The Basics Of Effective Lighting

YouTube Creator Academy is a great source for information about making videos (and not just videos for youtube mind you). On this video videographer Freddie Wong from RocketJump shares some ideas on good lighting and how you can use effective lighting to create a mood and style for your videos.

Lighting is not just a technical aspect of your video, they should be a creative choice that helps you tell a story in the way that you as the photographer or director wants to tell it. This means for example to consciously decide what to light and how but even more importantly, what not to light.

Not lighting parts of your scene on purpose can lead to a dramatic looking shot (if done correctly in the proper context). Brightness, contrast and color are 3 of the elements that can help you create your own personal style videos and movies. Wong explains all three elements and the basics on how to use them in your videos.

Wong also covers the different types of lighting that you might use (including natural lighting, practical light and finally you can use light which are not part of your scene – you can start by getting some inexpensive lamps in front of your subject with a little bit of diffusion). There are more tips and explanations of basic concepts on this video and as a whole it is a pretty good introductory to lighting your videos when you are just starting.

We have looked at many aspects that has to do with lighting of both stills and video photography here. We shall keep track on future interesting YouTube Creator Academy on this page on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.