Lighting: Function, Types and Techniques

Published by Emil Abraham,


Many times the difference between a good show and a great show is the lighting! Good lighting can transform a routine, uninteresting shot into an attractive, appealing image that draws the audience’s attention.
Lighting allows the camera to record a quality image and is usually needed to increase or reduce depth of field. However, lighting is also a great manipulator of the audience. The eye is drawn to the brightest portion of an image. That means that the audience can be subtly directed where to look and what subject is the most important. Lighting is also used to add depth to a scene and allows the director to "color" a scene to create a mood and time period.
People are apprehensive about lighting/ think of lighting as an unnecessary luxury when working with a small production crew. They assume it requires a lot of equipment and a lot of power. It can, if a large studio drama is being lit or if you are shooting the inside of a stadium. However, it is worth the time to make sure that the lighting treatment provides a quality image.
There are many situations where just one light, or a well-placed reflector, is all that you will need to make an image spring to life. Even in large-scale production, foresight and imagination can often make a little light go a long way. It is really a matter of knowing what the goal is, what to look out for, and what can be done about the problems that develop.

Topics given in this article
  • The basic function of lighting
  • Key factors of lighting
  • Types of lights
  • Types of lighting
  • Lighting terminology
  • Types of lamps
  • Specific lighting techniques

The basic function of lighting
Lighting is an essential tool for enhancing the video image. The subtle use of light creates atmosphere and mood, dimension, and texture. It can help to convey a plot line, enhance key elements such as set color or skin tone, and signals the difference between comedy and drama, reality and fantasy.
To show the viewers what the objects shown on screen actually look like, say, for instance, if there was no light in the room, we would not have been able to see how the chair, table or anything else for that matter would look like. Lights also help us know when the event is taking place, in terms of the season and the time of the day

Why not simply shoot in whatever light is available?
Of course, that is possible. On good days, the result will be clear, attractive, and interesting images, where realistic color makes the image jump at the audience. But there will certainly be days when the images will be lifeless, drab, or have a little too much contrast; when the subject is not clear; or when the subject’s texture is lost.
So much depends on the location - where and when the shooting takes place. Is the shoot occurring inside a building (interior) or out in the open (exterior)? Is it day or night? Are the surroundings well illuminated or in shadowy gloom? Are the shots very tight or spacious and long? Finally, a lot will depend on the sort of atmosphere the director is aiming to convey to the audience: a realistic every- day scene or a moody, dramatic situation.
Obviously, it is not smart to introduce any extra lighting into a scene unless it is really going to enhance the images. Often, the crew does not have the time or opportunity to set up lights anyway. For our purposes, we will assume that, for the most part, crews only carry around a few lights. There will be many situations, particularly when shooting outside, where even these lights will not be needed, provided the subject is correctly arranged in the existing light.

The camera does not compensate
One of the most important things to bear in mind when lighting is the essential difference between the way the human eye and brain registers a scene and the limited, literal way the camera reproduces it. The eyes and brain compensate (sometimes overcompensate) in many subtle ways as the lighting of the surroundings vary. Our eyes seem to be able to see details in shadows, and variations in color values pass unnoticed. We are able to see a remarkable amount even when the lighting conditions are poor.
However, the camera cannot interpret. It responds to what is there, within its limitations. If a surface reflects too much light for the video system, whether it is a specular reflection from a shiny surface or a very light tone, it blocks off to a blank white in the picture. Darker-toned furniture, clothing, foliage, or shadows often crush out to black on camera. When we are at the same location, looking at the scene with our own eyes, we have none of these problems. That means that directors and camera operators need to watch how the camera is really reproducing what they are seeing.
Where those tones do matter, the camera operator may need to manipulate the scene a bit. For example, the dark background can be lit to bring it within the range of the camera, or you can change the camera’s position in order to deliberately keep the background out of shot.

Key factors
Lighting involves a lot more than simply having enough illumination around to let the camera see what is going on. Light influences what the subject looks like, how the viewers feel about what they see, what attracts their attention. That means that we not only need to think about where to place the lights, but also the type of illumination that we are getting from these lights and how all this affects the quality of our images.
To use illumination, or lighting, successfully, we need to take a look at some of its interesting characteristics:
  • The light’s intensity (brightness) affects exposure. 

  • A light’s quality refers to whether it is concentrated "hard" shadow- 
forming light or diffused "soft" shadowless illumination. 

  • Lighting impacts contrast, which is the relative brightness of the lightest 
and darkest areas in the shot. 

  • The direction of the light has an effect on the appearance of the subject. 

  • The light’s color temperature refers to its overall color quality. 

When using colored light for effect, directors need to be concerned with:
  • Its hue (the predominant color; for example, blue, green, and yellow) 

  • Its saturation (chroma, purity, intensity) referring to its richness or paleness 

  • Its luminance (brightness, value), or how light or dark it appears 

Understanding how to control or compensate for these various features will make the difference in whether you create consistent high-quality images. If you ignore them, the results may be fine; but then again, they will probably be unpredictable. 


The "contrast" in a scene is simply the difference between the brightness of its lightest and darkest tones. If the range is too great for the camera to handle, as is the case when strong sunlight casts deep shadows, the extreme tones are lost in the image. The tonal contrasts that the camera sees will depend partly on the tones of the subjects, partly on variations in the light’s intensity, and partly on the shadows the light casts.
Excessive lighting contrast produces burned-out highlights and detail-less lower tones. Whether the result looks highly dramatic or difficult to interpret depends on the situation.
When the lighting is high contrast (lots of hard light from one direction and no fill light), picture quality can alter considerably as the camera’s position var- ies. If you shoot with the light behind the camera, subjects may look bright, flat, and unmodeled. If you shoot toward the light, only the edges of subjects will be illuminated, while the rest remains unlit.
The other extreme is the effect obtained when the scene is lit with soft, shadow- less lighting. Now everything is subtly modeled. Even if the camera is moved around over a wide angle, the tonal quality of the picture remains reasonably constant under soft lighting.
In practice, you usually want to avoid the harshness that comes from a high lighting contrast and the flatness that you get with a low lighting contrast. The best solution is to use a careful balance of hard lights (which creates a three- dimensional illusion) and some soft light to illuminate any shadows (i.e., "fill" them) without casting extra ones.

Types of Lights
  • Spotlights: Spotlights are small-source instruments, meaning that the lamp and reflector are rarely bigger than six inches across (though film studio spots can be very bigger). All but the cheapest models can be focused, narrowing or widening the light beam by moving the lamp forward or back in its housing. Because of their small light source and their ability to focus, spotlights throw a relatively directional and "hard-edged" beam, meaning that its intensity falls off very quickly at the perimeter. (Ellipsoidal spotlights and beam projectors have even harder beams but are usually exclusive to clubs and theaters). You can control spotlight beams precisely by masking their edges with barn doors (movable flaps mounted on the instrument) and flags (opaque boards held in the beam on stands). Nowadays, all spotlights use special halogen lamps.
Larger, heavier spotlights are supplied with Fresnel lenses (pronounced "fruh-NELL" and capitalized for M. Fresnel, its inventor). These distinctive concentric-ringed lenses make the light even more directional and hard-edged. The spotlight can be adjusted to a "flood" beam position, which gives off a widespread light beam; or it can be "spot­ ted," or focused to a sharp, clearly defined beam.
The ellipsoidal spotlightproduces a sharp, highly defined beam. Even when in a flood posi­ tion, the ellipsoidal beam is still sharper than the focused beam of a Fresnel spot. Ellipsoidal spots are generally used when specific, precise lighting tasks are necessary.

  • Floodlights: Because floods are larger light sources than spots, they have the opposite virtues and vices. Lacking lenses and focus systems, they are simple and less expensive; and their soft-edged light beams take little practice to manage. On the down side, they are difficult or plain impossible to mask, spilling their beams allover the place. The smallest floodlights are broads: shallow rectangular pans usually fitted with two narrow barn doors. Used naked, they can throw effective washes on walls and other backgrounds, but because they are still relatively small, they often need extra softening, usually with sheets of white spun glass held in front of them on frames.
  • Scoops work much like broads, with big, open reflectors in circular housings. Because of their size, weight, and bulk, the bulk of their use is for studio work. Pans are very large lights (some over four feet square) that throw ultra-soft even light beams that seem to wrap around subjects. Pans contain several high-accuracy fluorescent tubes, and some models allow you to switch them individually. Pans are fairly clumsy to use; but vendors have added conveniences like bodies that clam-shell shut to form their own cases and fluorescent ballast units that function as counter weights. Typically, balanced for daylight, pans work well with location windows and existing fluorescent ceiling lights. Like all, fluorescents, they are more efficient than lights with halogen lamps, putting out substantially more light (and less heat) per watt of power.
  • Pans are very large lights (some over four feet square) that throw ultra-soft even light beams that seem to wrap around subjects. Pans contain several high-accuracy fluorescent tubes, and some models allow you to switch them individually. Pans are fairly clumsy to use; but vendors have added conveniences like bodies that clam-shell shut to form their own cases and fluorescent ballast units that function as counter weights. Typically, balanced for daylight, pans work well with location windows and existing fluorescent ceiling lights. Like all, fluorescents, they are more efficient than lights with halogen lamps, putting out substantially more light (and less heat) per watt of power. Pans bridge the gap between floodlights and softlights.
  • Softlights: Softlights are very large lights sources (typically 11/2 to 4 feet square) created by placing the instrument inside a fabric enclosure or else aiming it at a reflective umbrella. All softlights deliver a diffuse beam that is easy to use and looks very natural. On the down side, you can’t control the edges of softlight beams (though some types include accessories to limit the beam spread). Some soft lights are really accessories for small spotlights, which mount at the rear of a fabric cube with opaque sides and translucent front. Other versions are "pure" softlights, with open lamp-and-socket assemblies designed for specific housings. Photoflex, for example has a proprietary tent engineered like an umbrella. Actual umbrellas have been used as softlights for decades. Mounted on a stand, the umbrella reflects light onto the subject from a small spotlight clamped to the bottom of its "handle" and aimed into the fabric bowl. Umbrellas are versatile, inexpensive, and easy to carry and store. You can get different levels of diffusion by using different fabrics—say, silver-thread cloth or plain white. For a super-duper soft effect, fit a translucent white umbrella and reverse the unit so that the spot aims at the subject through the diffusing cloth.
  • LED light: LED lights are like small computer screens or a stretched foldout viewfinder, but instead of displaying an image, they simply show white light. The LEDs (light-emitting diodes) of these small panels (about 7 inches wide) put out enough light to illuminate an object suf­ ficiently for acceptable video images, provided the panel is fairly close to the object. The battery-powered (12V to 24V) panel produces light with the 5,600K daylight color temperature that can be dimmed with a knob on its top­ side. It is an ideal camera light because you can get fairly close to the subject without causing a hot spot. When it's not mounted on the camera, you can use it to light up small areas, such as a car interior.

    [Fresnel spot lamp, ellipsoidal spot lamp, broad, scoop, fluorescent flood light bank, scrim attached to a lamp, using diffusion umbrella]


Diffusing portable spotlights
Portable spot lights can be used as flood lights by diffusing the light by changing the lamp from a ‘spot' to ‘flood' position. You will find that despite the flood control, however, you will not always get the even diffusion you may need. Fortunately, there are several ways to achieve a more diffused light with these instruments.
  • Bouncing the light: The simplest way to diffuse the light is to bounce it off the wall or ceiling. Unfortunately, bouncing light drastically reduces its intensity, even if the walls are painted a light color. To salvage maximum light intensity, try to get the instrument as close to the wall or ceiling as possible without charring the paint.
  • Attaching a scrim: The most popular diffusers are scrims and frosted gels. As mentioned, scrims are spun- glass diffusers that you can put in front of small spotlights, floodlights, or open-face spots to achieve maximum dif­ fusion ofthelight. Thesimplest wayto attach a scrim to an open-face instrument is to clip it on the barn doors with wooden clothespins. Don't use plastic ones: open- face lights get very hot and will melt plastic within a few minutes
  • Using a diffusion umbrella: Another highly effective diffusion device is the umbrella. The small, silvery, heat- resistant umbrella is not to protect you from the rain but to reflect and diffuse the light source that shines into it. You can attach the scooplike umbrella to the lighting instru­ ment and/or the light stand and then aim the umbrella's opening in the general direction of illumination. You need to shine the light into the umbrella opening, not on the rounded surface.


Types of Lighting
Whatever your lighting objective, you will be working with two types of light: directional and diffused.

Hard (directional) vs. Soft (diffused)
All lighting falls into either "hard" with sharp and distinct shadows, or "soft" with less defined, softer shadows and fewer background images. The intensity and clarity of the bulb, or its diffusion, combines with placement to design a shooting environment.


Hard light/Directional light: produced by spotlights, illuminates a relatively small area with a distinct light beam and produces dense, well-defined shadows. Aimed directly on its subject, with a brighter single-source illumination. The sun is one example. Other hard light is incandescent, ellipsoidal, and quartz.

Soft light/Diffused light: illuminates a relatively large area with a wide, indistinct beam. It is produced by floodlights and creates soft, transparent shadows. Less intense lamps that reflect or bounce light off a reflector, a ceiling, or another part of the set also create soft lighting. Soft lighting effects are enhanced with scrims, strips, scoops, and banks. The sun on a cloudy or foggy day acts like an ideal floodlight because the overcast transforms the harsh light beams of the sun into highly diffused light.
Actually, it is the density of the shadows and their falloff that indicates whether the light is directional or diffused.

Falloff: (1) The speed with which light intensity decays. (2) The speed (degree) with which a light picture portion turns into shadow area. Fast falloff means that the light areas turn abruptly into shadow areas and there is a great brightness difference between light and shadow areas. Slow falloffin- dicates a very gradual change from light to dark and a mini- mal brightness difference between light and shadow areas.

Lighting Terminology
Lighting terminology is based not so much on whether the instruments are spotlights or floodlights but rather on their functions and their position relative to the object to be lighted.
  • Key light: Powerful, bright light that best defines a primary, or key, person or object, creating a deep shadow. Key light is the apparent principal source of directional illumination falling on a subject or an area; it reveals the basic shape of the object. It is positioned at roughly a 45-degree angle to the subject being shot.
  • Fill light(s): Fill light is a softer light which provides generally diffused illumination to reduce shadow (created by the key light) or contrast range (to slow falloff). It can be directional if the area to be "filled in" is rather limited. It is usually placed opposite the key light at about a 30-degree angle.
  • Back light(s): Throwing light on the subject from behind, it’s positioned behind at around a 90-degree angle; it can also be adjusted higher or lower to create other lighting moods. This helps to create an illusion of depth behind the main subject and brings it forward from the background. It also distinguishes the shadow of the object from the background and emphasizes the object's outline.
  • Background light: The background light, or set light, is used specifically to illuminate the background or the set and is separate from the light provided for the performers or performance area.
  • Side light is placed directly to the side of the subject, usually on the opposite side of the camera from the key light. Sometimes two side lights are used opposite each other, acting as two keys for special-effects lighting of a face.
  • The kicker light is a directional illumination from the back, off to one side of the subject, usually from a low angle opposite the key light. Whereas the back light merely highlights the back of the head and the shoulders, the kicker light highlights and defines the entire side of the person, separating him or her from the background.


High-Key versus Low-Key Lighting
Most TV talk shows, sitcoms, variety shows, musicals, and family entertainment use high-key lighting: a high ratio of key light to fill light. Low-key lighting creates a more dramatic, moody, and textured effect for dramas, documentaries, music videos, and others.


Hot and Cold Lighting
Light is named by two items: the color temperature and the color display. The color temperature of light (CCT - correlated color temperature) is displayed in degrees Kelvin (K). The temperature of light used indoors can range from 2000K to about 6500K. The higher the color temperature, the colder the light.
At 1200K we therefore speak of warm light. This is the color temperature of a candle. At 5600K we speak of cold light. 5600K equals daylight. Warm light has a red to yellowish appearance, cold light has a white to bluish appearance.

Interior and Exterior Lighting
Everything you shoot is either indoors or outdoors. Each light has its advantages and limitations.
Exterior lighting: As you shoot an exterior (outdoor) scene, you may want the spectacular intensity of the sun at high noon. Or, the scene calls for the moody waning light immediately after sunset, known as the magic hour. Each option has its own effect on an exterior scene. However, outdoor shooting can pose real challenges. Along with the sun’s continual movement, its degrees of brightness can fluctuate dramatically through the shooting day. When the sun is your key light, it might need to be partially blocked out or augmented by fill lights or back lights. An exterior set can be shot at night but lit to look like daylight, or vice versa.
Interior lighting: Shooting interior (indoor) scenes poses fewer challenges as video cameras and shooting formats become more advanced and light sensitive. A camera’s iris, for example, can play with light and color and go from automatic to manual. This avoids the camera’s normal tendency to focus on the best-lit object in the scene.
Both interior and exterior lighting can be adjusted by using reflectors (also called bounce cards). These are glossy, white lightweight cards in various sizes that reflect light onto an object or actor. Large silks (squares of translucent material) can be strategically hung and positioned to filter the sunlight and maintain lighting consistency. In some cases, a light-filtering paper gel called neutral density (ND) is placed onto windows to keep outside light from being too harsh; in other situations, thick dark velvet curtain material blocks out sunlight entirely.

Colour Temperature
Normal white light, which you get from the sun or the light you use while reading, is never pure white but has a slight red­ dish or bluish tinge. Technically, white light has a certain color temperature. Color temperature is measured on the Kelvin (K) scale. It measures the relative reddishness or bluishness of white light. The norm for indoor light is 3,200K; for outdoor light, 5,600K.
Occasionally the camera will refuse to white-balance although you follow exact procedures. This difficulty may be caused by a color temperature that is too low (light is too reddish) or too high (light is too bluish) for the automatic white balance to handle. In this case you need to choose one of the color filters on the filter wheel inside the camera. Light-blue filters compensate for the reddishness of low- color-temperature light, and amber or light-orange filters compensate for the bluishness of high-color-temperature light.
When illuminating an object with indoor light mixed with outdoor light coming through a window, you need to equalize the color temperatures of both light sources to ensure proper white-balancing. To equalize the color temperatures, you can put light-blue gels on the indoor lighting instruments to raise their 3,200K color temperature to the more prominent 5,600K daylight coming through the window.
When shooting an indoor scene that is partially illuminated by outdoor (5,600K) light coming through a window and by portable indoor (3,200K) lighting instru- ments, you have two choices: either lower the high outdoor color temperature (bluish light) or raise the indoor color temperature (reddish light) to match the daylight stream- ing through the window. In elaborate field productions, the usual way is to cover the entire window with amber plastic sheets that act like gigantic filters, lowering the high outdoor color temperature to the lower indoor standard. The advantage of this method is that the whole interior is adjusted to the 3,200K standard. A quicker and cheaper way is to let the high-color-temperature outdoor light stream through the window and put bluish filters in front of the indoor lighting instruments to raise their light to the outdoor standard.

Types of lamps
Lighting instruments are classified not only by function
(spotlight or floodlight) but also by the lamp (bulb) they use. When classifying instruments by type of lamp, we can refer to the power rating, such as 12V or 30V for battery-powered lamps or lkW or 2kW (1,000W or 2,000W) lamps for studio lighting, or to a specific way of generating a light output—the luminant. Obviously, you should not use a 12V lamp with a 30V battery or put a 2kW lamp in an instrument that is rated for only a lkW.
Television lighting generally uses three basic types of luminants: (1) incandescent, (2) fluorescent, and (3) HMI.

The incandescent lamp operates on the same principle as the ordinary household light bulb. It generates light by heating up a filament with electricity. The incandes­ cent lamps used in television resemble the ones in your home fixtures except that they usually have more wattage and therefore produce higher-intensity light. They also include the smaller but hotter quartz lamps. The major disadvantages of regular incandescent lamps are that the higher-wattage lamps are quite large, the color temperature becomes progressively lower (more reddish) as the lamp ages, and they have a relatively short life.
The quartz lamp has a filament that is encased in quartz bulb filled with halogen gas. The advantages of a quartz lamp over regular incandescent systems are that it is smaller and maintains its color temperature over its entire life. The disadvantage is that it burns at an extremely hot temperature. When changing quartz lights, do not touch the lamp with your fingers. The old lamp may still be hot enough to burn your skin, and your finger­ prints will cause the new one to have a much shorter life span. Always use gloves, a paper towel, or a clean rag when handling lamps.
Fluorescent tubes generate light by activating a gas-filled tube to give off ultraviolet radiation. This radiation in turn lights up the phosphorous coating inside the tubes, similar to the way the electron beam lights up the television screen. Despite improved fluorescent lamps that produce a fairly even white light, many fluorescent tubes have a tendency to give off a slightly greenish light or, at best, a color tem­ perature that makes it difficult to blend with other indoor or outdoor light sources.
HMI, which stands for hydragyrum medium arc-length iodide) lamps generate light by moving electricity through various types of gases. This creates a sort of lightning inside the bulb, which is the discharge that creates the light. To create the lightning inside the lamp, you need a ballast—a fairly heavy transformer. HMI lamps produce light with a color temperature of 5,600K, the outdoor standard. (See section 7.1 for the advantages and disadvantages of the HMI when used in production.) As with quartz bulbs, do not touch HMI lamps with your hands: your fingerprints will weaken the quartz housing and cause the lamp to burn out in a relatively short time.

Specific Lighting Techniques
  • Flat lighting means that you light for optimal visibility with minimal shadows. Most flat-lighting setups use floodlights (softlights or fluorescent banks) for front lighting and background lighting and more-focused instruments (Fres­nel spots or small broads) for back lights. This setup is the favorite lighting technique for more or less permanently installed news sets and interview areas.

  • Multiple triangle application: In this lighting setup, a separate lighting triangle with its own key, back, and fill light is used for each of the two persons (per­ formance areas). If floodlights are used for the keys, you can probably dispense with the fill lights.
  • For large-area lighting, such as for an audience or orchestra, the basic photographic principle still holds: all you do is partially overlap one triangle on another until you have adequately covered the entire area. Instead of key-lighting from just one side of the camera and fill-lighting from the other, however, key-light from both sides of the camera with Fresnel spots in theflood position. Thekey lights from one side act as fill for the other side. If the area is really big, you can have additional sets of Fresnel spots positioned closer to the center.
  • The opposite of flat lighting is high-contrast lighting, much of which mirrors motion picture lighting techniques. Be­ cause of the increased tolerance of today's video cameras to low light levels and higher-contrast lighting, many televi­sion plays make extensive use of fast-falloff lighting.


  • This technique, where the per­ formers are highlighted against a plain dark background, is commonly known as cameo lighting (from the cameo art form in which a light relief figure is set against a darker background).


  • Lighting for a silhouette effect is the opposite of cameo lighting. In silhouette lighting you light the background but leave the figures in front unlighted.


  • The chroma-key set area normally consists of a plain blue or green backdrop. It is used to provide a variety of back­ grounds that are electronically generated, replacing the blue or green areas during the key—a process called chroma keying. The most important aspect of lighting the chroma-key set area is even background illumination, which means that the blue or green backdrop must be lighted with highly dif­fused instruments, such as softlights or floodlight banks.