Fresnel diffraction

Fresnel’s creations were initially used to improve visibility from lighthouses, but have since been adopted by theaters, filmmakers, and even car headlights. They offer a softer, washy lighting alternative, which can be used for both technical and artistic purposes.

Fresnel lens

Each groove is smaller than the last — a little like the rings in a tree trunk — with each bending the light further and further. This results in a concentrated, controllable light beam, which is what ol’ Fresnel used to alert sailors passing near lighthouses.

Fresnel Blender

The Fresnel lens is the secret sauce that makes the Fresnel light so special. In a nutshell, a Fresnel lens is a lightweight lens with circular grooves carved into the plastic, rather than a regular lens’ flat, curved surface.

Fresnel equation

Fresnel lights can give your content diversity, depth, color. Music can do the same. Check out Epidemic Sound’s catalog of more than 50,000 tracks and 200,000 unique sound effects and variations below.

Our catalog is high-quality, affordable, and safe. An Epidemic Sound subscription goes beyond royalty-free music, removing the headache of licensing and freeing you up to do what you do best. You can enjoy the safety of our license hand-in-hand with our massive catalog of 50,000 tracks, covering just about every genre you can think of. You’ll also gain unlimited access to our advanced search functions — finding the right sound’s never been easier.

Fresnel reflection

While technically sound, Fresnel lighting can also give your content an artier vibe. Throwing a wide Fresnel light onto a product or smaller subject can make for a more interesting composition. Fresnel lights are often hung on a rig or fixed to a stand, as they’re heavy, awkward to operate, and hot to the touch when in use.

The Fresnel Effect was first documented by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), who advanced the wave theory of light through a study of how light was transmitted and propagated by different objects. In addition to the Fresnel Effect, Augustin-Jean Fresnel is also known as the inventor of the Fresnel Lens, which is still used in lighthouses around the world, and is used in film production on a Fresnel Light.

Fresnel Effect (pronounced "fre-nel," the "s" is silent) - the observation that the amount of reflectance you see on a surface depends on the viewing angle.  As shown in the renders above, if you look straight down from above at a pool of water, you will not see very much reflected light on the surface of the pool, and can see down through the surface to the bottom of the pool.  At a glancing angle (looking with your eye level with the water, from the edge of the water surface), you will see much more specularity and reflections on the water surface, and might not be able to see what's under the water.

So, those were the key details about all things Fresnel. They’re versatile, unique lights that can give your content that extra shine. If you’re looking for other ways to take your projects to the next level, don’t forget the music — after all, the soundtrack can make or break your content. Don’t settle for second-best.

LED Fresnel lights offer more energy efficiency and color temperatures. Being LED, they can be dimmed without affecting the color temperature, and can be colored in pretty much any shade you can think of. They’re also more affordable than HMI and tungsten Fresnel lights.

A Fresnel light is not the same as a floodlight. While a Fresnel can throw out wide beams, there is a difference — floodlights offer no adjustment, and are used to light up scenery and background rather than subjects. Fresnel lights can provide similar coverage to a floodlight, but are more versatile.

Fresnel lights originally came from lighthouses, but that doesn’t mean you should throw them into the sea — they can add an extra sparkle to your content. Learn all about their usage, variations, lenses, and more.

Fresnel pronunciation

HMI Fresnel lights are daylight-balanced and more natural-looking, boasting a color temperature of around 5,600K. This makes them ideal for outdoor shoots, or scenes in which you’d like to create a ‘natural’ feel. HMI Fresnel lights are generally more expensive than their tungsten counterparts.

The Fresnel light comprises a lamp housed in a box, sitting between a reflector and Fresnel lens — more on that lens in a moment. It was developed by and named after Augustin-Jean Fresnel, a civil engineer and physicist working in the 1820s.

Fresnel effect

Fresnel lights originally came from lighthouses, but that doesn’t mean you should throw them into the sea. Learn all about their usage, variations, lenses, and more.

Fresnel lighting instruments are most often used for theater, television, film, and professional online content. You’ll likely see them used as part of a three- or four-point lighting setup — any high-profile television interview you can think of was probably lit with Fresnel. Given how versatile fresnel lenses and lights are, they can be used for fill lighting, backlighting, high-key and low-key lighting, and more.

Tungsten Fresnel lights use lamps made with tungsten metal filaments. Their color temperature of around 3,200K (Kelvin) emits a warm, yellow-tinged light, which is preferred for indoor shoots. Tungsten Fresnel lights are less energy-efficient than the lights we’ve listed below, and also tend to get hotter.

Source: Digital Lighting & Rendering by Jeremy Birn, definition and 3D images adapted from the book by permission.  This page © 2001 by Jeremy Birn.

The lamp and reflector sit on a movable track, meaning that the beam can be adjusted, usually by a slide or screw mechanism. The closer you move the lamp and reflector to the Fresnel lens, the wider the beam becomes — if you move the lamp further away from the lens, the beam gets narrower. The beam can also be shaped by ‘barn doors,’ which are foldable shapes attached to the front sides of the Fresnel light.

We don’t want to end things on a bummer, but we have been singing Fresnel lights’ praises for the majority of this article. So, to wrap things up: what are the downsides to using a Fresnel light?

Fresnel light

As we touched on earlier, the lamp within a Fresnel light is nestled in a box with a reflector and Fresnel lens. The light from the lamp hits the reflector, which then projects onto the lens and produces the famous Fresnel beam.

Fresnel lights and spotlights are different — Fresnel lights can do the spotlight shtick, but are conveniently adjustable. They’re also softer than spotlights.

Fresnel Shaders in general allow reflection, specularity, and other attributes to vary according to the viewing angle of a 3D surface.  A Fresnel shader will let you specify a specular color for parts of a surface directly facing the camera, and another specular color to be seen on parts of a surface that are perpendicular to the camera. In addition to the usual specular highlights and reflectivity, parameters such as the color or transparency can also be controlled by some Fresnel shaders.