Sun and Reflectors Lighting tutorial

Lighting using just the sun & a reflector

Even though I normally have access to lighting equipment, I often just use the sun and a reflector to light the films or music videos I work on. This way I can move fast and save a lot of money by not renting those huge and expensive HMI Par lights (but if you want to learn to use HMI Pars, I have a tutorial about them too).

In this tutorial, I will show you how I light using just the sun and a reflector. As an example, I will use the music video “Feelin’ Like” that I shot in Los Angeles for JReyez. Since it is usually sunny in LA, it made perfect sense to light using the sun. Also, the golden reflector helped me add a fun, upbeat and sunny feel to the music video.

Here is the finished music video

And here’s today’s tutorial

Reflectors are very affordable. The larger one I used costs around $15 and the smaller one around $10. You can get these reflectors on eBay and Amazon.

Andoer reflectors (all sizes) on eBay

Docooler reflectors (all sizes) on eBay

To learn more about lighting with natural light, see also my earlier tutorial “Filming Outdoors – Light Reflector”.

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