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Lighting Setup: Simple 2-Light Cinematic Setup
I've always wanted my photography education on here to be free, so although there is no paywall to any of my -Technique Tuesdays-, any and all support is greatly appreciated. ❤️
PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book.
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PLUS: Donate any amount and I’ll send you a link to the hi-res print version of my studio lighting book. ||
Let’s be honest, ‘cinematic’ lighting is almost the new C-word in our industry at the moment. Many of my older readers may remember a time when clients would ask for their images to be more ‘edgy’ and now the ‘cinematic’ word is quickly becoming a similarly esoteric buzzword that is simply far too overused. But can we distil this all-encompassing trend into a simple and effective setup? Let’s take a look.
I’ll be upfront from the get-go here, this is an introductory lighting setup designed to whet your appetite into the world of cinematic studio lighting. If you like the look of this, please take a look at my now very popular ‘Cinematic Studio Lighting Workshop’. This new course takes things a great deal further beyond this simple setup as go over how photographers are sorely underutilising so many incredibly effective cinematography techniques. I’ll provide more details at the end of this article if you’re interested.
Obligatory self-promotion aside, let’s examine some core tenets of the ‘cinematic’ look and try to incorporate them into our simple yet engaging lighting setup.
Upstage Lighting
This is an interesting and foreign concept to us stills shooters, but I need you to remember that the subjects on screen NEVER look to the camera! In every film you’ve ever seen (4th wall-breaking art films aside), the subjects never look at the camera, and this means cinematographers light their subjects very differently from us. Where we use key-lights in front of our subjects, cinematographers will often use lights behind or ‘up-stage’ of their subject.
Page 28 of 61 from my Cinematic Studio Lighting PDF
In the above images, you can see exactly what I mean. Nobody looks to camera so the light is often behind them and this is referred to as up-stage lighting. The style does mean that it only works when the subject looks away from camera so you need to keep this in mind for your interpretation of cinematic lighting. Do you want your subjects looking to camera? If so, you’ll need to adjust the light accordingly and for the setup I’ll demonstrate below, I opted to take the inspiration of the upstage light and have a strong light from behind, but I also wanted my subject to have the option to look to camera. With this in mind, I kept the light pushed back and more of a strong back light and off of the face.
This simple yet very important element that characters never look to camera in cinematic looks is a very powerful tool. Being cognisant of this decision will quickly and dramatically alter the way you light your subjects as many of us are so engrained to light our subjects with the ability to look to camera. I’ll be honest, as a fashion and portrait shooter of over 20 years, it’s extremely hard for me not to have my subjects look to camera, but I’d urge you to try it as a personal project at the very least.
Depth and Atmosphere
If you ever wanted to know the worst-kept secret of how to achieve the ‘cinematic’ look, it’s atmosphere and by atmosphere, I mean simulated depth.
For many of us studio shooters, depth is pretty simple; spend 2 grand on an f1.2 lens and call it a day (you know who you are). As studio shooters, we typically only have two planes of depth, the subject and the background…. that’s it. Why is depth so important? Ultimately it’s about managing that depth and determining what’s important in the scene. For us in the studio, it’s the subject and it’s extremely easy to make that subject a priority when there’s nothing else in the frame for the viewer to look at. But on far grander film sets, they have a lot of distracting elements that can potentially pull the viewer away from the importance of the character. Sure, a colossally wide aperture lens helps to throw the background out of focus, but sometimes that’s not always the answer.
I know, I know. It’s tantamount to heretical doctrine to even suggest that the widest possible aperture isn’t always the answer, but set down your pitchforks and hear me out.
Often in cinema, the scene or background is very important to the character and story, simply throwing it completely out of focus isn’t the answer. Instead, many scenes will employ smoke, haze and other techniques to subdue the background in the scene whilst still allowing it to be relevant and recognisable. There are a multitude of reasons for doing this, but ultimately it’s about separating the subject from the background so that we are immediately drawn to the subject in a subtle and believable way. You can’t just throw a spotlight on the subject, the subject needs to exist organically in the scene so instead of lighting them more dramatically than the background like us studio shooters would do, cinematographers often opt to subdue the background rather than simply highlight the subject.
Page 19 of 61 from my Cinematic Studio Lighting PDF
For larger sets, haze is a very easy and very effective tool to add depth, but it’s not always practical. I will say that if you have time and are able to, haze does give you the best results and most believable depth, but if that’s not possible for the aforementioned reasons, a lens filter is a great substitute in a pinch and it’s actually what I used in this setup I’ll go over it in more detail below.
Colour Contrast
The idea of colour contrast is more stylised and highly dependent on the project of course, but the basic principle of drawing attention to the subject with contrast is always applicable, it’s just that we’ll be employing colour as a tool as well as the basic luminance contrast. For example, David Fincher is a master of luminance contrast in his films. Many of David Fincher’s movies have a darker more sinister plot and much of them are shot at night. Se7en is a great example of this as there is actually very little colour contrast in that, but the lighting is impeccable and every element is visible without being overly lit as he’s a master of the checkerboard style of light. Counter to this are lighter (in mood) movies and they will often use colour contrast in a scene that is more evenly lit. Wes Anderson is an obvious example of this and he’ll often forgo any attempt at ‘normal’ colourings in favour of what simply looks best visually.
I make the very real distinction between luminance contrast and colour contrast here because they both play a vital role in understanding how to manipulate light and mood in a scene. I spoke about David Fincher’s film Se7en earlier. That’s a movie about chasing a serial killer, you wouldn’t light that with soft washes of colour and light. Instead, he opted for strong contrast and edge light that leaves an area of darkness that instils unease and tension in the viewer. You need to know what you’re trying to say with your image or portrait and choose appropriate lighting.
Page 16 of 61 from my Cinematic Studio Lighting PDF
In the above image, you can see some examples of colour contrast. The top left is the most obvious as I bathe the subject in a very subtle blue tone and then light the background with an orange glow. On the top right, I use colour contrast in the subject's outfit to make them stand off from the background, but I’m also using a very hard light on them to increase the colour contrast in the clothing. You may have missed it, but look at the razor-sharp chin shadow again. See how it’s a very hard light illuminating her, but it’s filled in with beautifully soft light as well. This is an extremely effective hard-light technique that isn’t plagued by heavy, visually distracting shadows.
Lastly, look at the bottom image and see how completely different the black-and-white version is. This is the very powerful difference between luminance contrast and colour contrast. The colour shot on the left draws us to the face and separates it from the somewhat dominant surroundings, whereas the black-and-white version loses all depth due to it all being of a similar luminance.
Learning how to drive visual direction with colour is crucial and you simply cannot rely on the basics of lighting ratios and light meters to direct attention in a scene. Having a firm grasp of visually dominant and recessive colours will quickly elevate your shots.
The Setup
I’ve covered a few of the basics above and upstage lighting, atmospheric depth and colour contrast are just a couple of the ‘cinematic’ triggers that you’ll often see in movies, but let’s now look at employing some of that knowledge in our simple 2-light setup.
First off, let’s look at the setup itself and then I’ll explain some of the finer details below to hopefully answer some of the questions you may have.
Cut Out & Keep
The grid isn’t strictly necessary, but it was on and it isn’t hurting.
ZHIYUN G300 can be placed very close to the ceiling
Here you can see just how close that top light is to the model.
Note: Shutter speed too fast for the LED screen here
ZHIYUN X60 set to its warmest Kelvin of 2700K.
JHP Patent Pending Pile’o’Crap - AKA Shiny/Translucent Foreground Elements
TL;DR/ADHD/Artist Setup Explanation
Setup curtain backdrop with folds to catch light
Position 90cm softbox directly above subject
Adjust this to be ‘cold’ AKA 6500K
Position smaller hard light back behind subject and up high angled down
Adjust this to be ‘warm’ AKA 2700K
Try to position this to light the model, hit the camera and also scrape across the backdrop
Include shiny/translucent foreground elements in front of camera lens
Kit Used
1x ZHIYUN Molus G300
1x ZHIYUN X60
1x 90cm Parabolic Softbox
1x Bare Reflector Dish
1x Large Brown/Grey Curtain
Foreground Elements
Lens Filters
Camera Settings
Camera - Nikon D850
Lens - DC-Nikkor 105mm f2
Shutter Speed - 1/125th
Aperture - f2
ISO - 100
Kelvin - 4600K
Focal Length - 105mm
The Results
Click to enlarge any of the shots below.
Model: Jaye Hicks
Breaking it Down
The good news is, it’ll be quick, after all, there are only 2 lights, so how complicated can it be? But as we tentatively navigate around complacency, there are still a few core creative elements that I’d like you to consider and adjust to your own taste.
Upstage Lighting
You’ll need to determine how much you want to lean into this style yourself but to stay true to the upstage look, you’ll need to think of that strong, hard light from behind as more of your key light. That means it won't often look great when the model looks to camera as it’ll awkwardly catch their nose or worse. I know I can’t help myself and I never do a shoot where the model doesn’t look to camera for some of the best shots. So I often opt to be inspired by the upstage look, but push the light further around behind so it won’t catch the nose. I’d urge you to experiment with the look though and see what works for you.
Take a look at some of the Cinematic Lens Flare Filters I’ve used in the past.
Depth & Atmosphere
Arguably, one of the best parts of the cinematic look is the atmosphere and visual refractions you can get away with. An easy trick for this cinematic haze is to use lens filters. I personally think actual haze is best for the true depth look, but if time or environmental limitations prevent that, a lens filter is a great substitute. I’ve tried scores of these filters over the years and you can see which ones I prefer here Cinematic Lens-Flare Filter Comparison. Ultimately, you’re after a lens filter that will add a little flare to the image and you can get ones that produce everything from blooms in the highlights, lowers contrast, simulates haze and even ones that fake the anamorphic horizontal flares.
Lens Filters
If you’re curious as to how much these filters are doing in a shoot like this, I shot with several filters both on and off in this shoot, so here are the examples if you missed them above.
No lens filter attached - You can see no flare at all.
These 3 images show a good range of looks and as you can see, lens filters can play a very significant role in how the final image looks.
The most popular choice is arguably the bloom-style filter and you can see that it creates large flares with light hitting it. If you look carefully you’ll also see it blooming off of bright highlights like the models cuff button too.
Standard bloom-style filter - Very distinctive flaring and blooming
Anamorphic flare filters - a very distinctive, yet subjective look.
Colour Contrast
A very well-established and popular technique used in many TV shows and movies today is the colour contrast seen between either end of the Kelvin scale. Yes, the orange and teal look is arguably overused today, but hey, I was doing it before it was cool so you’re just gonna have to live with it! Ego aside, the idea of mixing Kelvin contrast is essential to understand and it’s not too tricky, you simply have some lights far warmer than other lights that are far cooler.
In this setup I had the back, upstage light set to be very warm at 2700K and the light above at a cooler 6500K. The trick then is to set your camera Kelvin somewhere between the two so you get both blue and orange tones present in the shot and for this particular shoot, I was around 4600K.
Foreground Elements
Many cinematic sets and spaces are often fairly small, especially if you’re shooting on-site or in a home studio. One very strong element of a cinematic look is depth, but how do we create depth where there is none?
Depth in a scene is very important as it helps lead the viewer through it or into it and having foreground elements in the frame is an easy way to do that, so what do we do when these foreground elements simply aren’t there or more typically, aren’t in the right place? The simple solution is to fake them and you can do this in any number of ways, but I often prefer to grab random elements from the scene around me and place them in the foreground of the shot to attempt to make it a little more believable. As you can see in the above BTS shot, I really am grabbing any random object that will catch the light.
In case you weren’t sure what I meant by ‘foreground elements’, it’s these very out-of-focus bokehs and distortions.
There are a couple of tips I’ll share for this but the biggest one is that this foreground element effect really only works when we have a light behind the subject firing back into the lens. That light will catch on all of these objects and will in turn refract and flare into the lens.
We also want to find elements that will reflect or catch the light. Think anything silver or reflective and here I’m even using cutlery clamped into C-Stand knuckles to get the shine where I want it. One big tip is to use glasses of water. You can all but guarantee every location will have a glass and some water, but this combo works so well due to it refracting and distorting the light that enters it. You can even see the very clear distortions in the image shown above too.
Couple all of this with light pointing towards the camera, a fancy lens filter and a very wide open aperture and the foreground elements will be very visible.
Sure, you can slap a cool-looking Lightroom Preset on any image and it’ll look more ‘cinematic’, but there are a lot more elements we can incorporate into our setups to get the best from this popular style.
Final Tips & Points to Remember
As I stated at the start, the word ‘cinematic’ is, in my opinion, very often overused and nearly everything with a basic Lightroom Preset on Instagram gets called cinematic today. But the overuse is simply due to how popular the idea of the cinematic style is and if we can understand and utilise what made that style so popular to begin with in our own work, we will likely create some very engaging imagery.
With that in mind, let’s recap some of the core tenets of the cinematic style.
Upstage lighting - try to light your subjects with a strong light from behind. Couple this with a fill-light in front and as long as the subject looks away from camera, you’ll quickly develop a cinematic aesthetic with light alone.
Depth & Atmosphere - this is the easiest way to get that cinematic look and whether you’re simply adding smoke from a can at a wedding to get those ‘god-rays’ or you’re filling an entire studio with haze to get a dramatic sci-fi night shot, faking atmosphere is extremely powerful.
Colour Contrast - although orange and teal are often overused today, you cannot ignore the power of successfully using contrasting colours, especially ones on the Kelvin scale, to add drama and separation to your scene. Don’t just look at luminance contrast, pay very close attention to colour contrast as well.
Foreground Elements - this is easier to do than it first looks and yes if you have something on-site that you can shoot through or past then perfect, but don’t be afraid to get creative with foreground elements and positioning reflective and translucent objects in front of the lens is a powerful visual look to lead a viewer into a frame.
Compress the Scene - simply put, use a long lens. Although this isn’t a strict rule, much of cinema is shot on longer lenses as a lot of what makes a powerful scene, is a close shot of a subject with minimal distractions. Roughly translated to stills-photography, look to use an 85mm or 105mm lens to get the best results.
Blur the Background - you guessed it, shoot wide open! Many of you are already doing this, but shooting on a wide-open aperture is an easy way to reduce distracting elements in a scene. Blurring the background keeps the visual power on the subject and not the potentially distracting elements behind them.
Shoot Landscape Orientation - as portrait shooters, this is very hard for us to do, but yes, the obvious trait of cinematic-looking shots is of course to shoot in landscape orientation… but after 20+ years of portraits, I fail at this, so do what I say and not what I do!
Bonus Tip:
Add a little grain - this one is more subjective, but a lot of cinematic looks are reminiscent of film and by film I mean the analogue kind. Much of cinema is about nostalgia and with that comes the romantic memory of older movies and many of them have an organic look thanks to film grain. In all of the images here, I experimented with a new LR Preset from a friend of the community VMoldo. He sent over a new way of applying grain to images with masks for luminance values in each image and it produces a more natural and believable grain than simply applying it uniformly throughout the shot. If you’re interested, head over and take a look at his Filmic Tone Limiter
Good luck if you’re giving this setup a go, let me know how you get on and as always, if you have any questions, fire away in the comments below.
You’re just getting started…
The cinematic style is so popular for a reason as it’s extremely fun to play with lighting in a way that incorporates a subject into a scene over simply sticking them in the scene like many of us do with traditional studio lighting.
Light the scene in such a way that the subject exists within it effortlessly and you’ll go a long way in making your portraits less contrived and far more cinematic.
What I’ve covered here today is really only the basic bullet points of incorporating a cinematic look to your portraits and I’ve not even covered any specific cinematic lighting techniques that are used in nearly every film we see today. How do we light a small environment to look bigger than it is? How do we light a tight space and subject with beautifully soft light if we can’t use big lights or bring lights further away? How do we sculpt a subject in light to both flatter them and enhance elements like fabric and textures and do it in a way that minimises the post-pro required?
If you’re interested in learning all of this, plus a whole lot more about the cinematic style and how we as photographers can incorporate all of those skills into our own work, I have written a course specifically designed for photographers called ‘Cinematic Studio Lighting’.
Products Used
ZHIYUN
As I mentioned in previous articles ZHIYUN sent me these lights to review, but I am not being paid to share my thoughts. Below is a link to the lights and modifiers I used, supposedly if you use them, I will earn a very small amount of commission from them. It is minimal though and beer money at best so if you find a better deal elsewhere, please feel free to take it. All that said, they have provided me with a discount code for you to use on their official site. Use code ‘JakeHicks’ to earn 10% off anything on their site.
ZHIYUN MOLUS G300
I’m sure you don’t need me to explain this light further, but here's the link to the ZHIYUN website below.
ZHIYUN X60
This link is for the COMBO RGB Kit I had. That includes the battery, power cable, diffusion dome, carry case etc.
ZHIYUN 90cm Parabolic Softbox
An excellent, generously sized softbox that is very well made and seems robust - most importantly, it’s very easy to put up!
JHP Livestreams…
I livestream every other Tuesday night via YouTube and there I answer your questions, critique your shots, take community images into Photoshop to work on them and discuss all manner of lighting tips and techniques. I look forward to seeing you and your work there real soon. Jake Hicks Photography - YouTube
