3 Ways to Make Your Videos Look Better (Lighting)

If there is a secret to marking your video look better on any camera, it’s lighting. Good lighting will help your camera to capture the best possible image and allow your subject to look dynamic and real. Bad lighting will cause even the best cameras to look bad and distract the viewer from the message your trying to get across.

There are three main aspects to lighting for video. Color, intensity and position. Cameras are not like the human eye, they require more specific conditions to get a good image. The human eye automatically adjusts for changes in light level or color  so that you can still see. Some cameras try to do this but they are not nearly as good at it as your eyes. most rooms are also lit so that you can see well in the room but not to generate aesthetically pleasing shadows. 

Color

Cameras go through a process whether  automatic or manual called “white balancing” (WB). It’s how the camera determines what true white is and based on this it’s able to know what all the other colors should look like. To get WB the most accurate the camera should be set manually to the color temperate of what’s called the “key light”. The key light is the main light used on the subject of the shot. 

Color Temperature

Most people have shopped for lightbulbs and seen the warm white/cool white options. This is color temperature. In general cameras look for their WB point from 2800k to 6000k in the color spectrum. The lower the number, the warmer or more orange the light. The higher numbers start to push into the blue range. Daylight (from the sun) is typically in the 5000k-6000k range. Personally, I like to light for video (and live) with a daylight white around 5500k. To my eye it gives the most true color to the camera and allows skin tones to look natural. (Also in live environments with LEDs it most closely matches a white LED fixtures color so your colors look the most correct.)

Color Mixing 

Speaking of LED, it’s important to note that there are 2 ways to get color from a light. The first is a filter (typically gel or glass) that goes in front of the fixture which only allows certain light wavelengths through. This creates a very accurate and true color. The second way is color mixing which is achieved by combining different colored lights together where they “mix” to make a color. This is typically found in Red, Green, and Blue light (RGB) LED lights. The challenge with color mixing lights, is while your eyes just adjust to the new mix of colors, cameras doesn’t differentiate as well, which results in muted colors and can really change how distinguishable different color tones are. This is especially true in reds, oranges and, purples. One of the results can be that skin tones don’t look natural on camera. 

Intensity

In lighting, intensity refers to the brightness of the light source. As I’ve mentioned cameras perceive intensity different than your eyes (notice a theme). Cameras have an ideal light level they need to see to capture the best image and depending on that light level there can be some image artifacts that go along with it. There is also  the difference between the brightest and darkest point in the image. This is known as “dynamic range”. 

Overall intensity

Lighting image artifacts occur based on how you set your camera to accept or add light. Now there are a couple rules around this that we won’t dig into here but basically to have appropriate motion blur (artifact 1) the cameras shutter speed should be set to double the frame rate. (24fps would have the shutter set as close to 1/48 as possible). 

The second artifact is depth of field which is set based on the aperture or f-stop. Depth of field (DOF) refers to the amount of space your shot will be in focus in relation to its distance from the lens. The lower the f-stop number, the shallower the depth of field is and the more light the lens allows into the sensor. (Ex. F1.4 is very shallow and f7 is a very wide DOF.) 

The third and final artifact is noise. This is typically considered bad. Noise is added when the gain or iso is turned up to high and the camera is trying to artificially add light to the image. 

Dynamic Range

Different cameras handle overall dynamic range differently, but the less extremes in the shot, the better. For example if you’re shooting indoors and come across a window on a sunny day, the window may look completely white and glowing. If you were to adjust your camera setting to be able to see what’s out the window, everything inside would be very dark. This is an extreme example of a wide dynamic range. It’s typically best to keep the overall dynamic range of a shot to a minimum especially with lower quality cameras. 

The exception to this is with intentional shadows you create through positioning with lighting sources of similar intensities. 

Positioning

Lighting placement and position in relation to the subject, and background of the image is how we create depth within a shot. There are 3 primary lighting positions used within video. They are: key light or front light, fill light, and backlight or hair light. You don’t have to have specific light fixtures for all of these, you can use natural light from a window as well, or even shoot outside. 

Key Light

The key light is the primary light used to show the subject of an image. For people, a natural looking key light is typically placed slightly to one side of the face so that some shadow in thrown across the face. This helps to create a sense of depth and realism in the shot. Use a direct or hard light source will cause more distinct shadows, while using a soft light, or bouncing the light will give a softer more natural look.

Fill 

Fill comes in from the opposite side to help bring up the shadows some. Remember we don’t want to eliminate them completely, Fill light is an as needed thing, depending on how deep you want the facial shadows to be. Sometimes you will use an additional light source to fill in, other times you could use what’s called a bounce card. A bounce card is typically, a flat white, or even reflective surface that bounces light from another light source back onto the subject. There is also negative fill, this is where a surface is used that absorbs light such a a black piece of fabric. Negative fill will increase how dramatic a shadow looks. 

Back Light/hair light 

Back light is used to help the subject pop off the background and appear more 3 dimensional. Backlight is typically placed above the subject slightly off to one side from behind. 

Outdoor shooting

Typically when shooting video outside, you will need to dramatically decrease the amount of light coming into the lease. This is done through the use of  neutral density filter (ND filter). An ND filter is basically like a pair of sun glasses for your camera. It allows you to keep your cameras light settings at optimal levels without the entire image becoming over exposed. When you have to shoot in direct sunlight, it is best to have the sun behind the subject, it both acts as backlight and keeps the subjects face from looking washed out and flat. It also means your subject won’t have to squint their eyes. 

Take the time to get the lighting right, I know there is a lot here, but all of these thing together will make or break your shot. 

If you’d like to have a conversation about what specifics you can do to improve the look of your videos, send me a message and let’s have a conversation about it.