How to set up a Book Light - Cinematography Basics

Learn how to set up a Book Light to help achieve soft diffused light in a small space.

A Book Light is one of my favourite ways to diffuse light and an incredible thing to have in your cinematography toolkit. Not only is a Book Light a great way to save space when working in smaller locations, but it is also a very affordable option.

Cinematography Basics is a series of short tutorials and lighting breakdowns to help you understand and improve your knowledge of lighting.

A book light is something easy that you can put together, regardless of your budget. All of the lighting equipment I'm going to be using in this video, is very affordable, and it will hopefully demonstrate that you don't need big expensive lights to get a decent shot. You can hopefully make it work with whatever you have lying around at home already.

Book lights come in a variety of forms, anytime you bounce light and then diffuse it, can technically be called a book light.

One of the most common setups is the one we are going to explain in this video. This one most resembles its name, as it actually looks like a book.

All you will need is a light, I'm using the Godox SL60, some sort of bounce material (I'm using the white side of a 5 in one reflector), and something to diffuse it through (I'm using a sheet of unbleached muslin) but you can use anything, sheers, a shower curtain, anything you have that can diffuse light.

I'm also using a couple of cheap light stands and a t-bar to hold the materials.

The camera you use doesn't matter, but just so you know, for these examples, I'm using my Sony a7 iii with a Tamron 28-75mm lens.

I kept my settings the same throughout, the only thing that changed was the lighting.

My shutter was set to /50 (180 degrees)
The aperture was 2.8
My ISO was 800 (which is the native ISO for S-Log2)
And my White Balance was set to 5600 Kelvin (To match my Key light)

The first thing I did was to find a composition for my subject and to set my exposure for the ambient lighting coming in through the window that is just to the right of the frame.

Once I knew where my subject would be sitting, I started to set up my light.

The first thing to set up wth a book light is the bounce, position your light and bounce where you like it to hit your subject.

As you can see the light is still quite harsh as I have my Godox set to full power because I knew eventually I would be diffusing it again.

So now let's bring in the diffusion. This is where it becomes a book light as you can see from the shape. I set up the unbleached muslin from a t-bar so that it diffuses the light that is being bounced onto our subject. make sure that you close any gaps, stopping any unwanted light leak.

Now the light is looking nice and soft, however, for this particular shot, I felt the contrasts ratio between the light and shadow side was a bit to strong and so I added in a bit of fill to bring up the exposure.

I used an Aputure MC panel for this with the small diffusion material it comes with. I only wanted the smallest bit of fill, so the power was set to 25%.

It's a small but noticeable difference. If I wanted something a bit moodier, I would have left this out but for this particular shot which is more clean/ corporate I wanted it in.

For the final finishing touches to this scene, I added in a small practical in the background. This was a tungsten bulb so it adds a slight bit of colour contrast to the daylight scene.

I also added a Black Pro mist filter to the lens, just to soften up the highlights a bit.

Here is the final shot with a bit of a stronger grade.

Just remember, this is one example of how a book light can be set up. It can be any light that is bounced and then diffused.

I hope you found this video useful. If you have any questions let me know in the comments below.

If you want to watch some more of my other lighting breakdowns, you can find them here, and if you want to be notified of when I upload new videos, consider subscribing if you haven't already.

I look forward to seeing you next time, take care!