Lighting

Proper lighting has a huge impact on smartphone cameras because they have smaller image sensors and lenses. Try as much as possible to shoot your video in brightly lit areas. This will help avoid unnecessary shadows and grainy areas in your video. Conversely, you also must be careful not to point the camera directly at bright light sources, which will cause unusable overexposed footage and lens flaring.

If the light is still making it tough to shoot your video try working with back-lighting and white balance settings if your phone or app provides them. Most phones also offer “touch focusing” in the event your camera is focusing on the wrong area of your composition. After setting the focus on the most important aspect of the video, the automatic exposure control will have an easier time making small adjustments if the lighting condition begins to change.

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Lighting Equipment for Low Budget

Film lighting can be expensive and awkward to use, and it takes practice to get good results. We suggest you learn to get the best out of natural light first, maybe with simple reflectors and diffusers. If you need a full lighting kit it may be better to hire it. But it can be useful to own a basic portable light; maybe not to use as a main lighting source, but as a ‘fill’.

Traditionally films used three-point lighting, but you may not need three lights. Many documentary makers just use one light plus a reflector for fill. You can get the three-point effect by adding a second rim light to this.

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Reflector/diffusers

To enhance natural light, get an inexpensive folding 5 in 1 reflector, which includes a diffuser (to reduce and soften light); gold, white and silver reflectors (to ‘fill’ or lighten shadows); and a black side to use as a ‘flag’ (to block out light and make shadows deeper).  5 in 1 80cm Collapsible Lighting Reflector   is available on Amazon for £12.99.

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LED panels

LED lights are safer than bulbs as they don’t get nearly as hot, though you shouldn’t look at them without a diffuser fitted (bare LEDs can cause eye damage). Most of them can run off mains or batteries: many use Sony NPF-pattern batteries.

Bigger panels give softer lights. To get natural skin tones, you need lights with a CRI of 90-95 or better. The Aputure Amaran 672 are relatively affordable with a high CRI: you can buy them individually or in sets, and they’re available as a focused spot, a more even flood, and a bi-colour version. Neewer 2 Pack Dimmable 480 LED Video Light and Stand Lighting Kit Includes is available on Amazon for £110.49

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Lighting stands

If you’re working with a friend you could get them to hold LED lights for you. Otherwise you’ll definitely need a lighting stand. Get one that’s strong enough – some of the cheaper ones aren’t stable and don’t last long. You can use sandbags to weight the legs of lighter stands. Lumo Pro LP605 is compact and lightweight. Neewer Set of Two 9 feet/260 centimeters Photo Studio Light Stands is available on Amazon for £26.99

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Chinese balls

Alternatively, put high powered CFL (energy-saving compact fluorescent) bulbs into standard light fittings or Chinese balls. They’re fragile. For good colour rendition you need CFLs with a CRI of 90 or more (though you don’t need to worry about this if you’re making a black and white film).

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CFL kits

For a really cheap studio setup, you could use a set of soft box lights based on compact fluorescent bulbs. I’ve used this setup for recording presentations to camera: one pair of lights illuminates the presenter, and another pair lights the green chromakey background. Neewer® 700W Professional Photography 24”x24”/60x60cm Softbox with E27 Socket Light

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