How to Use CHAUVET DJ’s 5 in 1 Spotlight
CHAUVET DJ’s 5-in-1 spotlight is a powerful hands-free task light that features a tight spotlight beam and wide area floodlight. This versatile fixture is also compatible with CHAUVET DJ’s ILS system, allowing you to control moving heads, derbies, washes and more with a wireless foot switch, RF remote or mobile APP.
1. Soften Hard Light
Most photographers will preach to you that soft light looks great and it does, but hard light can look just as good in the right situations. Whether you’re photographing a piece of fruit or shooting a comedian to give them 5 in 1 spotlight an edge, hard lighting can be used to make a subject stand out and look more appealing.
The key to making a hard light soft is in the size of the light source and how close it is to your subject. The larger and closer your light is, the softer it will be (think sun with clouds).
Adding diffusion to your lighting also helps soften it. A 5-in-1 reflector is the best option because it has a large surface area to diffuse the light. You can also use other pieces of diffusion material like a piece of white or black fabric or even just a flat bed sheet or curtain. Some DPs clip diffusion paper to their barn doors to soften up the light and others use wax paper on tungsten lights (be careful though, the wax can catch fire). You can even swap out the color on your reflector to change the tone of the light.
2. Fill in Shadows
With a reflector underneath your subject you can brighten the shadows and lighten up your frame. This setup is very common, and can be varied by moving the reflector closer or further away from your subject. By experimenting you can find the perfect ratio of fill-light to main-light for your subject.
Katie uses her 5 in 1 spotlight as a rim-light and a fill light, to create a nice symmetrical light on her clients. To duplicate this, imagine a triangle shape with your clients in one point and the flashes in the other two points. This setup is easy to replicate with any off camera flash, and some even have a pull-out bounce card that can help deflect light in a specific direction.
3. Shape It
Unlike reflectors that are rigid, the 5-in 1 spotlight’s shape can be bent to mould light and fill in shadows where flat surface wouldn’t reach. This allows you to highlight certain aspects of a subject that may not be flattering, such as a double chin or a fuller nose, without making them look unnatural.
You can control the spotlight’s position, length, beam angle and hotspot with its controls. You can also use the dolly point to move the light around in 3D space. Changing the spotlight hardness control changes the shape of an infinite cone in space that illuminates objects at the very tip of the spot, and then lights them up more brightly for half of the radius, and then slowly drops off to nothing.
The color of the light can be changed by selecting it in the real-time view, Scene tree or Light Manager. The color of the circle in the center indicates the Radius value, and you can click and drag from the circle to adjust it. You can also pick a curve on the curves and the curves’ center to draw a circle perpendicular to that curve.
4. Soften Eyes
Eyes are the focal point of your face, so it’s important to highlight them. You can do this by adding an eyeshadow color that contrasts with your eye color and defining them with a liner or mascara. For example, green eyes look best with shadow shades with red undertones—red is opposite green on the color wheel.
Participants were presented with a gaze contingent display consisting of two blocks of 14 face identities to be learned, each followed by one or more trials in which the identity was hidden by one of three Spotlight conditions: 2deg, 5deg or 8deg degrees of visual angle with a Gaussian aperture that increased with distance from center of gaze according to a function resulting Offroad Led Light Bar in a zero alpha value at the center. This Spotlight technique allows us to precisely elicit and measure the information use of observers under constrained and unconstrained (i.e., extra-foveated) conditions, opening up a new line of research aiming at dynamic information integration modeling.
