Photographer Question!
 

Ive been shooting content for an adult website for about a year now and now Im researching to step up my production.

I am shooting with Strobes now, but do any of you work with flourescent lighting for photos and/or video? Pros? Cons? Could anyone name some sites out there that use flourescent lighting for sure so I can take a look? I have a hunch that this is the direction I want to go in. Im having a hard time researching this topic.

im just starting myself - but as far as i know fluorescent lighting is what you DONT want to use in most all occasions


Someone correct e if im wrong..


fluorescent lighting throws a yellow hue onto your pics

I think you mean u wanna use Kino Flows, but photos will come out much cripser with strobes in my experience as i hvae used both. Kino Flows arent terrible, strobes better

Why do you have a hunch that this is the direction you want to go in? Why would you want to change direction from shooting with strobes to shooting with fluorescent lighting? Just curious....

kino flow for video and strobes for still...

Maybe its my experience, but strobes are a little too harsh to be depending on the location. Some places, photos look crisp and well light....others look dark, over exposed at the top but underexposed at the bottom of the model......no matter how i position them it seems. Just a little too unpredictable at times for me. Also doesnt perform well for me when Im in a tight location. I love shooting with tungsten but I dont get crisp pictures so thats why I prefer the strobes.

I heard that a lot of high end studios use flourescent lighting and have overall, bright, clear and crisp pictures. The background inst too overexposed compared to the model, and vice versa.

i made a mistake in my past post - tungsten is what gives off the yellow hue

I think fluorescent gives off blue ...

youre better off with strobes im thinking for picture quality.

the exposures sounds like something you can rectify with moving your lighting (if you can, you said you have confined spaces sometimes) or adjusting your aperture n such...

I've been shooting for over 20 years and here's my experience. You can shoot beautiful pictures with a candle or a flashlight if you know what your doing :thumbsup

A scene lit with fluorescent lighting -vs- a scene light with flash shouldn't make any difference on how bright your pictures are as long as you exposed the scene correctly. I can light a model with a fluorescent light, turn right around and light her with a flash and you would not be able to tell the difference....I guarantee it.

The reason I choose flash over fluorescent is for a few reasons. Most fluorescent lighting is not very bright. It's primarily designed for shooting film & video where not much light is needed. So, you either have to shoot with high ISO which introduces grain to your pictures, or you have to have a lot of fluorescent light which could cost you a small fortune. Anytime you shoot with a constant light, you run the risk of motion blur. So you'll need to use a fast shutterspeed to combat that. The faster the shutter speed, the more light you need. The more light you need, the more money you have to spend on lighting.

What I'm saying is that in my opinion, your reason for switching from flash to fluorescent lighting is not a very valid one. It sounds like your having exposure issues and that won't get fixed by switching light sources. It'll only get fixed by buying a handheld flash meter and learning to use it correctly. My pictures are never over exposed or under exposed...because I have a handheld flash meter and I know how to use it. :thumbsup

That makes sense. Could we talk about this more? Are you on ICQ?

Hit me up via email - I'm about to step out and grab some breakfast. If you buy a handheld meter (or if you have one and don't know how to use it correctly), let me know and I'll send you a small ebook that I wrote to teach folks how to use a meter. It's helped quite a number of folks see the light..... no pun intended :winkwink:

My email is in my sig. ...

I'm interested in this ebook as I'm looking into light meters soon and I'll need a good guide to using them properly.

hypnotizes, it depends on what you're doing. These days I ALWAYS shoot video and stills. So I merely set up my kinos and light it up good and shoot with no flash whatsoever. Looks great. Remember, kinos and most flourescent lighting is at 5500k which is the same light frequency as outdoors and the same as your flash. So it's a very nice ambient light to use.

Now 10 years ago, I shot everything with strobes. But again, when I was on a set for filming vid...I used their tungstens for ambient lighting only and adjusted my white balance accordingly.

So if you are just going to be shooting stills with no vid, I would say go strobes. It's old school and works every time. If you're gonna be shooting the stills for a hardcore scene then simply use the ambient lighting of the vid lights (preferably kinos) so you don't disrupt the scene being shot.

Of course if you are at a shoot and there is enough room you can set up your strobes too. I did that some too. But I couldn't shoot while filming was happening when I did that, and when it was all said and done the finished product wasn't that much different. Plus you're better off having your camera set up for the ambient lighting in that circumstance so you can catch the different "in action" shots and of course the cumshot.

As more shooters chime in to answer your question, you'll get more and more confused. People shoot different ways, using different gear and different techniques. Best bet is to just experiment and figure out what works best for you!

Bingo! :thumbsup

Im actually doing video work and photos for my adult work. Do you have any samples of your work?

I primarily use strobes but I have had situations where I used Kino Flo's and things work out just fine if you know how to tweak your camera settings right.

One of the rooms I shoot in is not situated well for lighting with strobes. I use a pair of Diva 400's and shoot both photo and video with the same lights. My clients don't know the difference unless they look at the EXIF files.

True! But I see a certain style that I like and Im just trying to get to that level. Ive been experimenting since I have began with this and it has worked wonders. I just think I have reached the plateau of what I can learn through trial and error and now Im reaching out to more experienced guys.

Yeah just go to http://claudia-marie.com/tour/
Solo girl, big tit niche. The photography for it isn't required to be box cover quality. But I shoot quickly and have to work around a lot of guys that can't keep their dick hard when I'm taking stills. So other than the first few "pretty girl" pics and the first posed pics of the guy and CM together dressed...I'm shooting action during the filming of the vid. Sometimes with my Panasonic 100B in one hand shooting vid and my Canon EOS 5D in the other hand shooting stills LOL

Now, when I go to shoot a box cover for her. Or if I'm going to shoot some specific photos of her for graphics etc...I definitely set up strobes for that along with the kinos for ambient.

Just depends on what I'm trying to do. But most of my work is as I said...flying by the seat of my pants in live action and two-handed shooting. :winkwink:

I'm using that little setup as well. I added a Diva 200 on a boom for overhead lighting and that was the missing ingredient for that setup. Really made it work for me. And the whole setup is small enough to travel with. Matter of fact, I'll have it at The Atlanta Forum next week shooting in my hotel suite. :)

Nice work! I like the previews

Thanks, it's not glamor or artsy photography. But I think I'm capturing the moment and showing what our members want. Which I guess is what every "artist" strives for (sorry for sounding so pompous by saying "artist")

but we are artist! lol.....could you direct me to the ambient lighting you mentioned? link?

Do you have ICQ or yahoo btw?

I have this kit:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...sal_Two. html

And I added this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...t_Lig ht.html

That Kino Diva 200 is used on a bad-ass heavy duty boom for overhead lighting. I don't use yahoo. My icq is in my profile. But I would prefer to just speak in person, my icq is already blowing up all day with people chatting. I see you're from Atlanta so just see me next week at The Atlanta Forum. I'll show you my setup in person and see if I can get you to shoot stills while I'm shooting vid lol

Very nice offer....and one he should take. One of the best ways to learn is to work with folks who already know the ropes :thumbsup

Hey .. just my 2 bits but .. I have been using these.. http://www.skaeser.com/servlet/Categ...HTING:COOL-FLO for years ..

http://www.skaeser.com/catalog/3339%20JPEG.jpg

they are way much cheaper than KinoFlo lighting and for video and photo I have found HUGE success with them .. I have recommended them to everyone I know .. long and short you do get what you pay for .. they are not the same quality construction as the much more expensive Kino's but for the price and bulb costs .. they are awesome in my book ....

Thanks! I can give you my phone number over icq so we can keep in touch until you arrive.

I will take him up on that! My photography stepped up earlier this year when I tagged along another shoot. Did you get my email btw?

I forgot to include, how big of a factor is the lens youre using?

Dean, I see that youre using that mega lens...lol. Is it that much of a difference in quality for the investment for a guy like me?

I used that same exact setup up until May when I bought the kinos. Matter of fact I gave that setup to my old partner AL4A to use for his personal use. :) They work great. My only problem was I try to shoot in different places and it's kind of a fragile setup for constant moving. And I couldn't fly with them at all. I have been able to fly all over the place with that Kino Diva setup with it's case.

But that Kaeser setup works great! :thumbsup

I forgot to include, how big of a factor is the lens youre using?

Dean, I see that youre using that mega lens...lol. Is it that much of a difference in quality for the investment for a guy like me?

hypnotizes...check out this site: http://www.dpreview.com/ It's run by a guy named Phil Askey. 10 years ago I needed to learn about digital photography for the content site I owned. This guy is THE MAN. He gets all the cameras, lenses, accessories, etc. sent to him and he tests them and reviews them. Check his site out. It's a very valuable resource for anybody doing digital photography.

ANyone have any input on the importance of a good lens?

Don't overlook the best light ... natural.

We often shoot in the studio using flourescents - using an older Olympus e10 dslr with a 4000k WB preset (no fill or flash) at 80iso.

A little tweaking in post-edit and its almost impossible to tell its flourescent doing the job.

We've also done some experimentation with small LEDs, longer exposures. They tend to shoot very blue (no matter what white balance you set) and are difficult to compensate - but the overall sterile effect for our type of content works well.

Someone above mentioned using flashlights - and I have to agree. We've used maglites and a variety of different intensity flashlights over the years for lightpainting...and had great results. With the longer exposures a lot relies on the model's ability to freeze and remain motionless during the shot, though.

I have used LED's on a lot of video shoots before I got the Diva setup with the traveling case. And you're right. They are blue as hell. But they did the job for me last year in Amsterdam for sure. Nice and small and fit on the hot shoe of my vidcam. Now I still use them...but only for fill lighting...like when I'm filming penetration when CM is getting nailed doggystyle standing up. It works great to shoot up and fill the shadows. It tends to lose that blue tint when used in conjunction with the kinos on vid work. Never tried them with stills...But it has to be blue as hell if the vid footage is any indication.

Kino Flows are heavy and not good for action but I find the light flattering for some models

I recently went back to the way I used to film back in the old days and work with a small crew incl. myself as director/cameraman, my assistant to set up my lights, a still photographer to take pics and makeup artist for every scene to get the best results with high definition video. I mainly use Kino-Flos with daylight balanced bulbs in them for my key lights and other lights like a 1000-watt Lowell Riffa as a fill light and a 500 watt Lowel Riffa as a hair light with color temperature blue gels to match the Kinos for video lighting, plus sometimes some smaller lights to light the background or throw color or shadows on the wall.

For stills I have my photographer take every image from pretty girls to action to cumshots with strobes so they all come out super crisp, and then we film the scene on video with little interruption. The result is the best of both worlds that way as far as stills and video. (see samples in sig) It just takes a little time, but we have it down pretty good now!

i like natural light also,

there was an old guy on here a long time ago, Unseenworld i think was his nic,

he took some of the nicest pics with the cheapest point and shoot and no flash

Your problem has little to nothing to do with the lights. It's about how you prepare the shoot and knowledge. Plus lack of a light meter. :)

And some fabrics to soak or bounce light around. Lastolite make some excellent reflectors in different colors and some in black. Investigate.

The basic problem is you are not in control of your light, it's controlling you. Turn that around.

That's the problem here. What one person shoots might work for him and not work for another. Best bet is to just experiment and figure out what works best for you! And read some books.

Fluorescent gives off a green light unless you use daylight balanced. Using Kinoflows for stills is not the way forward, even if you want to have a picture that looks like you used them learn how to use strobes to give you the effect. I'm assuming you have strobes that you can adjust the power on or room to move them. Unless you control the light it will control you.

In the hands of an expert, in the hands of a novice it's a fucking nightmare. Unseenworld was clueless on how to use natural light, his good shots were by luck.

Be very careful of some of the advice given. Look at what you want to create, then read up on how to create it and then go get a model and practice hour after hour. Try learning on how light bounces and is influenced by the room your in.

Today we're spoiled and it's never been easier to learn how to light. Back in the days of film you never knewyou had it right until you picked up the film from the processors. Shooting a $1,000 scene and getting the slides back under exposed taught a very valuable lesson. Learn what you're doing.

Today you can take a picture and put it on screen to see what you did.

That's an aspect I always liked about the e10 before we bought the D80.

The e10 had a 'pass-thru' mirror that allowed the camera to be hooked directly to an auxiliary monitor for a live preview (rather than relying on the comparatively smaller onboard LCD).

interesting answers to the question. my thought is control your exposure and noise and then shoot the way you need to meet your production needs. sometimes you have to set up strobes, maybe other times you won't. the only issue to really consider is meeting your client needs in an efficient and cost effect way. -bmb

Very well stated... Im the guy that throws money at it. lol




I own 16 different kinos, i have 8 different hard lights i like to use for edge lighting and 3 pro photo power packs with every head and light modifier imaginable.


Actually l like coming up with the same pic using 30 different lighting combos, including just natural light and 2 speed lights.


Porn for me is simple flat lighting and i get that a bunch of different ways.



My best advice is know what you got and how to use it so you will learn what you need and why you need it.:thumbsup

.

Damn! That is an offer he shouldn't refuse. It's always great to see how others shoot and it's an excellent learning experience :thumbsup

Very well said.. Thats how i got good. I started off holding a c-light for Craven Moorehead. Thats how me and Alan Eigan Both leaned how to from a sex still.

The criticism was brutal but strait. I got really good and Alan got good. I eventually started shooting all of Chico Wangs Diabolic box shots for free to get good. Alan went on to shoot Penthouse and other top companies.


You need to be the nail before you can be the hammer. Too many people forget that and fuck up content jobs on other peoples dime and end up getting a bad Wrap for shitty work.


All the gear and all of the money wont help you unless you know how to use it. And reading the directions on a camera wont make you a good pornographer.:2 cents:

I think there are a few cameras you can hook up to a PC or laptop. I just put them on a disc and transfer them. Not technical enough to do anything else. :1orglaugh