Why do we need lighting anymore? [Updated]

Last week I was a the official Storm launch at RED Studios. While Storm – the RED Digital Cinema Camera Production Hub – is undoubtedly going to be the “go to” app for  anyone working with RED footage, it wasn’t what set my mind thinking about lighting.

Before I get to that though, I was very impressed with Storm in every way (without having actually used it myself). Well thought out and priced appropriately, if you have to work with RED, you will end up buying Storm.

What set me thinking was the demonstration of RED Epic where the incredible low light performance and high dynamic range combined to kind of answer a question I’ve have had in my mind for a while.

It’s long been my understanding that the progression of the importance of lighting has gone from:

• We need an enormous amount of light just to get an image on film (thank you California sunshine and studio arc lights) to
• We need light to reduce the contrast range so the image we have will be usable.

Of course, there’s a third use that I doubt will go way, and that’s the use of lighting for creative effect and mood building.

Having seen the results from RED Epic though – up on the most amazing 4K projection system btw – I wonder about the two traditional reasons for using lighting gear.

Ted Schilowitz turned the Epic on the audience in the sparsely lit Studio 4. The audience were dimly lit, mostly from the spill of the ‘stage’ lighting, itself not real bright. This is a pretty accurate photo of what it looked like.

 

When first turned on Epic produced a full quality image in less than about 20 seconds, which is a huge improvement on the RED One camera. At its default of 800 ASA, the audience were dark, but it was probably a usable image. Very clean so likely to be able to be pushed in post to usable.

But that wasn’t the point. As I’m sure you know, RED records all that the sensor sees so ASA is a fairly flexible concept. Ted ramped Epic up to 5,000 ASA and the screen image became almost too bright to watch – with no increase in available light.

 

Now a photo of a screen isn’t ever going to convey anything but the broadest outline of the point, but at 5000 ASA the image was over bright – it would need to be dialed back. It gained a little contrast in my opinion, but remained amazingly clean and free of image noise at that ASA.

We also got to see a reel of Epic shots, including shots lit only by a match (and with one small spot of mood light in the background); and all sorts of “impossible” lighting conditions all acceptably shot without lighting. So we don’t need light “just to get a picture”! And RED certainly hasn’t been the only camera to produce great images in next to no light, but Epic does it very cleanly.

But to me the killer, and what really set me down the path of asking this question, was a shot from a ranch in the Las Vegas desert (presumably the RED Ranch), shot from inside a barn, wide, and through the open barn door, a desert landscape with a building in the background. The building had a highly reflective iron roof. This shot uses RED’s HDRx mode, which uses a second image to give 3-6 stops of highlight protection.

The native, unprocessed image looked a little dark in the barn, and a little light outside, but no detail had been lost as was obvious when Ted ramped the ASA down to see the detail in the highlights, and up to see the detail in the near blacks. (ASA can be changed in post with RED RAW’s format.) After color timing by someone expert in the craft, the shot looked production quality. Without lighting. In the most challenging conditions.

Some lighting will always be on the cards for creative effect and setting the right visual mood, but truthfully you can light for your eyes and the camera will keep up.

That has some interesting implications for more budget focussed production. The small size of the Epic (and still coming Scarlet) combined with the amazing light sensitivity and dynamic range, makes lighting a creative option rather than production necessity. This would simplify location shooting by reducing the size and number of grip trucks required, and reduce the need to bring generators to location shoots.

Now, I guess you’ll all tell me why this isn’t the case. Go right ahead but do it from factual argument not your prejudice about RED (because it won’t only be RED doing this years from now), nor because “that’s not the way it’s done”, because I’m interested in it because it’s not the way it’s done now!

[UPDATE] FX Guide have a story on an “impossible” shot – from full dark tunnel to full blue sky with one exposure for the shot (as the camera was remotely mounted facing the car).

[UPDATE 2] John Brawley set up comparison tests for available light shooting with six different cameras: 36 and Super 16 film, Red MX, Canon EOS, Arri Alexa, Sony F3.

{Update 3] On Reduser.info there is a post Lighting bill plumets using EPIC.