The Ultimate Guide To HDSLR Video Lighting

If you haven't checked out Mark Wallace's Adorama TV channel over at youtube you really should. He does a great job creating informative and useful videos on all sorts of digital photography and videography topics. In his most recent video, Mark shows a lot of different types of hot lights that can be used for lighting both your behind the scenes videos as well as your photoshoots themselves. He also talks a bit about how to light different subjects including how to light for a two person interview. Here at Fstopppers, we are using the Photoflex Starlights for our video productions. We really enjoy the versatility they give us but of course you can use anything that fits your budget. I know photographers sometimes stray away from constant lighting in favor of strobes so if you have any questions or thoughts about how to use these to the fullest, leave a comment below.

Patrick Hall's picture

Patrick Hall is a founder of Fstoppers.com and a photographer based out of Charleston, South Carolina.

Log in or register to post comments
9 Comments

Awesome. This video was great. I'm glad they covered a lot of the fundamentals of basic, but very common lighting situations. If you're working in both photography and videography, does anyone know or suggest any specific lights that work as strobes and video lights? Something with modeling lights that work well for video?

Great advice for photographers/videographers at any stage of their career. Anybody can take this and set up a shoot that will look great. I hope he gives advice in the future on strobes that will double for filming.

Wow. This was great! Very informative. Didn't know Adorama made videos like this. Awesome! Thanks Patrick!

@ Michael - I've been told by a couple cinematographers that modeling lights generally don't provide enough light. You'll be able to get away with shooting in very controlled situations like indoor interviews, but for anything larger you really need dedicated kit like what's covered here.

Yeah we use Dynalite power packs in the studio and the modeling lamps are only about 200 watts which isn't enough sometimes. If you shoot at 2.8 and high iso you should be okay but it's not ideal. That's why we have added the Photoflex Starlights because they are much more powerful for smaller apertures and lighting larger scenes.

Awesome! Stoked on the fact this guy gets straight to the point and uses the lights I have. I have the Lowel DV Creator kit which has all three of those lights (Tota, Omni and Pro). Great kit for the money (around $850 complete with stands, gels, diffusers, umbrella, etc.). I bought them for video work but have used them on occasion for photo work as well. Whole kit breaks down an fits in a super-nice little padded case that, when you see it, you are like, "How did all of that come out of there."

can you see the bed headboard behind him, do you think he shoots erm, naughty videos?

Good idea with that lazy susan turning the product! Seems too simple : )

There was a good round up and introduction for lights I currently have gone two LED ring light setup for a lot of headshot, interview and really like it.