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Rembrandt lighting for HDV
Does anyone have any ideas or experience lighting for HDV? I need to shoot a lot of very close and intimate dramatic interviews, all will be shot against dark BG with dramatic Rembrandt style lighting.
Seems to me that because depth of field is so great on these cams, with tiny CCDs and high sensitivity, we would have to totally black out the room first, and then light with the idea of shooting wide open if possible. Am I right about that? Any other helpful ideas???
TIA,
DRW -
7 Replies
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David,
Lighting for HDV would be the same as lighting for any 1/3″ camera. You are correct in your plan to minimize the ambient light to create a moody environment, but you can achieve the wide open apperture with ND filters as well. This might be the case if you used a northern window as the source; remember that Rembrandt did’t have the luxury of artificial photographic lighting instruments!
JS
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[john sharaf] “You are correct in your plan to minimize the ambient light to create a moody environment, but you can achieve the wide open apperture with ND filters as well.”
Somewhere I read that with 1/3″ imagers, you get more depth of field than you want, even wide open. And that it didn’t help to set up far away from the subject and use tele — for a given image size, the background would be equally defocussed.
— Bob
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[Bob Cole] “And that it didn’t help to set up far away from the subject and use tele — for a given image size, the background would be equally defocussed.”
Hey Bob,
Not certain what you mean when you say, “background would be equally defocused.” At least it won’t be in hard focus… Right???
DRW
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[john sharaf] “remember that Rembrandt did’t have the luxury of artificial photographic lighting instruments!”
Not so John, a newly discovered self-portrait clearly shows Rembrandt making good use of a Chimera lighting fixture…
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David, I thought I posted a reply but I don’t see it so at the risk of a double post, here is what I’ve read:
Setup 1: with the camera close to subject, frame a head-and-shoulders shot with the zoom lens set to moderate wide angle.
Setup 2: camera far from subject, frame a head-and-shoulder shot with the lens set to tele.
Resulting depth of field is identical in either setup. You’ll see a broader section of the background with Setup 1. In reality, since the room is hardly ever very large, if you use Setup 2, you’ll probably have to place the subject closer to the back wall, resulting in a background that is even sharper than with Setup 1.
Don’t know if this is true or not. I’m waiting for a nice big CCD to move over to HDV for acquisition — or an HD camera that someone else pays for.
— Bob
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No he only had the sun, even better than an artificial light source…
Walter Graff
BlueSky Media Inc
http://www.bluesky-web.com
The first in my new DVD series is now available -
Uh Walter, that was a gag… Did you look at the picture???
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