Pro Video Illumination: Top Strategies for Immaculate Cinematography

Many people are wondering how to set up lighting for video shooting. While there are many different ways to set up lighting, some methods are more effective than others.

Therefore, this article will give you a complete guide on how to set up your lighting to make your videos stand out.

Part 1. How-to Guide

1) Preparation

Before we get started, you may need to prepare some things to set up your lighting:

1. Powerful LED Lights

LED lights are a huge step up from traditional incandescent lighting because they generate much less heat and energy. Also, you can change the color temperature and use different lighting effects.

2. Softbox

Softbox can help you diffuse and spread the light on the subject.

3. Fresnel lens

A Fresnel lens is an optional attachment that can bounce the light off of the ceiling of your studio and diffuses the light to look soft.

2) Steps

For this tutorial, we will use the Three-Point Lighting technique:

Step1 Set the Key Light

The key light is the main light that illuminates the subject. You can place it in the front and slightly to one side. For this key light, we use an LED called Aputure 300X as an example, and with a soft box called light Dome 2.

Step2 Set the Fill Light

The fill light is used to fill in the shadows created by the key light. It is usually placed on the opposite side of the subject. For the fill light, we use an Aputure 300D with a fresnel lens attachment.

Step3 Set the Backlight

For this tutorial, we use Aperture 120d as the backlight and lift it up into the air with a c-stand so it can light the subject from above. It helps to separate the talent from the background and give the audience a full view of the set

Step4 Use Practical Lights

Practical lights appear on the camera to add some visual flair. It can be any light source that isn’t meant for lighting the subject. For example, we use a green lamp to help our background pop as it casts a nice orange light on the back wall.

Then, we also have a LED ring light that shines toward the camera. The light adds even more light to the frame and gives a slight backlight to the subject.

Finally, we have a few other small LED lights like this unicorn to put in the background. This lighting helps us to get even more visual flair out of our shots.

VSDC Pro Video Editor is a light professional non-linear video editing suite for creating a movie of any complexity. It supports the most popular video/audio formats and codecs, including 4K, HD and GoPro videos. Preconfigured profiles make the creation of videos for various multimedia and mobile devices absolutely hassle-free.

• Import from any devices and cams, including GoPro and drones. All formats supported. Сurrently the only free video editor that allows users to export in a new H265/HEVC codec, something essential for those working with 4K and HD.
• Everything for hassle-free basic editing: cut, crop and merge files, add titles and favorite music
• Visual effects, advanced color correction and trendy Instagram-like filters
• All multimedia processing done from one app: video editing capabilities reinforced by a video converter, a screen capture, a video capture, a disc burner and a YouTube uploader
• Non-linear editing: edit several files with simultaneously
• Easy export to social networks: special profiles for YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter and Instagram
• High quality export – no conversion quality loss, double export speed even of HD files due to hardware acceleration
• Stabilization tool will turn shaky or jittery footage into a more stable video automatically.
• Essential toolset for professional video editing: blending modes, Mask tool, advanced multiple-color Chroma Key

After setting up all the lighting above, you can take a look at the comparison below:

Using Key Light only

Using Key Light + Fill + Backlight

3) Pro Tips: The light setting

We usually set the lights around 50% brightness and a color temperature of 5600K.

HD Video Converter Factory Pro

Summary

Hopefully, you learned something about lighting by taking a look at our setup. If you want to know and learn about other lighting tutorials, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.

Free Download For Win 7 or later(64-bit)

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later

Free Download For macOS 10.14 or later