The 5-Minute Guide to Mastering Studio Lighting
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August 23rd, 2024 - CJFP08
Okay, so 5 minutes is subjective and dependent on your reading speed, but I tried to keep this brief and skimmable!
Professional studio lighting techniques are not incredibly difficult to learn, but they are relatively easy to forget. I remember taking workshops in college where I was taught one kind of technique and later needed to unlearn those same methods when a paying job needed me to learn different ones.
What I’d like to do here is offer up a kind of fast and loose crash course that will give you all the basics of working with lighting and let you do your job better, no matter the specifics of the position, and do so fast.
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you have a particular number of lighting sources be it ring lights, flood lights, flashes, or your phone’s LED. I’ll very quickly describe how to assess the sources that you have and then move on to explain how to arrange your set for various numbers of lighting sources.
If you don’t have any lights, I’ll be peppering some recommendations for lights I like throughout the article.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Studio Lighting, But Were Too Embarrassed to Google
At the root of any lighting setup, there are two major aspects to always keep in mind:
- Temperature: Though some lights are physically hotter to the touch than others, “the temperature” of light refers to its wave frequency and how orange vs. blue it appears. Cameras will sometimes have symbols for lighting presets like “fluorescent” and “daylight.” These are shorthand for temperatures, measured in Kelvin as indicated by a “K.” The rule of thumb is this: Lower lighting temperatures are more orange and more dim whereas higher lighting temperatures are more blue and brighter. 2000K would be the equivalent of a dim candle whereas 5000K and up is typically considered to be the equivalent of daylight. Different colors can be useful for different things, but typically on a studio set, you’ll want the neutral white lighting that daylight temperatures provide. Neutral-colored scenes are more easily adjusted in post-production editing. However, if shooting on location, pay attention to the temperature of your ambient lighting and set your additional rigs and camera’s white balance settings accordingly.
- Diffusion: Something major to always keep in mind is the harshness of your light sources. Modern digital cameras function in such a way as to try and maximize the amount of information in whatever scene they are pointed at and they do so by (typically) evaluating the average brightness of a scene and automatically adjusting to a “happy medium.” This means if your scene is generally dark, any bright spots will appear extremely bright because the camera bumps the average up and if your scene is generally bright, then any dark spots will appear extremely dark because the camera bumps the average down. In a studio setting, typically you’ll be shooting in a dark environment, which means that your cameras will be extra sensitive to bright lights and darken shadows to compensate. Your shots will have a lot of contrast which is to say a lot of difference between the bright spots and dark spots. If your light sources don’t have dimmers, consider dampening them or reflecting them off of a different source. Light that has been “diffused” or reduced by passing it through a filter, or reflected off of another source is softer and can allow your cameras to capture a more neutral exposure, giving you more wiggle room in post. Consider aiming a light at the ceiling or a wall or putting a thin sheet of paper over a particularly bright light.
With those two universal considerations out of the way, onto the show.
0-Point Lighting
Okay, this one is kind of a joke, but it’s worth considering quickly!
When I say some number-point lighting, I just mean the number of lights you have. A zero-point lighting setup could be considered a situation where you have no artificial lights and must rely on ambient lighting (although nobody would ever call it “0-point”).
In situations like these, try to use rooms with windows or dark rooms with dimmable lights, or even get creative with your camera’s exposure settings. Really you want either a space where everything is equally bright and thus is controllable in-camera. Or you want a space with a single, well-defined lighting source which is thus controllable by diffusing or reflecting that source.
The real key is to experiment until you get something interesting.
If all else fails, just aim for a neutral shot; one where the bright spots aren’t too bright and the dark spots aren’t too dark. Those are easier to adjust in post-production. Remember temperature and diffusion. If you’re using a room with a window and bright sunlight is coming in, think about where that light reflects to and place your subject in the light’s reflected rays rather than in the direct sunlight.
1-Point Lighting
As you may have now guessed, this is a setup wherein you only have a single source of light. Most makeup tutorials use this kind of lighting arrangement.
This is also kind of self-explanatory given the previously discussed lighting considerations, but I would again suggest experimenting with diffusion and levels of contrast to make your scene interesting depending on your needs. If doing a makeup tutorial, then make sure your subject’s face is fully illuminated. If going for more of a cinematic look, try lighting only half the face in bright light to increase the contrast, or try aiming the single light at the background to make your subject appear as a silhouette. Either way, remember temperature and diffusion and experiment away!
NEEWER 43 Inch/110 Centimeter Light Reflector Diffuser
I should quickly mention that somewhere in the middle of the 0 and 1-point lighting arrangements is the reflector or a large reflective surface usually carried by professional photographers. Using a reflector allows you to better redirect ambient light sources towards your subject, while being in full control of its diffusion level, effectively turning ambient light into a primary lighting source.
I’ve had the one linked here since 2015 and it’s perfect for outdoor shoots where light can be unpredictable.
Click HERE to purchase this reflector using our affiliate link.
2-Point Lighting
Now we’re cooking with gas.
Having two lights unlocks a lot of creative freedom, but now we have to start using proper names for the lighting sources. To differentiate between our two lights, we give them specific names like “key” light, “fill” light, or “back” light (sometimes called an accent light). Each light role fulfills a different desired result so which lights you assign to which role will depend on what you’re going for.
Here’s the quick and dirty version:
Key light: Main light source.
Fill light: Counteracts the shadows created by the Key light.
Backlight: Accents “difficult-to-illuminate” parts of the scene.
Typically, you’ll always want one main light source, that’s your key light. Your key light sets the tone for your scene; all other lights base their brightness on your key light. Your key light should be your brightest light. Typically, you’ll want to position your main key light at about a 45-degree angle offset from the front of your subject and angle it down at them if possible. This means, from the subject’s perspective, the key light should appear northeast or northwest of them, raised above their head.
Of course, you can adjust this as desired, but typically the angle of the light shining down on your subject’s face should form a shadow, almost in the shape of a triangle, on their cheekbone opposite the key light. If done properly, you’ll notice a lot of contrast on the face where one side is very bright and the other side is very dark. Now is where you need to make a decision about what role your second light will play.
If you’re shooting portraits, you’ll want all the details of the face to show. In that case, your second light should become a fill light. It should occupy the opposing front side of your subject, opposite the key light, at the same angle. So if your key light is to your subject’s northwest, then your fill light should be to their northeast and vice versa. The fill light should also be much dimmer than the key light. The goal of the fill light is to bring back some of the details that are lost when a key light creates a shadow on your subject’s face. It should be bright enough to lighten the shadows slightly and make the shot more neutral so you have more information to work with in post-production, but not so bright as to make the whole face uniformly bright. The key light’s side of the face should be brighter without being overexposed or purely white while the opposite side, the fill light side, should be noticeably darker without being underexposed or purely black. This will vary for different skin tones so be sure to experiment with different brightness levels for your subject and closely monitor your camera’s live view to check any under or over-exposed parts of their face.
Now, maybe you’re going for something more artistic, more dangerous, and you want your shot to have a harsh contrast. To keep the contrast while also creating depth, use your second light source as a backlight. That is to say, put your light behind your subject 180 degrees across from your key light, lowered, pointing up at your subject, with dim brightness in order to accentuate the lines around their face or clothes, or to give them a subtle glow. So if your subject has a key light to their northeast and a fill light to their northwest, then the backlight could be anywhere from exactly on their left, to the west, to a little further behind them to their southwest. It should be below their line of sight as well.
Adding a backlight should effectively separate your subject from your background in the shot and better illuminate difficult-to-light textures like their hair or clothing. If you really want to get creative with it, you can experiment with the brightness and angle of your backlight to create halos, silhouettes, or lens flares around your subject.
3-Point Lighting
Now that you know the three basic roles that lights can assume in a studio setting, you should logically be able to work out what a three-point lighting setup would look like. It’s the use of a key, fill, and backlight all at once.
You would use your key light to set the overall brightness of the scene, your fill light to counteract any dark shadows, and your backlight to illuminate your subject from the back and give your scene a sense of depth.
Now this is where you can start getting really creative with things.
If your light sources have the option to change colors, try giving your backlight or your fill a splash of color. You can also try experimenting with various brightnesses, positions, heights, and temperatures of your various lights. You’ll be amazed at how much shot diversity a three-point lighting setup allows for. This is why the three-point setup is widely considered the base level of studio lighting setups, the one on which all other, more sophisticated, setups are built.
NEEWER 192 LED Video Light Panel
When I got serious about working with portrait photography and video production, I invested in three of these LED panel lights and it changed the way I did production.
The brightness of these things absolutely blew me away.
Plus, the color temperature is adjustable so they can be used in almost any lighting situation.
Plus, they have a built-in battery so you can use them on the go even if you don’t have power close by.
Plus, they’re dimmable so they can be used as keys, fills, and backlights interchangeably.
I 100% recommend these if you’re looking to get your own portable lighting setup.
Click HERE to buy these LED lights using our affiliate link.
4-Point Lighting
If committing to a greater-than-three studio lighting arrangement, it helps to have a plan. This is where the amount of equipment you have to manage on set starts to provide a diminishing return on the amount of effort you spend experimenting with it in the moment. So I’d say if you’re going with more than three lights, it’s probably best to have a plan or a very patient subject.
For four lights, we have to introduce a new term: The background light.
Not to be confused with the backlight, the background light is typically placed either directly behind your subject or just out of frame in the back of your shot. Its goal, naturally, is to illuminate your background. If you have any colored LED strips or bars, they make perfect background lights. Stand them on the floor directly behind your subject or press them flesh against the backdrop angled upward, or if you really wanna get whacky, stand them up and aim them straight at the camera, shoot the subject with a high f-stop and this will create star-shaped lens flares which look very cool to both the trained and untrained eye alike. f16 is usually my go-to for this effect, going much higher can create a lot of noise.
Seriously, don’t dismiss how impressive sparkly lights can be.
NEEWER CB60 RGB 70W LED Video Light
We had a few of these at one of my previous video-producing jobs. I split time at that job into two eras: Before and after the addition of color background lights.
I probably don’t have to tell you this, but most content creators these days splash color on everything. Look at any random YouTube creators’ video and their backgrounds will be tasteful blends of blues and purples.
This is the light they use for that.
Rather than LED strips, investing in a spotlight like this one will aid you in far more creative endeavors. A light like this can color backgrounds, add creative light to subjects’ faces, etc.
All you have to do is substitute one of the above roles I’ve discussed for a light like this, connect your phone, and play around with different colors and brightness.
To buy this RGB LED light using our affiliate link, CLICK HERE.
5-Point Lighting
Okay, now you’re just showing off.
Honestly, five lights is probably overkill and you run the risk of overexposing the scene if you add too many lights.
If you’ve got five lights laying around and you want to add a fifth source, you probably want to make it another backlight or another background light, but don’t go out of your way to get one if you don’t already have one. At this point, your scene is either lit or you have done something wrong. The only lights one should be adding are small accent lights to accentuate specific parts of the scene like paintings on the wall or novelty lights like strobes.
If all else fails…
Learn your camera!
An amazing lighting setup can be easily ruined by an overexposed shot and you’d be amazed what can be done with even lackluster lighting when one knows how to properly work a camera.
But that’s a newsletter for another day!
Until next time, stay fresh.
- Casey