Lighting for High Definition Cameras By Paul Wheeler, BSc, FBKS
There are many myths about lighting for HD cameras: let’s see if we can substantiate or dispel some of them.
You need less light - Producers would love to believe this, but unfortunately in 98% of cases this simply is not true - sorry Mr Producer!
Any decent DoP knows that they put in a lighting order, as often as not, based on a “Given”. By given I mean practical lights that already exist in the location, a window, shop lights at night etc. etc. The majority of digital cameras have an equivalent film speed of between 320 and 400 ISO (International Standards Organisation - it comes out at exactly the same figure as the old ASA). So HD cameras, in the main, are as sensitive as what we would currently think of as a medium-speed photographic negative. I rest my case.
You need less or no fill light - Probably true. In the early days of video the perceived wisdom was that you needed more fill. Things have changed. The chips are very different: there are more pixels and this does change the apparent sensitivity in the shadows, and we have got used to lighting to a monitor. I find the last factor significant. I will admit that when lighting with a meter for film I err on the safe side and give just a little bit more exposure in the deep shadow areas: I can always darken them later in grading. With HD I am usually lighting to a well set-up monitor so I don’t need to be brave, I have my rushes on the set. So I am braver, and frequently use less or no fill.
You have to white-balance - The only time I white-balance is if I am shooting under fluorescent light or I intentionally want to put a “signature” colour on the scene. I will then use pastel cards to white-balance to. These days’ cameras are so stable and so many directors are asking us to make the pictures more like film. I can’t white-balance a film camera, so why would I want to do something the audience is unused to in a film? If you want it to look like film - shoot it the way you would have to shoot film. Simple, isn’t it?
BAFTA nominee Paul Wheeler was one of the BBC‚s 6 Senior Film Cameramen. A respected author, he lectures at VMI’s HD seminars.
