# Problem with lightning a green screen subject



## photosnake (Feb 25, 2013)

Hi everyone!

Im completely new in photographing as well as on this forum. I tried to find solutions for my problem from web with no results. 

I bought a green screen and 3 softbox-lights couple of months ago. I got 3 x 115W 5500K bulbs in those softboxes.

I have put two of those lights in front of the subject (on the right side and on the left side) and one is hanging above the subject (hairlight I think is the correct term). Im not having shadows on the green screen though.

Now i have started to take "full body" pictures with that setup and i have faced a problem. The head and the torso are lighted pretty nice and evenly, but the problem is the legs. The legs are much darker than the torso and hair of the subject :/. The problem is even worst if the subject is very tall.

Do you guys have any ideas what should i do?

THANKS!


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## Mike_E (Feb 25, 2013)

look up the inverse square law in regards to photography.

You just don't have enough power to light your whole subject from where you have placed you main and fill.

You could try lowering your fill softbox to help with the lower body.

Without a sample I couldn't say about your main but it is probably a good idea to have it high enough that you don't under (shine from up under) light their head and get some really garish effects.


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## KmH (Feb 25, 2013)

Constant lights don't work very well for shooting people. What size and shape are the softboxes? Full body portraits are best made with rectangular softboxes

Are there 3 - 115W lights in each softbox - 9 lights total, or just 1 - 115W light in each softbox?

The hair light should be snooted so it only lights the hair.


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## photosnake (Feb 25, 2013)

Many thanks for your replies!

my softboxes are 50x70cm, and yeah... there are 1 x 115W bulb in each softbox. 

One thing that came in to my mind is that should I put the hairlight softbox to lie on the floor pointing the subject's legs and just the height of the side lights?


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## Buckster (Feb 25, 2013)

If you're going to continue to shoot people as subject matter, do everything you can to get away from those continuous lights, and get some studio strobes with modeling lights built into them.  Even the cheap eBay Chinese or Cowboy Studio kits with 3 strobes will serve you a LOT better than what you're using.  If you can afford better lights than those, even better, but the continuous lights you have are just going to be a constant source of frustration for you.


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## gsgary (Feb 25, 2013)

Crappy cheap lights is your problem


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## photosnake (Feb 25, 2013)

Buckster said:


> If you're going to continue to shoot people as subject matter, do everything you can to get away from those continuous lights, and get some studio strobes with modeling lights built into them.  Even the cheap eBay Chinese or Cowboy Studio kits with 3 strobes will serve you a LOT better than what you're using.  If you can afford better lights than those, even better, but the continuous lights you have are just going to be a constant source of frustration for you.



Thanks for the advice!

I bought this set a couple of months ago:
1500W Continuous Light Kit Softbox Boom Arm Hairlight | eBay

I thought that set would be a nice choice to get decent results with cheap price. Anyway, can you recommend me something else from ebay (studio strobes like you were saying) so I can make better puchase in the future. The price does matter.

Because i have now spend my money in those continuous lightning softboxes (damn) it would still be nice to get some advices how to get the best results with them. Can I still somehow fix my original problem without buying a new ligning set right now?


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## Buckster (Feb 25, 2013)

photosnake said:


> The price does matter.


What's your budget allow for?  Even cheap 160 w/s strobes with modeling lights will be better than what you're using, though there's a good chance that at some point you'll hit a limit with those as well, and want to upgrade yet again.  Check eBay for prices on cheap ones if that's all you can afford and just want a step up from where you are now.  You paid about $200 for the kit you have.  For the same price you could have gotten a cheap 3 strobe kit instead.  For about $200 per light, you can get much better lights.  For 3 times that, you can get pretty awesome lights.  For 10 times that, you can get the best of the best.  It's all about your budget.



photosnake said:


> Can I still somehow fix my original problem without buying a new ligning set right now?


Not likely; Not without more light.  Continuous lights are okay for products and still life type shooting, where you can use long exposures and nothing moves.  In that case, you can set up the lights with reflectors and get light balanced pretty well wherever you want it with some dedications to the problem, but your shutter speeds are likely to be quite long as a result, which is why it's not good for people shots.


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## photosnake (Feb 25, 2013)

Thanks again.

As a student (not a photography student) I dont have much money to spend in this awesome hobby of mine :-( I should have asked advices from this forum before buying my continuous lights ^^.

Anyway, is this what you meant: PBL FAN160 Studio Flash Strobe Light Softbox Set 160W S | eBay. My budget is around 100 and 200 dollars. Is that enough to light the whole subject or do i need a couple of those. If i had one of those, could I still make use of my current continuous lights? For example, could i use them to light the green screen and then the strobes for the subject?


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## Buckster (Feb 25, 2013)

Those are the kind of cheap 160 w/s strobes I'm talking about, but that includes just one light.  You'll need at least two.  You already have softboxes and stands too.  You can get just the lights separately if you look around on eBay for them

As to your other question, you _may_ be able to use what you have to light up the background, but the strobes are going to overpower them pretty easily, so I wouldn't bet on it.  You're probably better off just selling the continuous lights kit on eBay or Craigslist to someone who shoots strictly product or just doesn't know any better, and using the money for a 2 or 3 light strobe kit with either umbrellas or softboxes, stands and a reflector or two.


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## photosnake (Feb 25, 2013)

Buckster said:


> Those are the kind of cheap 160 w/s strobes I'm talking about, but that includes just one light.  You'll need at least two.  You already have softboxes and stands too.  You can get just the lights separately if you look around on eBay for them
> 
> As to your other question, you _may_ be able to use what you have to light up the background, but the strobes are going to overpower them pretty easily, so I wouldn't bet on it.  You're probably better off just selling the continuous lights kit on eBay or Craigslist to someone who shoots strictly product or just doesn't know any better, and using the money for a 2 or 3 light strobe kit with either umbrellas or softboxes, stands and a reflector or two.



In future, Is it better to buy 2 x 160 w/s strobe lights or 2 x continuous lights with 4x 45 watt bulbs on each softbox (total of 180W in one softbox). Basically the continuous lights would be more powerful?

Lets say that I bought 160 w/s strobe lights. What kind of lights would I then need for lightning the green screen? I assume that there will be more shadows than I have at the moment? Do the strobe lights produce any shadows?


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## Buckster (Feb 25, 2013)

photosnake said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Those are the kind of cheap 160 w/s strobes I'm talking about, but that includes just one light.  You'll need at least two.  You already have softboxes and stands too.  You can get just the lights separately if you look around on eBay for them
> ...


No, they're not.  Strobes measured in watt-seconds are not the same as continuous light bulbs measured in watts - not by a longshot.  You've no doubt seen a flash on a camera go off when it's pointed at you.  You've seen how bright that is.  That's a relatively low watt-second flash, and it happens in an instant - WAY less than a second.  Now imagine if that level of brightness were on constantly, without burning it up somehow.  How bright of a light bulb do you think that would be?  A couple to a few thousand watts, maybe?  Maybe even several thousand watts - I don't honestly know, but maybe someone with actual direct knowledge will jump in and let us know.  In any case, that's what you're up against here.  And that's one cheap little flash built into a camera, not a professional strobe for studio use - not even the relatively weaker 160 w/s strobe we've been talking about here, which is actually quite bright.

One last time: Get away from continuous lights.  Just stop thinking about them altogether, other than to sell them so that you can get some money for some strobes.



photosnake said:


> Lets say that I bought 160 w/s strobe lights. What kind of lights would I then need for lightning the green screen? I assume that there will be more shadows than I have at the moment? Do the strobe lights produce any shadows?


It's light.  Of course it will produce shadows if you put something between the light and the background.  How could it NOT?

From your questions, you've got a LONG way to go, and I just can't spend the next 6 months in this thread trying to teach you, and I doubt anyone else will be interested either.  So, here's what you need to do instead...

1. Get "Light, Science and Magic".  It's a book available from Amazon and other places.  Read it.  Study it.  Learn from it.
2. Go here: Strobist: Lighting 101 It's a web site where you'll learn about how to light, and it's free.  It will talk about using small portable flashes, but any strobes will work, including the kind you plug into the wall from eBay, so just pay attention to HOW to light and how to modify that light for different looks, not what kind of flash to use.  Study it, learn it, practice it when you get your hands on some strobes until you understand it.

That's the path you need to be on.  Have fun with it, and good luck!  Be sure to show us your results as you start to work it all out, and the folks here will be glad to help guide you from there.


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## photosnake (Feb 26, 2013)

You dont even know how helpful you were! Thanks very, very much for your advices! :hail:

Now I think I have a much better understanding of what I should do.


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