Time for another high-key studio lighting breakdown! ⚡️
My go-to setup for a super soft look is to both bounce and diffuse the key light. (AKA a book light.) If the light source is large and the diffusion is thicc, your light will be soft and it will wrap beautifully around your subject’s face! Sounds awesome! But to go big and soft like that you need a lot of power to compensate for the light lost from bouncing and passing through diffusion.
Pro tip: flood your fresnel lenses in a book light! You want to spread the light on your bounce surface as much as you can. It may seem counter intuitive, but it will carry further and be softer than spotting the lens. (Do some tests of your own if you think I’m wrong!)
For this project we used four Aputure 600Ds as our key source. Probably could have done it with one M40 or two M18s, but we were able to plug all four of these into two 20A circuits. Not a bad deal for making commercials on a budget!
The rest of this setup was pretty straight forward. LiteMat 2L Plus with DOP Choice Snapgrid as the hair light, some Quasar Crossfades as cyc lights, and an Intellytech 1x1 panel with a soft box was a special on a table in the background. Nice and clean.
Tyler Kaschke is a freelance gaffer with a grip truck based in Lafayette, Colorado serving Boulder, Denver, Golden, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs and the Rocky Mountain region at large.