How can I light a dark kitchen for a Youtube cooking show?

September 14, 2014 9:30 PM

After studying a lot of lighting tutorials, I've settled on some form of 3 point lighting to illuminate the subject (me!) as I cook. The problem is that my kitchen is connected to my very dark, cavernous living room, and so the space tends to swallow up any lights I use. Can you give me pointers on lighting this space, and help me to purchase more lights (if necessary) to adequately light my kitchen?

Please keep the technical jargon to a minimum, as I only started teaching myself about shooting videos and lighting up a room last week! I'm going to be shooting simple demonstrations of recipes and cooking techniques, and talking about specialty baking ingredients while standing in the kitchen behind our granite countertop. The videos don't have to look professional or artistic, but they do have to be aesthetically pleasing, as the food needs to look appealing! Just trying to help people make healthier choices, so that is the end goal to keep in mind.

The kitchen has light coming from 2 windows. There's a large window on the left side of the kitchen, and a smaller behind me, over the sink. I took pictures of the space I'm trying to light, here, here, here, and here.

So far, the equipment I've purchased is the following:
-an adjustable 160 LED video light
-minus green gel to cancel out the blue-green cast
-2 600 watt softbox lights on stands (up to 6'8" in height)
-a 43" 5-in-1 circular reflector


I was thinking of getting a couple of 9' light stands. On one of them, I would use a flexible arm clamp to hold my 43' reflector (seems like this would be useful for still shots as well, if it would truly hold that huge reflector in place!). On the other light stand, I was thinking of attaching a boom arm and one of the adjustable LED lights as the backlight. Since the room is generally so dark, I was also thinking of attaching this wide angle light to light up the upper half of the frame. Both the wide angle light and LED video light would be attached to the boom arm, facing in different directions. I would also have to use a twisty tie to suspend the lights higher, as they would cover my face since I'm 5'11".

Is this lighting set up workable? Will it fall on top of me as I'm cooking? Any suggestions for how to improve this setup?

posted by sunnychef88 to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Build 3 panels, tile or paint them, place them staggered behind you, blocking the living room.

Similarly, I'm pretty sure there's film on windows that face the outdoors, or panels are placed outside about a foot away from the window, and then light is bounced of the panel or a scrim.

Hope that gets you started.
posted by jbenben at 9:45 PM on September 14, 2014

How did you come up with the collection of stuff you currently have? It feels kind of like a random selection. For example, what color cast are you canceling with the gel? If all of your lights are the same color temperature, and if you white balance before shooting, you shouldn't need anything like that. If you're trying to mix studio lights with natural light, you may need gels, but IMHO you should avoid that if you can. The color temperature and intensity of the natural light is going to be constantly changing, even as you shoot, and keeping it all in balance will be a chore. It's definitely possible, and it provides a nicer look, but it's a lot more work. If I were you, I'd just block out the natural light completely, for easier control. I also personally would not use an on-camera video light in a studio setting, especially if you're ok (as you seem to be) with getting proper lights on stands. The advantage of those is that they're portable for field use. If you really want the simplicity of that, just use it and forget the rest of the stuff (but accept that the quality won't be as good).

It would be helpful to see examples of results you're getting with what you already have, to guide you in the best adjustments/additions/subtractions to make. Maybe it's just me, but even with a picture of the space and a list of equipment, it feels very abstract to discuss without being able to see the results.
posted by primethyme at 10:08 PM on September 14, 2014

Sorry, just realized I mis-read and you're not planning on using the LED light on-camera as it's shown on Amazon. So strike that. But you will probably have an easier time of getting everything to look right together if you at least stick to using the same kinds of lights.
posted by primethyme at 10:12 PM on September 14, 2014

Best answer: Those soft boxes don't put out much light, you're probably going to have to get the ones with 3 or 9 bulbs.
You may be worrying about lighting things you don't need to. How about just shooting an episode with just the two lights to the left and right of the counter, then post it to a private link on YouTube. Do another askme with that video and we can give better advice based on the camera angles you are actually going to use.
posted by Sophont at 5:31 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Part of the problem may be that there is too much light in the foreground (you, the counter) as compared to the background. If the foreground is much more brightly lit than the background (a common mistake) then your camera may be exposing for proper illumination of your face at the expense of making it look like you're standng in the mouth of a cave. Cameras (video or otherwise) do not have anything like the dynamic range of a human eyeball and so this sort of thing happens a lot.

Try taking some of the light off of your face and moving it to the background, so that the scene as a whole is more evenly lit. The camera may be able to compensate by increasing the exposure, so that your foreground will appear no darker even as your kitchen and living room appear brighter.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:36 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Don't underestimate the power of a white bedsheet as a lighting tool - much cheaper and much larger than a professional umbrella-type reflector but just as white and diffuse. (in fact, if you're worried about excessively cool CCT, buy ivory instead of white) It might be possible to hang a sheet from the ceiling to separate your kitchen from the living room, to help trap the light within your target location.
posted by aimedwander at 7:43 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm a little confused why you can't just entirely ignore the rest of the house by standing between the kitchen island and the back counter/sink area. Soundstages are dark and cavernous, too, they just don't point the camera that way. Most low-budget cooking shows don't have the host move around a lot during filming.

I'm also struck by the number of cooking shows that use natural light, or at least natural-looking light. What does your kitchen look like with natural light? Why are the blinds closed in all the photos? The bedsheet trick works really well if you can have light coming in windows at an indirect angle. Just affix bedsheets to the outside of the windows (using heavy duty staples or maybe tape) to diffuse the light a bit.

(Also it looks kind of awkward from a set dressing standpoint to have all the blinds shut, anyway.)

What camera were you planning to use? Depending on how ambitious a shoot this is, you may find it's easier to shoot on a simpler camera that is more forgiving about light.
posted by Sara C. at 9:27 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Sara, I would be standing between the kitchen island and the sink. I would be using a Panasonic GH2 with a 14-45mm lens.

Sorry for the confusion! Thanks for the pointers. I will post more pics showing variations in lighting. Thank you all for your feedback!
posted by sunnychef88 at 8:38 PM on September 15, 2014