Lighting basics: Tungsten fresnel-spot beauty shot

Fresnel spots create a very harsh and direct light with deep shadows. You would think that’s about the worst you can do in terms of lighting a woman’s face, but when used properly, these spots can create very flattering beauty light. Think of old Hollywood movies and the beautiful black & white portraits of that time, many of them were done with fresnel spots.

Spots like the one used here use tungsten light (3200º K). While flash systems sometimes do not have very strong modeling lights, a tungsten spot will let you see the modulation of light on the subject very clearly. I used a lot of tungsten when I started in this business because it was easier for me to see what I was doing. Besides that - tungsten was a lot cheaper!

However, the disadvantages of tungsten are significant. Tungsten lights get very hot, which makes them difficult to work with. Always have a pair of thick working gloves around. Besides that, the actual output of tungsten lights is sometimes surprisingly low. The low shutter-speeds required by a tungsten setup like this one here will not allow a lot of movement, neither for the model nor for the camera.

In this setup the model is about 10 feet away from a white background. Two tungsten floodlights (1000 watts each) are pointed at the background to illuminate it as evenly as possible. Both lights had very light blue gels attached to them.

The main light, a 2000 watt ARRI fresnel spot, is a little to left of the camera at an angle of about 45º to the model.

The light-meter reading on both model and the background (both readings towards the camera) were about the same, not more than 1/3 stop difference.

The camera was on a tripod and I was using a zoom lens at approximately 150mm setting and a very open aperture in order to get the low depth of field.

Поиск по сайту: