciate that. - That's great, and with that, let me go ahead and take a few shots with constant lighting.

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