Better Video Through Lighting: Lights and Accessories you will need for the successful video shoot (page 2)

The Cool-Lux Video Kit is a handy mid-price portable lighting kit, but there are other kits that include more instruments and accessories. If you have the budget, you may want to acquire one of the several studio-style lighting packages available. When used properly, one of these kits will light the subjects in your videos softly and evenly every time.

The Lowel-light Solo Kit ($2,850) includes two tota-lights, which use 500- to 1000-watt lamps, and include umbrella reflectors. The tota-lights are designed for use as key lights. For fill lights, there are four omni-lights that use 420- to 650-watt lamps, and come with barn doors. These lights can be operated with DC-battery power when used with special 100-watt lamps (for 12-volt operation) and 250-watt lamps (for 30-volt operation). The Lowel-light Solo Kit also has five assorted reflectors. It includes: one #1 and two #3 superspots, a lightflector with tilter, a tota-flector, two glass diffusers, five assorted scrims and a cookie for throwing shadow patterns on a solid background. This never-ending kit also has five omni-stands, two tota-clamps, a large space clamp, a tota-mount, a lamppak for storing all of those interchangeable light bulbs and more. All of this fits into a case for 60 pounds of studio-style lighting madness.

If you're in the field, the rigid reflectors included in the Lowel-light Solo Kit may be too bulky and difficult to use. Photoflex makes a variety of reflectors and diffusers for quick and easy field set-ups. The large 41-by-74-inch oval translucent fabric diffuser costs $108, while the smaller 52-inch round translucent diffuser costs $98. When it comes to reflectors, they make a large 41-by-74-inch soft gold/white reversible reflector that sells for $122, with the smaller 42-inch round reflector costs $87.

If you're the type of videographer that uses a monster light kit like the Solo Kit, you are also serious about the on-camera light that you use when you have to leave the light kit behind. NRG Research's Varalux Professional ($240 for the cigarette lighter model, $255 for one with an XLR connector) is one of these serious on-camera lights. It accepts bulbs from 20- to 100-watts for a variety of different lighting scenarios. The best part of the Varalux Pro though, is that you can adjust the light from 10% to 100%, giving you a bright light when you need it, and a not-so-bright light when your subject needs less illumination.

There is, of course, a whole world of professional lighting gear that is available too. K5600 makes the Joker 400 Kit, which includes a 400-watt HMI daylight balanced lamp, ballast, barn door, four lenses and a case all for the low low price of $4510. However, you would probably rather use that kind of money on a new three-CCD DV camcorder or one of those stand-alone nonlinear video editing machines.

• Use a bracket to mount your on-camera lights several inches above the camera to prevent your subjects from becoming flat and shadowless.
• Re-white balance your camcorder after positioning your lights to make sure that your subject's colors are true when you tape.
• Examine your studio lighting through a monitor. Viewfinders and flip-out LCDs are notoriously bad for showing how the lighting will look on the tape.
• Use extra light when shooting indoors, ambient light is rarely enough to properly light subjects.
• If you are unable to acquire video lights, you can use normal household and shop halogen lights (See "Lite Lighting" July 1998).

NRG Research
(800) 753-0357
www.nrgresearch.com

Cool-Lux
(805) 482-4820
www.cool-lux.com

Photoflex
(800) 486-2674
www.photoflex.com

Lowel-light Manufacturing, Inc.
(718) 921-0600

Westcott
(419) 243-7311
www.fjwestcott.com

Rosco
(213) 462-2233
www.rosco.com

Smith-Victor Corporation
(800) 348-9862

K5600
(818) 762-5756
www.k5600.com

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