3 Cinematic Looks With Natural Light

[@aputurelighting]

What's a lighting setup that you executed without lights? Comment below with your setup for a chance to win an Aputure M9!

[@EvanAnindita]

i used just a round reflector strapped in a chair as a fill light in an outdoor interview like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pKrYYmapmauqpJI

[@grossouniversity3712]

Love these videos, so helpful! Few Weeks ago had to shoot a subject in a park with very little shade for a town promo. Used a large unfolded carboard box for a flag and a giant piece of Styrofoam as a bounce. Hahahahah.....Im broke please send me a light

[@TheAaronalden]

The most bold move for a light company! Definitely something that only Valentina and Apurture would have the guts to do! Love it, thanks!

[@tylerburton5440]

A bounce card and some nice golden hour light has created some of my best looking stuff from over the years.

[@MarioSoMedia]

I use windows and natural light all the time when shooting the bride / groom prep for wedding films! Great video!

[@scottfree1776]

The sound from the phone is ridiculously impressive. Thanks for the video, great work as always Vee

[@Bewilderbeats]

I just watched this today and immediately made use of the info. Set up a bunch of interviews out in the bush, with no power and harsh Australian sun. Found some shade to put the subjects in and used a reflector to bounce some light on one side of their faces, had no floppy but made sure the other side was facing the most dense part of the bush absorbing the most light. Looks great. Thanks so much. 🙏

[@aputurelighting]

That's so cool to hear! We're glad you found the information helpful!

[@valentinavee]

Love that!!!

[@stevenkralovec]

For interiors I’ve used window light. For exteriors, I like to use the sun as backlight and then either let the neutral colored ground/sidewalk be a bounce or use a 5 in one reflector. Also using the shoot through diffusion can work surprisingly well in bright sunlight. But my favorite is shooting around golden hour.

[@sophievautour8573]

What is a shoot through diffusion?

[@stevenkralovec]

@@sophievautour8573 diffusion material, I mean, as opposed to a bounce. You can shine a hard light through it and it gets diffused and softens the light as it passes through. Like the middle piece in a 5-in-one reflector.

[@harrycahill2140]

This woman is a genius, she's going places in the industry.

[@szabikelemen3042]

I really like shooting in sunset: the colours, the contrast... the result are terrific. Always.

[@aputurelighting]

Same! So much of my work is done during sunset because I love the colors!

[@dmnfilms6040]

Thank you for promoting the simplicity of cinematography using natural lighting. More than often having too many studio lights can be very artificial. And props for you guys as a company that sells lamps y’all could have easily avoid this.

[@aputurelighting]

Thank you that means a lot! We believe that the lighting techniques are just that, techniques. And they can be used the same way with any light source you have at your disposal

[@mexigecko9226]

For a work I was frustrated in the morning (maybe between 8-9), I was about to stop recording when i saw at my camera screen that by pure luck the sun start to get out from some clouds and i grab a pretty lens flare. From that point I made a pan where the shot start on a window looking at a building and with the movement it start capturing the spotlights and ending on the flares giving it a nice old-vintage look.

[@mynameisneb]

Starting career my favorite was lighting with a window, but with the blinds lowered and open. They cast great shadows

[@BenNearingburg]

I do a fair bit of no-budget backcountry filming on snow (which leads to many complications with reflecting surface light). Keeping a large amount of black clothing, and a dark colored tarp on hand can be great for improvised interview/dialogue scenes (experimenting placing it around the subject finding the perfect position) while skiing and ice climbing.

[@sophievautour8573]

What is a dark colored trap

[@otabwill709]

Great video. And Valentina is looking fit!

[@miltonw57]

I use large windows as typically as a far side key again while also using the spill from those same windows as a rim light. If I want to go less dramatic I usually just would bounce that same window light back into the shadows. Works like a charm. Love your content! Keep em coming

[@aputurelighting]

A little back light and bounce goes a long way! Thanks for watching the show!

[@alitorinc3339]

A few weeks ago I shot this music video, the concept was about a girl walking away from the city and going to the mountains. In the first scene she was in her house and we made a setup pretty much like the first one you showed (window and floppys, shooting from the dark side of her face) and since the window was huge, we put some courtains to bring down the levels a bit, and the whole rest of the video was in outdoors walking around, in one moment we got to climb a mountain and we took a stand with a 5 in 1 reflector with us to use it as negative fill. The results were awesome!

[@mungaikinyanjui3541]

Looking great Valentina... Keep at it

[@temidayojohnson]

I have grown to love Natural light more especially this year...I was used to lighting the subject like I learnt with photography but recently I have been shooting backlit by the sun, using artificial sources for accent or compliment natural light and when I have to, emulating natural lights with artificial sources. Nice video BTW.

[@aputurelighting]

Thank you! There is an endless amount of ways to light with the sun

[@orelbitan]

Loved the tips! Thanks❤️

[@sebastiantouma4965]

A lightning set up I did was for a fashion film where we used mirrors to bounce sunlight and create an "on and off" effect of reflections in the clothes and models.

[@aputurelighting]

That sounds really cool! Mirrors are so under-used, it's great to hear about people using them

[@microstreams]

I love it when I show up to shoot an interview at someone's house (pre covid) and there is a room with not only a good amount natural light, but also decent shaping of that light without much modify - it doesn't happen often, but there was one time the time of day, the shape of the room and position of the window was near perfect. All I had to do was move the dining table chairs just a tad to get the shape of light I wanted on the subject's face to get hairlight and a soft bounce from a white wall. If something like that happens again, one thing I'd to play more around with is negative fill!

[@sophievautour8573]

What is negative fill?

[@GabeSheffield_]

Recently shot some commercial spots outdoors and back lit the subject with the sun and used one bounce board to reflect light back into the subject. That was the entire set up. One bounce board.

[@najee_eee]

One of My favorites was when I shot a music video just before Golden Hour-ish with the sun behind a painted building that blended with the sky, with the sunlight peeking above it slightly, giving the subject a really cool rim light on the hair. It made the subject look backlit but at the same time the shadow of the building and the painted look of the building itself made it look like the sky and the subject had the same exposure, but it was just the building, not the actual sky.

[@aputurelighting]

That sounds really cool! Almost like painting the sun out of the sky in post!

[@najee_eee]

@@aputurelighting Oh yeah I never thought of it like that before. When you put it like that it almost sounds way cooler

[@nathanaellathrop5799]

One time I used silver bubble wrap glued to a music stand as a reflector on an outdoor shoot. It was too harsh, and was coming from below, but at the time, it seemed like a really great idea.

[@aputurelighting]

Haha thanks for being honest!

[@RivuSouravBanerjeeVideoEditor]

I really liked and used very often the window light set uo with a negetive fill. using the black side of the reflector. I really got great shots with great contrast.

[@sophievautour8573]

What does a negative fill look like?

[@thefilmkind2034]

This is an absolutely fantastic video, thank you for all the information!

[@anag1003]

It was a summer day at sunset we had gone to a hill for the beautiful view it had, we took cardboard with sides covered with aluminum foil, one black and the other white, but we didn't have to use them since the sunset was so perfect for the end of the video with the subject in the distance.

[@CRMXph]

I film an interview "documentary" where I place the subject in the shaded part of these small trees. It was around 11am so it was the best option where it also create some shadows because of the Sun hitting leaves of the trees and also created this lines at the background thanks to those trees.

[@aputurelighting]

I love shooting under the shade of trees! Sounds like a great setup

[@CRMXph]

@@aputurelighting trees for the win 🤗

[@operaktor]

very usable video. Thank you

[@sunjillrich8931]

Learned much,thanks

[@zaymax_7]

Aputure making a whole video teaching us that we dont need to buy their products... I'll take it

[@DirectedbyZ]

You know your product is good when you showcase your "biggest" rival. 😁👌🏼💪🏼 Although I think I still rather rent the 300D with with diffuser and maybe some bounce. 🔥🔥🔥

[@aputurelighting]

We have nothing to worry about with dedicated fans like you! Thanks for the support!

[@DJTI99]

I've done more than one scene where I have a nice sky with sparse, fluffy clouds that I wanted to use as a background, in an attempt to copy the look of the backyard haircut scene in Edward Scissorhands. I filmed my subject opposite the sun, and used diffusion to soften the sunlight on my subject.

[@rossjennings8264]

@Aputure This is a great example of low-budget filmmaking lighting! I couldn't wait to share this with my DP friend. I'm a Dallas filmmaker native. Do you happen to have any videos that examines naturalistic cinematography lighting in a living room or bedroom scene on a low budget? Examples of early Spike Jonze films - Being John Malkovich & Adaptation. I'd love to see more example footage of what you guys recreate so that me and friend can have a better understanding of the practice. Happy filming🎥😎

[@aputurelighting]

Check out this video! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpm6nJalbqxqoNk For more low budget education: kzbin.info/door/1wEewj5H7Nwo7Yzw9mrSzg

[@rossjennings8264]

@@aputurelighting Thank you so much!

[@johnorozco9332]

At 11:55AM with the sun blasting overhead we put a 4x4 butterfly diff, then to camera right a white bounce board and camera left a floppy. light blonde hair in the subject so i really didnt wanted to use a bounce for a backlight as it felt too much for what i was looking for. Camera was a s35 sensor with a 50mm on t2.2 and NDs.

[@anupkrishnas]

First and foremost, great video & Thank you. Had to shoot a talking head video and give it to the editor by evening. That means I had to shoot at noon and the sun was super duper harsh. The worst part is I couldn't use the shade as the shot demanded the actor to in a specific area. So.... 1. positioned the actor 2. asked 2 of my friends to diffuse from above with cheap diffusion cloths 3. bounced light off the reflector from below & side 4. Asked the actor to hit record!

[@aputurelighting]

Haha impressive! Way to turn a bad light situation into a good one!

[@YoussefHallouly]

Great Tips! Thanks to you ;)

[@visualstorytelling6919]

So i am still a beginner and i wanted to shoot like a music video for which I didn’t have gears not crew, so i shot everything in the available light. So there was a shot i took almost at the sunset like a silhouette of the people with the sun as the source which i loved!😊

[@TheBroadcastEngineer]

I was at the end of a day and the sky was amazing oranges and reds while we loaded up a polaris on a trailer after a day of driving up a mountain in the snow.

[@TripleBackslashStudio]

I was recording & shooting three classical musicians at the end of August in the historical musical pavilion, glossy marble floor, white walls with the golden ornaments and sculptures. Whole place was flooded with sunlight, lowest ISO, 5 stops of ND and I had to close the aperture to f2.8 hehe. OT: please, can somebody from the A-team push the audio in tutorials? :) They are often more than -5dB under the KZbin recomended level and that's pretty quiet. Usually I crank my speakers and forget about it ...you can imagine what is happening when I click on a different video :D Davinci Resolve have some simple plugins to achieve -14LUFS (ideal for youtube).

[@adrianzaharia8885]

Man...she's pretty!

[@bythangho]

I use natural lights last week to light a sad scene of myself being sad cuz the B7C were sold out

[@heliosmediafilms]

What? Valentina is that you? you look great! Last time saw you like last year :D

[@valentinavee]

Helios Media haha yeah. I explained in the comments section of the previous episode.

[@MarkoXJunior]

She is the best from Aputure team 🤗😁

[@wedlocktom3754]

That's great. Can I know something more about it

[@jcrmdrummer]

When location is remote and we haven't any electric supply source, we use the power of sun and the benefits of nature to get beautiful shadows and contrast.

[@aputurelighting]

That's right! Sometimes you don't have a choice with lighting, but that's no excuse not to get amazing visuals!

[@clivemuthomi3134]

Could you guys also do these videos with darker skin tones?

[@valentinavee]

Clive Muthomi We currently only use our own crew (aka Jucel) as on-camera talent in order to reduce the number of people on set, so we are limited in skin tones. But I appreciate the request, and normally we do try to show darker skinned models as well. Off the top of my head: the TV Genres, Beauty Lighting (first one), and Fashion Video episodes have Black models.

[@clivemuthomi3134]

No worries, social distacing is really important during this time. I'll be sure to check those videos out.

[@anime2121]

I used a mirror to bounce the sun from the window up to the ceiling to get a nice fill light and to reach to the actor bc he is further in the room.

[@ddiogo.santoss]

I used shaded natural light for a promo video

[@MST007S]

Are you add noise cancellation to mobile recording voice or that a original file. ❤

[@sebastiantouma4965]

At the begining of my career I had just a bounce so I did a lot of interviews just like you showed in the video, next to a window and using a the bounce to fill or sometimes to use as hair light : #wewanthatM9

[@orelbitan]

This one is from my early days as a video maker - kzbin.info/www/bejne/pX6Ul3Z5maySr5Y Shot in the desert sun, didn't know what flags are, used only natural light, ND filter and the sunset. I learned since than and would have filmed it better today but I still love it.

[@michaelnilsson4764]

How come the white balance is set to 5600K throughout - regardless if it’s indoors in a dimly lit setting or outside?

[@vestiario77]

THANKS I LOVE U

[@anhdvids]

#commentquestion The most recent project that I worked on as DP had a scene with one character confronting her classmate outdoor. I didn't get a chance to physically scout the location beforehand so instead I "scouted" by pulling up Google street view and got a sense of the location and guesstimated which area around the building would give us the best backlight. Luckily there was and on shoot day, I got my two shot of them in profile looking at each other (halo-ed and rimmed by the sun) and brought up a floppy behind me to darken the shadows and **chef's kiss**

[@aputurelighting]

Sounds like it worked out pretty nicely! I have often used the Google Maps location scout method lol

[@sanilalkuttimon1755]

great

[@naziflatheef1066]

Please sponsor a light for my dream💡

[@SanjayKumar-jr5ci]

What about light this location contest.

[@amumukherjee2148]

Is flag and floppy are the same thing? Pls say here.

[@keyurjadav09]

Make video on cinematic picture style on camera..

[@agudal8503]

👏

[@SmellyAlways]

Isn't the still at 0:38 ghost story not tree of life?

[@aputurelighting]

Good catch! That's a mistake on our part. Yes it is A Ghost Story!

[@manojbankanal4643]

I am still shooting with no lights 😣☹️☹️

I love using nastural light, iv'e done it in these last projects. Two commercials for my bachelor thesis, which we shoot on film on a Bolex H16 (first time for me) vimeo.com/405766659 and vimeo.com/405767277 and in this experimental music video I made for a friend's song just as a passion project vimeo.com/389308532 Hope you guys like them!

[@jeffersoncanamo7593]

2nd❤️

[@salthevaultdweller]

Valentina is so fine dude.

[@sebastiantouma4965]

First! Did I win anything!? XD

[@sijilo]

😅

[@aslancansn3882]

Very nice face. Are you grow thin Valentina?