Photography lighting advice needed

[markwm]

Hey chaps. I wanting to shoot some cooking videos with an overhead camera angle. I have an canon 80d, but want a controlled indoor lighting setup.

I'll be shooting on a large table up against a wall. Can anyone recommend a softbox lighting kit? I'm not sure what setup I need, whether I need 2 softboxes left and right and one overhead (3 point lighting) OR maybe I just need one light behind and one above?

Any advice much appreciated

[Simpo Two]

As a 'one size fits all' starting point I'd suggest two smallish softboxes, one on either side - a bit like a rostrum camera only with food in the middle. Move them as required to get an effect you like and watch out for reflections on the gravy eBay is full of cheap softbox kits - make sure you get continuous not flash! Light levels that you can control are handy too.

[Fordo]

Couple of tips from me;

I'd recommend going with cooler running lights if you can - tungsten soft boxes will heat up a room pretty quick, which isnt ideal with food. I'd recommend getting LED panel lights (with diffusion frame or gel in front, so you loose the individual LEDs in refections, and make the light a little softer. Ideally diff in a frame further away from the source will make it even softer.), or there are some fluorescent based soft boxes that are pretty cheap.

Switch off house lights and block off windows with some black cloth so you have consistency and complete control.

Food always looks good lit from 'north' for top down shots. It can look a bit weird if the key light is coming from the bottom, the shot can feel 'upside down'

I filmed a series of top down cookery shorts for RCPCA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ybj2HAsTg

For light positioning, I'd avoid having a fully top down soft light - you'll have no contrast and it'll look very flat. Our key light was north of the image, around head height, and 45 degrees down looking at the food. You can see briefly on the egg shot - they eggs have a good modelling on them, they look 3d because of the gradual shadow, if that makes sense. A dimmed down or bounced of ceiling top light might be useful, just to fill the shadows a bit.

i'll see if i can dig out a behind the scenes photo. On my shoot, we used two 4ft, 4 bank kino flos (fluorescent based lights), and we used white poly to bounce and fill shadows. We kind of boxed the set in with white or black poly if i remember - to add or subtract fill. So we had two kino flos, horizontally together to make a huge soft source, out front, looking 45 degrees down to the food. Bounce on left and right, and i think we added a single kino tube at the bottom as a fill, as the bottom of frame just needed a bit more light. I think we also had a single dedo light on an arm, right next to camera, so we could drop a little light into the inside of bowl and pans.

Possible way to do it inexpensively:

I'd get at least 2 cheap soft boxes, and some A3 white foam or similar to use as bounce. Black cloth to block off everything else. Throw the main soft box north, and maybe the 2nd one south, but dimmed or much further away so you keep some contrast. Use the bounce boards at the side to bounce some light into the sides.

hope there something useful in all my waffle there!




Found a BTC photo;




Completely forgot - we had two lamps bouncing off a polyboard in the ceiling. As we were in a studio, there was no ambient light at all, and found we needed a little soft ambient top down lighting, or it all was a bit too contrasty.

Edited by Fordo on Friday 14th October 11:03

[markwm]

Thanks, that's good info. I'd read before about the north lighting. Your video was good, I liked how you kept changing the backdrop colour. Another issue I'm going to have is, although I'm shooting top down I want some diagonal shots as well but having only one camera means I'll constantly have to be taking it off the overhead rig(another thing which I'm yet to buy)

I've looked at LED panels but for the ones in my price range, they're rather small, for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aputure-AL-528W-Amaran-Di... would this be big enough? Obviously big kinoflo banks are well out of my range.

There's loads of very cheap softboxes with bulbs on ebay, but I imagine most of them are ste.

[Fordo]

markwm said:

Thanks, that's good info. I'd read before about the north lighting. Your video was good, I liked how you kept changing the backdrop colour. Another issue I'm going to have is, although I'm shooting top down I want some diagonal shots as well but having only one camera means I'll constantly have to be taking it off the overhead rig(another thing which I'm yet to buy)

I've looked at LED panels but for the ones in my price range, they're rather small, for example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aputure-AL-528W-Amaran-Di... would this be big enough? Obviously big kinoflo banks are well out of my range.

There's loads of very cheap softboxes with bulbs on ebay, but I imagine most of them are ste.

I'm hearing good things about aputure - but i think you're right, for your price range they might be a little small.

Have you thought about this kind of soft box kit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C8MR3OI?psc=1 uses daylight colour temp fluorescent bulbs, which means heat shouldn't be an issue.

I've never that kit myself so can't vouch for it, and personally I'm not a fan of cheap lighting kit as it all tends to fall apart - but your mileage may vary!


For 2 cam look with 1 cam, id do the whole recipe from one angle, then switch and do it over. It'll take forever going back and fourth. (plus doing it twice means lots of left over food to eat!....)

The multi colour thing was a request from client - they wanted strong colours that where the same as their brand colours, for RSCA assured. We also thought it would stand out well from all the other quick cookery videos like that out there. Was pain to shoot though- swapping colouramas all day, slightest spill and we had to replace it etc etc

Edited by Fordo on Friday 14th October 14:18

[V8A*ndy]

markwm said:

There's loads of very cheap softboxes with bulbs on ebay, but I imagine most of them are ste.

FFS my missus uses building site leds (the yellow ones) with tracing paper as diffusers and cardboard painted matt black for barn doors.

Hasn't let her down yet.... bonkers