I always say that we all make mistakes and that it gives us an opportunity to learn as long as we’re willing to fix them. But some mistakes are more common than the others. Matt Esteron of Aputure takes three most common mistakes in video lighting, and he discusses them in this short, but highly informative video. He offers a few quick fixes for each of them, so if you make them too, this video will help you not to do it anymore.
1.Overexposed face
One of the common mistakes is overexposing the subject’s face with a very harsh key light. In addition, it will create very harsh shadows. Luckily, there are a few ways to fix this pretty quickly. You can dim down the key light and check the exposure using false color on your camera. However, this can lead you to the second problem:
2. No eye light
When you dim down your key light, you will likely remove some light from your subject’s eyes. To fix this, you can add a small light close to your subject’s face and light their face and eyes a bit. You can also kill two birds with one stone by moving the key light. Reposition it to about 45 degrees to the actor’s face. This gives some dimension and contrast to the face, but it’s frontal enough to light the eyes as well.
3. No background separation
Another common issue is having your subject blend in with the background. You can easily solve this by adding lights to the background. The first way is to light the subject from behind and add some light to their shoulder. Another way is to light the background itself so that it’s brighter than the foreground.
remember, sometimes it’s good to break the rules if it adds to your story. Still, these three mistakes will look bad in every scenario, so use one of these simple fixes to avoid them.
[Fixing Lighting Mistakes | Cinematography Techniques via FStoppers]
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