Red Head Lighting Workshop

Using 640Watt Red Head Film Lights:

When setting up this lighting you always need to check the stand is stable and secure before putting the lights on top. The best way to do this is to make sure you spread the three bottom feet out as wide as possible so that it as a large surface area making it much steadier. You need to make sure that all the screws are done up as tight as possible to avoid anything getting broken. Once set up and plugged in you can begin experimenting with them:

The barn doors are the four adjustable panels at the side of the main light. These are a good way to control the light so if you fold them in they focus the light in one spot much more an if you open them out wide you have a wider area of light. However when adjusting these you need to make sure you always wear gloves because these lights produce so much heat that the barn doors also heat up as well.

You can also use different heat proof materials as diffusers with these lights to make them much less harsh. These materials can withstand the heat produced off the light so you can only use these, if you were to use non heat proof materials you could potentially cause a fire. You must again wear gloves whilst attaching these because they need to be clipped to the barn doors which get very hot. You can use wooden pegs to clip these on to the barn doors as they can also withstand the heat produced.

Another useful technique when using these lights is to reflect the light onto the subject instead of having it directly pointing at them. Again this really helps to defuse the amount of light hitting your subject which makes it look a lot more softer. There are many materials you can use to do this such as photographic reflectors, polystyrene and even walls.