Video lighting advice please

[Dickcharles]

Hello, I have a recording studio with a vocal booth. I want to be able to get a decent video of the talent in there, but my lighting isn't up to scratch.

What do I need? It's a small room, just 1.8m by 1.2m. The talent stands in the centre and sings. There is maybe 0.5m above their head.

Needs to be led as I don't want heat in there. I have a couple of cheap dmx lights in there for mood lighting so something I could hook up to the dmx would be good.

I was thinking a tight spot on the artist rather than a wash, although I realise it's a tight space to light.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Grapes]

Hello, I have a recording studio with a vocal booth. I want to be able to get a decent video of the talent in there, but my lighting isn't up to scratch.

What do I need? It's a small room, just 1.8m by 1.2m. The talent stands in the centre and sings. There is maybe 0.5m above their head.

Needs to be led as I don't want heat in there. I have a couple of cheap dmx lights in there for mood lighting so something I could hook up to the dmx would be good.

I was thinking a tight spot on the artist rather than a wash, although I realise it's a tight space to light.

Thanks for any suggestions.

You might want something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dimmable-Co...udio+light+set
You may also want these if you're going to do "looking like a pretty princess" close ups of a talent: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Dimm...words=ring+led

[jochicago]

I use these:
http://amzn.to/2D3pBnk

You may want to look around and get a kit version with stands, but the idea is the same: a softbox that accepts 4 standard bulbs (and you want more than 1, at least 2). Then you have your choice of bulbs: CFL, LED, whatnot.

If you go this route, look for high CRI bulbs. Anything in the 90+ range will do fine. These days even CFLs that are unrated tend to be decent in the 85+ range. If your bulbs are not high CRI, the colors will be duller than they should, and you may even notice some off-coloring in the green or magenta ranges. So at first you may be fine with cheap bulbs but you really want to be using 90+ CRI bulbs to make sure the lighting is not reducing the quality of the colors.

These softboxes are more than very good for the price - although one died on me during a shoot (but they are cheap so there's no reason not to have spares lying around if you are doing something serious). They are large enough that you can provide nice soft light on female faces, you can even double them up by putting them next to each other edge-to-edge for double output from the same side. And if you want a more dramatic look, the boxes are small enough that you can walk them back a few feet and end up with stronger shadows, and you can remove the front cover to create slightly harsher light.

They are not very bright compared to pro lights, but if you use 100watt equivalent bulbs then you end up with 400 watt equivalent output out of each box, which is enough to shoot at 400 ISO in many situations, and probably even as low as 100 ISO if you are doing close ups or double them up.

So I definitely recommend that anyone just starting out should spend the little bit of money and get one ore more of these, a stand or two, and a decent set of high CRI bulbs. LED preferred, but even CFL works fine for video as long as you keep an eye on unwanted flicker (at around 1/60s CFLs can show some flicker, but it is an easy fix, just adjust your shutter up or down a bit until the flickering is gone).

[Midnight Blue]

It really depend on the look you're going for. If you use a tight spot in a dark room as you suggested that can give the image a moody look which can be nice. If you just want enough light to get a clean image of the singer you could try something as simple as a 100w bulb and a Chinese lantern shade. So the look you want will determine the way to go.

[jochicago]

It really depend on the look you're going for. If you use a tight spot in a dark room as you suggested that can give the image a moody look which can be nice. If you just want enough light to get a clean image of the singer you could try something as simple as a 100w bulb and a Chinese lantern shade. So the look you want will determine the way to go.

I think that's a great solution on a small budget and a tight space. But I do feel that 100w is seldom enough light for any application, so people might want 2 or more of these, and unless you are getting them imported straight from China you may end up paying around the same or more than for the softbox I suggested that produces a much more purposeful light output (although the lanterns are much easier to fit in tight spots and can be more versatile because you can have a few to place around).