Torchiere floor lamps stand six feet high and aim their light at the ceiling for a pure bounce effect. You can get them for as little as $20 at X-Mart. They're very stable on their heavy round bases, and if they happen to get in the frame, hey, they look like they belong there.

Most torchiere units use 300-watt halogen lamps and many can be switched to half-power (though the light turns more yellow). Regular incandescent bulb types are available and you can swap the bulbs for screw-base halogens, as long as the units are rated for the extra wattage.

Recently, I discovered a fluorescent torchiere lamp that uses far less power than a halogen model. It also has a high/low switch and it burns very cool, for safety. Because the lamps are designed with warmer color temperatures than cool-white tubes, they mix well with halogen lighting. The ones I use cost $40 at a local builders' supply store. They put out a surprising amount of light for their wattage. If I needed to kick up the overall light level at, say, a birthday party, a fluorescent torchiere would be my choice.

Even tube fluorescents can be used as video lights. 'Sunlight' bulbs deliver 5,000K color with up to 90% of the quality of natural sunlight, compared to 75% for a cheap shop light tube. (Manufacturers rate their lamps this way, so look for the rating card usually hung up beside the lamps in the store.)

You can replace ordinary tubes with these high-Q models (which cost about $10 instead of $1.98). But don't use them in shop light fixtures. Their cheap ballasts often won't operate the better tubes satisfactorily.

You can also build big pan soft lights by mounting pairs of fixtures in shallow plywood boxes and setting them on home-built stands. Be sure you're a good carpenter, though. These lights are heavy and ungainly, and demand broad-footed rolling stands. Fluorescent pans are not worth your while unless you're equipping a small studio - in which case they can be great.

Reflectors come in hard and soft versions - both in their rigidity and their light quality.

For outdoor use, bend wide aluminum cooking foil around a sheet of foam core board: shiny side out for long throws, dull side out for a slightly softer effect. For still more light scatter, ball up the foil, then smooth it out again, leaving hundreds of small crinkles in the surface. Two feet by three feet is a very good all-purpose dimension.

You may want a bigger size when you take off the foil and use only the soft white foam core surface. With its lower intensity, a bigger surface area throws more light.

Fold-up cloth hoop reflectors cost $50-$100 or more, but you can get the same effect with fabric auto sunshades. Some are aluminized: shiny on one side and dull on the other. Others are pure white. Big models designed for pickup trucks are better - and some RV supply stores sell great big models intended for motor home windshields. Your cost? $12-$50 a pair, depending on size.