Posted by William Davis on 10/21/05 05:52

In article <Q8P5f.8514$Yk6.201@trnddc01>,
"Bill Farnsworth" <bill.farnsworth@verizon.net> wrote:

> "Matt" <mttmrrsn.nospamme@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:jLN5f.38908$Lp.25232@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
> > I'm looking for something lightweight and portable for mainly small shoots
> > with a PD-150 (I'll be a one man crew with fast set up times). I'll be
> > shooting 30 second commercials in a 50/50 store/office to warehouse
> > environment. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a :
> >
> > Lowel DP&T-92 Tungsten 3 Light Kit - consists of: 2 DP Lights, 1
> > Tota-Light, Barndoors, Gel Frames, Gels, Light Stands, Bulbs, DP3 Case -
> > 2750 Total Watts
> >
> > But I'm a little worried about the warehouse shoots so I thought I'd seek
> > some advice from the professionals.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Matt
> That's a good start Matt.
> I would invest in at least one 24" x 32" soft light box for the Tota, like
> the Chimera or Photo Flex brands. (about $235.00)
> Of course, you will need a "speed ring" to hold the box to the fixture. Even
> though it's pricey, ($135.00 retail) the Chimera brand speed ring is the
> best. Then, you will need a grip head to hold the speed ring to the light
> stand. But that's only 25 bucks.
> So you wanna light a warehouse?
> Not easily done with three lights.
> Depends on what kind of lights are used in the warehouse in the first place.
> If they are fluorescent, tungsten or possibly even mercury vapor, you can
> use them as the overall source and just light a key area with your three
> lights. For fluorescent and mercury vapor, you can add "half" blue gel to
> the DP or Tota to balance the color temp somewhat.
> If the overall light source is sodium vapor (orange looking) you are pretty
> much out of luck color balancing.
> Sodium vapor lights are monochrome wavelength. They occupy a very narrow
> band in the light spectrum. White balancing to this kind of light can be
> done, but the results are not going to be very close to what you would hope
> for.
> However, Bill Davis brought me on one of his shoots somewhere's in the south
> a few years ago and I was quite surprised we got an OK white balance in a
> warehouse under sodium vapors with his DVCAM.
>
> Bill F.
> www.billfarnsworthvideo.com

Since you often tease me about my "driving" when we work together, now I
get to return the favor about your global navigation skills - the
SOUTH???

Since when is Ohio in the south?

For the record, that shoot was in a massive warehouse complex and
atypical because the company sprang for relatively decent warehouse
lighting rather than the cheapest high output fixtures they can find.
Color balance can be a challenge, tho as Bill says, newer cameras are
better at white balancing to weird or mixed sources.

I think a bigger problem is that in many areas of a typical warehouse
situation you'll be fighting pretty high level task lighting down a
human level combined with much lower level light in overhead areas. A
good example is a typical warehouse "product pick line" where workers
pull products for palletizing loads for the stores. In this kind of
situation, it's hard to get anything other than an overly bright scene
of workers with a LOT of serious darkness overhead.

Also in many warehouses the volume of space is really massive and if you
do want to light the ceiling space or the products up in the steel
nothing short of really big HMI's - high powered kliegs or some kind
of carbon arc lights are likely to do the job. (the inverse square
principal is a bitch when you've got a football field of distance
between the lights and the wall!)

I remember doing a lower budget warehouse gig here in town a few years
back and I tried buying half a dozen dual-head Quarts shop lights and
arranging them to flood the back walls - it was "okay" but the with
walls that big they tended to light up the base of the walls better than
the whole wall evenly. At $39.95 each you might just buy them locally
when you get where you're going and give them to the local guys as "wrap
presents" when you're done with the shoot - oh, and if you do something
like that don't forget to also budget for stingers you can buy and
abandon. Nothing screws up airline weight limit like flying with long
extension cords!

All that said, I was just watching a national WalMart commercial staged
in a warehouse and wasn't surprised to see that IT had a bunch of mixed
lighting sources, dark areas, and the same kind of challenges we all
face in big space shooting.

It's not an easy challenge to solve unless you've got the money for a
full truck with the extra big HMI's referenced above.

Good luck and let us know what you do and how it works.

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