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Lowcontrast lightingin film

Let’s say I want to tell my gaffer that I want a really contrasty look on my subject. So, I tell them I want a 16:1 contrast ratio on my key vs. fill. The gaffer will set the key light to their desired look, and then they may pull out a light meter.

The contrast ratio is a simple way to approach lighting scientifically. It’ll help you form a better relationship between the different light angles on your set, and give you the tools to tell a gaffer exactly what kind of lighting you’re imagining.

Lighting contrastphotography

Chiaroscurolighting

Highcontrast lightingexamples

For more information on using false color to nail your contrast ratio, check out some of our other articles on contrast ratio and managing skin tones with false color.

Now, it’s time to plug in the desired contrast ratio for your fill light. To get a 16:1 contrast ratio, we need to stop down the fill light by four stops. If we refer to the f-stop scale here:

A contrast ratio is the difference in exposure between two areas of a frame. It all starts with the most powerful light source on your set — the key light. This is the amount of light you’ll be “contrasting” against other sources, such as your fill light or background light.

If you don’t have access to a light meter, false color may be a good option — if you have a capable camera or monitor on set. False color works by indicating the brightness values of your image with different colors, measured in IRE on a scale from 0-100. When you see the brightness values in a visual spectrum, it’s a lot easier to determine the difference between your key light and the other lights on set. You may not be able to get a perfect read like you would on a light meter, but it’s a good tool for eyeballing a quick contrast ratio. You most likely aren’t going to be shooting on film (which wouldn’t allow you to preview the exposure), so there’s no problem with experimenting a little and doing some test shots to get the right ratio.

Highcontrast lightingin film

The relationship between your key light and your fill light can make a significant difference in the composition of your shot. If the two are too similar, it can make the video look flat. If they’re too different, you run the risk of over/underexposure and losing your subject’s light information. So, is there a trick you can use to avoid ruining your shot with bad lighting? Yes. It’s understanding a concept called “Contrast Ratio” — or “Lighting Ratio.”

We measure contrast ratio 1:1 — how many stops of light difference between the key and the comparative light sources. Check out this chart:

Lighting contrastexamples

With a light meter, you can plug in your camera’s ISO and shutter speed, then lock it. Next, you take a reading from your key light. The light meter will indicate the f-stop. This is the recommended setting for the best exposure. For this example, lets say it’s at a f/2.8.

As you can see, every stop difference doubles the contrast. On the way back up, the ratio halves with every stop up. This is where we get our ratio — however many stops the key is away from the fill, the higher the contrast ratio. It may be a bit confusing, but it gets easier when we get into our examples.

Lighting contrastmeaning

I’m not going to lie: I’m not a lighting expert. When I set out to research contrast ratios, I quickly became inundated with confusing math and formulas for tabulating the “IRE” of the different parts of my video. Sure, I can read false color on a monitor, but the science behind it confused me quite a bit. So, let’s slow things down and get to the base theory behind contrast ratio — with the help of this awesome video by Vistek.

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You can use this for any contrasting lights on set, such as your background light or hair light. It’s an important communication tool between a cinematographer and a gaffer.

We can see that we need to jump down four of these to get our desired look, which would be f/11. So, begin dimming your fill light while keeping your light meter on your fill side. Once your light meter reads f/11, you’ve successfully created a 16:1 key vs. fill contrast ratio!

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