Why Are Tubes Useful Tools for Lighting? - feat. Zhiyun Fiveray F100

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

www.robelliscinematography.com/downloads - download the full 46 minute Lighting with Colour mini course ad-free, with all 5 individual parts for just £15 - including an exclusive Part 3! Color Grading - www.dehancer.com - get 10% off Dehancer using ROBELLIS at checkout www.patreon.com/robelliscinematography - support me on Patreon for extended, ad-free KZbin videos and informal breakdowns of my work - including the entire Lighting with Colour mini course available to stream now! In this video we take a look at Zhiyun's new line of lights - the 100C tube and the M40 pocket panel. Lights like this are great when you're working on a budget, tight for space, or need to set up quickly - and when combined with a good power output, they can be very useful, especially when you're working with ambient light.

[@TwinOpinion]

I've been using pocket lights and tube lights more the last couple of years. Between the low profile and high light output, it's amazing what can be achieved by one person in a short amount of time. The light weight of these units is also great for travel. Batteries and LEDs have really matured, and are a real game changer!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Absolutely, there's a lot of lighting options for a one man band or tiny team these days and it's amazing to be able to do things with light that we wouldn't really have had the freedom to do a few years back!

[@riskybiscutz]

The GOAT has returned! Wonderful video as always.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! :) if I seem to have disappeared for a bit, you'll usually find new videos by me on the Shutterstock Tutorials KZbin channel :)

[@MikeEbrahimi]

One light cinematography for amateur filmmakers is the best way to learn the basics.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

We did that a few years ago! :) - kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3XKZ39_gZKmors

[@MikeEbrahimi]

@@RobEllisCinematographer I’ve watched all your videos. These are super helpful to learn the basics about lighting and exposure

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@MikeEbrahimi that's awesome thank you Mike!!

[@ezrarichardson279]

That’s one of my favorite ways of working.

[@kazlepek6552]

@@RobEllisCinematographer One of my favorite channels! Hey Rob, what do you think of these tube lights compared to Nanlites Pavo tubes? Contemplating whether to get these or save up for the tubes - it appears these may have more output though. Thanks

[@fanimations2363]

Just great techniques taught in elegant manner! Love your videos on lighting. Have seen you shoot with BMPCC and you put out one of the most filmic looking footage from BMPCC ! Keep going buddy!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much!! Hope you're enjoying the videos! The Pocket is a great camera! :)

[@danielakachi3666]

what a creative way to show patrons, 🔥🔥 4:30

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

They are wonderful so it's the least I can do! :D

[@TravisTravels]

Wow this is the best lighting channel I’ve found. Thank you for all the detail in how you light your scenes.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much Travis! :)

[@MaartenSchrader]

Super helpful content! Video idea - How to light a room in a way that the subject can move about a larger area and it still looks decent. Obviously would require some trade offs but would be helpful! Thank you for the videos

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Maarten! I've thought about this one on and off for a while, but it's a pretty multi faceted subject to cover as it overlaps with blocking, camera positioning, weaker or more powerful lights, size of room... so I've not pulled the trigger on writing anything yet because I know it will be a very long video haha!

[@DrifteRMTA]

this is amazing man!!!, I'm working hard to buy these lights and will be using your videos to guide me on the way!!! love your content

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much!! They are great lights! Glad you're enjoying the videos!

[@SenthilSukumaran]

I starting to think this is the best channel I've found for lighting tuorials on KZbin. Each video I watch is teaching me more principles to keep in mind. Do you think dropping the ISO below native ISO on a camera is worth doing in these situations in general?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I appreciate it, thank you so much! Glad to hear you're learning from my videos! I think it's entirely dependant on how you want the expose the image, since dropping your ISO below native is effectively overexposing, pushing your mid point up and reducing stops in the highlights. Great for keeping shadows clean but it might not be appropriate for every situation!

[@SenthilSukumaran]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Thanks for the reply Rob. I wanted to ask your opinion on lighting when the subject is talking to and facing the camera. If the face is facing directly towards the lens, does thsat make upstage lighting effectively a no-go because there is no side of the face furthest from the camera? I would love to see you do a video about how to light a subject talking to camera. If you check my last video, would you have any tips on how to improve it? I am only using a Sony A7iii until I have money to eventually upgrade.

[@eliaslimapro]

👏👏 Rob Ellis until today 11/23/2022 I watched all the videos on your channel, so far there are 50 videos, I discovered your channel and bookmarked it on KZbin as a favorite channel to learn about film lighting, they are beautiful videos and you are extremely detailed, and every detail helps us understand better. I kindly ask you to make a video deepening the importance of light blocking, as without it light leaks and does not create the desired look, controlling light through blocking is very important, and I would love to learn from you. Greetings from Elias from Brazil.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much Elias! I'm super glad you're getting so much out of my videos, always happy to hear it! I just replied to this question in another one of your comments haha! :D hope you're well!

[@leochow6477]

This is so goooood! Thank you Rob for the amazing tutorial. gonna use my tubelight more.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks so much Leo! Happy it inspired you to do so! :)

[@winterkat8693]

I personally like these these tube lights cause they are so small and can fit tight places as well as the variation of size really works for almost all purpose. also awesome video, has been very helpful.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

They can be very versatile especially in awkward spaces when bigger lights become difficult. Thank you so much, happy to hear it has been helpful to you!! :)

[@Visethelegend]

I swear every time I watch your breakdowns I tell myself, damn this guy is too good… how is he that good?? Congrats I hope you really are getting amazing jobs

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

You are too kind! Thank you so much! :)

[@braxtonwoullard1188]

Love the new content man! I can't wait to buy these lights!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Braxton! They are great lights! :)

[@benjamin.kelley]

Another great video with lots of information and frowning by Mr. Rob Ellis.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha there's gotta be some frowning in there! Thank you so much Benjamin!

[@John-e4p1x]

Resting tough face.

[@zelkuth]

Excellent video!! ❤

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! ❤

[@shaunlaf]

Great work, it'd be awesome to know what color temp you're setting your camera in when you're shooting for each scene, maybe you shoot RAW, either way, great work!

[@JesseTobler]

Love the self awareness. "Perfecting the Rob Ellis angry frown..." Hahaha

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha it's actually called the Ellis frown in my family, it comes naturally 🤣

[@flochfitness]

Awesome video as always Rob!!!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Sean! Little extended version on it's way to Patreon now! ;)

[@raphaelgehlhar3268]

Amazing video like always, thanks for the great guide of how you can use these kind of lights🙏

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Raphael, glad you got something out of it! Always appreciated! :)

[@_CDDVD_]

Love ur content

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! :)

[@riskybiscutz]

Rob have you ever done any videos in the past about lighting without traditional “film” lights? (I.e. clamp/work lights/homemade deakins ring etc.?) I love your video of the affordable bounce board w/ skirt and was wondering if you’ve ever used household bulbs like the philips WIZ LED bulbs? They have a CRI of 90, are dimmable, RGBCCW and can be bought at a hardware store for way less than even the nanlite pavobulbs.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I haven't - but it's something that's on the list, as I know it would be quite an interesting/useful topic. I've never personally lit anything that way as I started lighting with super cheap tungsten red heads, but I'm sure it's something I'd enjoy doing and I think you can expect to see something like that at some point soon! :)

[@MightyMylesTV]

Your videos are solid dude!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! :)

[@maniratnamcreator]

awesome and bought the course . hope to learn more from you

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much for your support Mani! I hope you enjoy it!

[@maniratnamcreator]

@@RobEllisCinematographer sure will learn more from the course. May i ask you to do a beginner budget lighting setup for interior and exterior shots with small lights like godox ml60bi or amaran 60d , godox lc 500r etc like that. Thank you rob😍

[@akhtarnadeem621]

Nice!!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you!

[@elieskateur]

Perfect job

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Elie! Hope you enjoyed the video!

[@elieskateur]

@@RobEllisCinematographer more than that

[@allenpayne9182]

Nice. Another great video. I think you have to fix the "chapter title".

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Allen, glad you enjoyed it! Ah yes I do! I copy and pasted the previous one as a template and forgot to update it, thanks for letting me know!!

[@jessesenko]

I give that look when my toothbrush gets knocked into the sink too.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Hahaha that added context makes the shot so much better!

[@Iamtongue]

I'm just wondering how long it takes to set all this up by yourself.. It's frigging nuts what you;re doing!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Pretty quick with this video in particular, since that's why lights like this are useful! But it varies depending on what I'm doing, how complicated the lighting setup is, if I'm trying something new, etc. Can take about 20 minutes to set up a shot (as is the case with some of the shots in this video), or it can take an hour or 2 to nail down a look or get contrast ratios looking how I want them. I've gotten pretty used to determining where to put a light in the right place for a subject that's not currently in front of the camera, thanks to filming myself for the last few years haha! The best thing is when it comes to lighting someone else it feels much easier and is quicker because of that! Thank you so much!

[@afrosymphony8207]

Wait, the guy in these videos is also the person doing the voicing??? wow very impressive. idk why but because you kinda look like austin butler i sorta imagined that you talk kinda like him loool

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha I managed to maintain the mystery of whether it was a different person or not for a little bit, but it became pretty obvious after a while!

[@afrosymphony8207]

@@RobEllisCinematographer not to me it didnt loool

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@afrosymphony8207 haha damn I should've kept it up!

[@AllThingsFilm1]

This is one of the few videos I've seen on cinematography that really tackles how to light scenes to change the time of day to fit the needs of the story. As a user of Sony cameras, namely the FX30, would it make sense to use this technique with the Profile turned off instead of shooting in log? Since log tends to limit how low you can set the ISO. Or do you ignore that, and lower the ISO anyway when shooting in log?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I'm not familiar with Sony cameras, but I usually shoot in Log so I have as much flexibility as possible in the colour grade. The lower ISO helps to keep the image cleaner when shooting images you want to look intentionally dark, rather than underexposing with ND and getting noisy shadows. It allows you to expose the sensor to the right whilst seeing a normal image, so Log or no Log you're still doing the same thing, you just have more flexibility in the grade with Log! And if you shoot RAW even more so :)

[@AllThingsFilm1]

@@RobEllisCinematographer According to Sony, the FX30 has a dual base ISO of 800 and 2500. And that those two ISO's have the cleanest image and the best dynamic range. If I went below ISO 800, would the image still be cleaner, and would I lose dynamic range?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@AllThingsFilm1 if you go below 800 it will be cleaner only if you're controlling your light and adding more of it into your shadows to expose for that lower ISO. (Or opening your aperture). If you have full control of the light in your scene, lowering your ISO is useful because you can gain more stops of DR in the shadows (or vice versa, if you shoot a higher ISO you gain more stops in your highlights). You don't lose the overall amount of dynamic range in this situation, you just have a bigger chunk of it allocated to your shadows and less allocated to your highlights as your mid point shifts up. Which is why it's best to use when you have precise control over your lighting and you can adjust the balance of contrast ratios you want to create in your scene. Combined with measuring your lighting ratios and using exposure tools like false color you get maximum control over how exactly your image looks and can shoot for overall darker scenes with less noise. If you want a dark moody image with more shadows in the scene = lower ISO. More highlights in the scene = higher ISO. Balance between the two = base ISO. It's very handy to look up a dynamic range chart for your camera so you know exactly how many stops of highlights and shadows you gain or lose when exposing at different ISOs. In more uncontrolled situations (that aren't super dark) the base ISO is generally better as it gives you a balanced distribution of dynamic range which helps you to avoid noise. A good test to visualise this better would be to light something/someone at base ISO of 800 and use a fill light to light the rest of the room much darker, but still retaining some detail. Drop to ISO 400 or even 200 and adjust your lights until the image looks the same. The lower ISO image should be cleaner as you're giving the sensor more light! Dual ISO does make this slightly more complicated as you have 2 circuits/ranges with slightly different distributions of DR, not sure how different this is with the Sony sensors though. It's quite a hard topic to describe just on a KZbin comment but I actually have a Shutterstock Tutorials video coming out on KZbin in the next few months that goes into it, I'll try to remember to let you know when it's out! Alternatively, cameras are really good these days and you can just shoot base ISO and use noise reduction haha. But you do lose some control you might otherwise have benefited from in certain lighting situations. Apologies for my long long comment haha, I hope it helps in some way! :D

[@jolystudios]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Helped a lot, you're the best.

[@hugogutierrez2849]

Wonderful video like always, very interesting set of lights...but sometimes i wonder watching your videos...any tricks, nice places or considerations about how to buy (on a budget) muslin clothes, like the ones you use in this video, for example?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! You'll get good results by googling bleached muslin backdrop, a lot of places sell good lengths of this! I also bought a bunch of unbleached muslin from Amazon, you just need to be careful you're not buying super thin stuff!

[@mhzs4617]

What's you're opinion on Amaran 60x as a lamp for a beginner who wants to use it for photos, and videos in different scenarios .?

[@grayscale31]

thanks for showing the great lighting setup here. how to setup boost mode for max brightness, ive got F100 and not sure how to turn on the boost mode?

[@grayscale31]

I think i've fount it, thanks :)

[@prottentogo]

It took me a minute to figure out what you mean by "wuuu" (wall).

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Accents eh! KZbin subbed it correctly so the AI understood at least haha

[@innatemusic]

Always pissed, but always dope! Very nice.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha thanks Nathan!!

[@skillexe_tv4794]

Goddamn i need more .....

[@ChrisSantini]

what would you set your white blance for?

[@youthliteratureclub3266]

could you please make a color grading video tutorial in detail ??

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I've been using Dehancer for all my KZbin videos, I made a review and how to use it here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3yUZqOZo8Z-pJI :)

[@youthliteratureclub3266]

@@RobEllisCinematographer when i use dehancer the film kodaks changes the white balance of my footage so any tips to nail it properly ??

[@isaiahgalante]

GOAT 🐐

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much Isaiah!

[@playaofficial]

Hi! Great video!! As usually ! What was your setting on camera colour temperature? 5600K?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! :) Colour temperature varied between shots as I shot (b)raw and tweaked it to taste for each shot - hallway/kitchen shot was around 4300K (to make it nice and cool), lamp shots were around 3700K (lights were at 2700K so wanted to warm them up + make the evening ambient even cooler) and final bathroom shot was at 4000K (for the same reasons as the lamp shot)!

[@smann7236]

Hey Rob love your videos. Quick question, in bright lit scene (for a low-key lighting scene) if I lower the iso or use ND filter will that underexpose the image which then produce low quality image to work on in post production?

[@eliaslimapro]

👏👏

[@domgiogb]

can't believe still people nowadays using watts to measure light output

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I agree but it still works as a rough indication rather than a precise measurement - definitely more useful when everything was mainly tungsten or HMI though!

[@Bo_Hazem]

The King of Light is back! I think this is getting a bit boring, having a wonderful video after a wonderful video. Next time try to make a shit video, I know it's very hard but nothing is impossible.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Hahaha thanks Bo, I'll try my worst next time!

[@malekkambing4366]

At 5:42 minutes you look like Andrew Tate bro 😂 ,but tate versions with hair...

[@tongdevol]

Tristan bro

[@jacklin7103]

PЯӨMӨƧM ☺️

[@yeahrightbear8883]

A low cost bi color LED light is not exactly revolutionary. Dozens of companies have been making them for the past decade.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Not at all! But this video is about how this sort of thing can be useful - and it's a little brighter than the other options in it's price range, which is always nice!