P3

Styles of lighting

Three Point Lighting

This is the most basic form of lighting. This is made up of THREE lights:

• Key Light

• Fill Light

• Back Light

Lighting from three directions shapes your subject and sets them apart from their background.

This is an example of a Three point lighting set up and a picture of myself in the setting

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is a high-contrast lighting technique. Chiaroscuro uses a low key lighting setup, where a key light is used as the sole light source to achieve dark backgrounds with starkly lit subjects.

This is an example of a chiaroscuro lighting set up and a picture of myself in the setting

Types of lighting

Tungsten

A form of incandescent illumination that incorporates pressurised halogen gas. Tungsten lamps operate similar to how a filament light bulb would. These are the most common lighting instrument for most of film making history, and only recently have started to change to more energy efficient options like LED lights.

- They can produce different effects at different colour temperatures

- Indoor lighting and candlelight

- Simulated natural daylight

- Muted blue light

HMI Lighting

These are used when wanting to recreate sunlight. they are daylight colour temperature and bright enough to compete with the sun. HMI - Hydrargyrum Medium-arc Iodide lamp, a metal-halide gas discharge medium arc-length lamp, a gas is excited when an electrical arc is created between two electrodes.

This light is 4 times brighter than tungsten units. the cons are that they need a ballast to power the light and control the arc. The ballast makes them quite cumbersome. HMIs are also very expensive and can be quite temperamental. However they are basically the only lights to use when wanting to shoot daylight.