2014-02-09

Backdrop lighting

I remounted a backdrop from the old layout on the sky wall behind the farm. This time I placed a strip of warm-white LED lights behind the backdrop so that I can simulate a dawn or sunset behind the mountains.

First I screwed some  ¾" furring strip onto the wall..


Placing the LED strip on the  ¾" furring strip...


and then screwed the backdrop onto the furring


Here is the end of the backdrop showing the ¾" furring strip screwed to the wall, with the LEDs sitting on top of that and then the backdrop (¼' plywood) on that.



The first thing I found was that having light shining up against the background sky is very unforgiving of any undulation in the back wall! Every little blemish gets highlighted! If I keep the lighting balanced with the main room, it looks OK though.



and now if we turn the brightness up we see depressions in the wall that we never knew were there...

a close up inspection will even reveal the speckling of the spray paint, (but one cannot normally see this level of detail).


it is a matter of getting the correct balance between the lights....  see how the wall below the backdrop looks even... - same wall!

From a normal viewing distance things look OK...