Lighting For Video - Using Compact Fluorescent Lights
Quality Lighting is one of the basic cornerstones of quality video production. Any picture, video images included, are really nothing BUT light, so how your light looks will largely determine how your shot looks.
One of the newest ways to light your video production is to use the new, energy-efficient bulbs known as compact fluorescent lights. I believe there are many reasons why compact flo will soon become the bulb of choice in video making.
Compact Fluorescent lights (compact flo as they are nicknamed) are becoming popular as the new "green" way to light your home. You can find the bulbs almost everywhere now. Even before home use of compact fluorescent bulbs became popular, compact flo were being used more and more in video production. They have several distinct advantages over traditional video lights. The advantages add up to saving money and having an easier time during production.
Traditional video lights are usually tungsten halogen. They get HOTTER than a firecracker. You can easily burn your fingers on them. I even burned a hole in the wallpaper once when I bounced the light just a little too close to the wall. Oops.
Compact Fluorescent lights on the other hand do not get hot at all. They stay very cool and are much easier on the eyes. That feature, in and of itself, makes me want to buy some. Sitting under tungsten halogen lights is so hot as to be dreadfully uncomfortable. anyone sitting close to them will be sweating up a storm unless the room is very cool.
Plus, if you look directly at the burning light bulb, tungsten halogen are so bright they leave spots. These kind of bulbs heat up the entire room FAST. That leads to having to crank up the air conditioner, assuming it is not a noisy one. If it is noisy, then it stays off so you get better sound and everyone just roasts. No fun! Tungsten halogen produce almost as much heat as they do light!
In addition to staying cool, compact flo lights also use less electricity than any other kind of light bulb. (They don't waste any energy producing unwanted heat!) That's one of the biggest things that make them a "green alternative." Compact fluorescent light bulbs crank out an amazing amount of light for the wattage used compared to other kinds of light bulbs. You can get by with using about half the wattage you might normally need.
The light given off by compact fluorescent is nice, soft and diffused. The ones I have used are all colored balanced in the blue range, similar to sunlight. Standard fluorescent bulbs give off a green light so that is a big difference there. Compact flo would fit right in with sunlight and not mess up the white balancing of your camera like an orange tungsten halogen would.
Every compact flo light bulb I have ever seen is already diffused for you by the addition of white paint to the inside of the glass. That does not mean you never need to add supplemental diffusion but right out of the box you have some nice diffusion.
All-in-all, I think compact fluorescent lights are a fantastic addition to the world of video production equipment. I bet that guy whose wall I burned a hole in would agree.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips. For more information on lighting and other video production topics, please visit my blog.
Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
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