Remember

If you're going to use a white background, you need a lot of light on the background to make it look white.

Adjusting your exposure in your camera can help up to a point, but be careful not to overexpose the person on camera (making them look washed out with too much light).

UPDATE: Since I filmed this video, I've started using LED lights more because it takes less time to set them up. I'm still using compact fluorescent bulbs when filming at home where I can leave the lights up between videos.

Here are several LED lights that I like. I use the small H198 lights when I'm moving around and filming or need a quick set up with a client, but they don't throw off enough light to light a white background, like the HR672W model does.

When buying LED lights, I tend to go for daylight-balanced instead of bi-color because I want to have the ability to use as much light as possible instead of having half of my light bulbs daylight-balanced and the other half warm (tungsten-balanced). If I'm shooting in a location with a lot of warm light, I just use the orange "gels" to change the color of the light to a warmer color.

You'll find the compact fluorescent bulbs further down the page.

Links & Resources

My Previous Lighting Kit

85w Daylight Balanced Bulbs (5500 K)

I use one of these in each soft-box, which gives me the ability to get more light out of each soft-box when I need it. They are big and very bright. The remaining bulbs are 45w.

45w Daylight Balanced Bulbs (5500 K)

I use these bulbs in my soft-boxes along with one 85w bulb, which gives me the ability to vary the amount of light by a wide range.

Set Up & Lighting Backgrounds