Capturing Better Skin Tones
BY CARLOS ESPINOZA, MESA, USA - Preparing to shoot in Zambia has made very nervous. This project is very different from the ones I have been involved with up until now. Thus far, I have mainly shot people with light skin. Going to Africa; we will be shooting predominantly people with dark skin. One of the challenges we are going to encounter will be lighting these people to look their best. I have been researching and obtaining information to make sure we get the very best images possible. We don’t want poor cinematography to get in the way of Jabbes’ telling a good story. We want the Zambian feature to be very successful.
Surprisingly, one aspect I read is that there is a large range of dark skin tones. Most digital video cameras are made to emphasize the tonal range of light (Caucasian and Asian tones.) Many cameras do not emphasize the range of darker tones by default. They can, however, be used to capture more subtle dark tones. Cyndi, Mike, Lindsey, Alec, Jeanette and Gina had been to Sundance and they were very excited about the Sony HVR-Z1U. Mike Curtis, HDforIndies suggested we look at the Panasonic cameras if we were shooting predominantly darker skin tones. At the end of the test, we all agreed that the Panasonic did a better job. At the school, we have the DVX-100A and it out-performed the Z1U. I can only guess how awesome the Panasonic HVX-200 must be. I hope we're able to get two of those before we go.
Of course, we had always been taught that the specific lighting set up that works well for one person may not may not work as well on another person. Lighting a brunette woman with olive skin tone is not the same as lighting a bald northern European. In the same way, lighting a southern Tongan man may be quite different from a lighter-toned Ngonia warrior in full dress. Our way to approach this is to test, test, test and test before we start shooting, even before we go to Africa.
There are other tips that I found helpful:
Don’t underexpose: In fact, slightly overexposing will help retain some detail; As long as you don’t expose them so that they look Caucasian. Mark Schlicher, a cinematographer from Nashville, TN, states in his experience, “dark tone skins benefit from about 2/3 to a full stop more light than the average Caucasian skin.”
Larger soft lights tend to work better than harder lights. A good example is when lighting a black car; if you point a hard light (point source) at a black car, you get a hot spot where the light is reflected. If you point a large soft light (broad source) at the black car, the surface of the car will reflect the large soft source. Using soft edge lights (kickers) also works well, even if they are not that bright, because you can get a nice reflective glare over the skin.
Typically, there is a large amount of blue in dark skin tones. It's possible to compensate for the blue by adding a warmer light. Jacques Nortier, an Environmental and Wildlife cameraman from South Africa has found great success with a gel called “Bastard Amber” to color the diffuser/light to provide warm tones and have a less milky projections.
Of course, this tips are not set in stone and will not work for everybody, one way we are getting ready is by testing beforehand to see what the camera is capable of doing with different types of lights and gels.