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Lighting mistakes that quietly ruin a news set, and how to avoid them

Most lighting problems on a news set come from a handful of habits that are easy to fix once you can spot them. Here are the ones we meet most often and how to correct them.

Oliver Hartley · 17 October 2026 · 6 min read

Lighting the presenter but forgetting the set

The most frequent mistake we see is a perfectly lit face in front of a flat, murky background. Crews spend an hour getting skin tones right, then treat the desk, the screens and the wall behind as an afterthought. On air the presenter seems to float in front of a dark hole, and the image has no depth.

The fix is to plan the set and the talent as one picture. Decide first how bright the background should sit relative to the face, usually a little below it, and light the set separately so that it has its own shape and texture. Walls and panels need their own units rather than spill from the key light.

Walk the set with a camera and a monitor before you commit to any position. What looks lively to the eye often reads as grey on screen, and the reverse is just as common. A short test at the camera positions you will actually use saves a long evening of re-rigging later.

Light the background on its own units, not with spill
Keep the set a little darker than the face
Judge the result on a monitor, not by eye

Using three-point lighting as a fixed recipe

Key, fill and backlight is a sound starting point, but it goes wrong when it is copied without thought. A key set too high throws shadows under the eyes and nose, and a fill pushed too hard removes all shape from the face, leaving a flat, shadowless look that ages nobody well.

Treat the three points as a method for asking questions: where does the light come from, how hard is it, and what does it do to this particular face? A presenter with glasses, a bald head or deep-set eyes will need small adjustments to height and angle that no diagram can predict.

Make your changes in small steps and look at the monitor after each one. Move a unit by a hand's width, not an arm's length. If you change two things at once and the picture improves, you will not know which change did the work, and you will not be able to repeat it next week.

Lower or raise the key until eye shadows disappear
Reduce fill before adding more key
Adjust one unit at a time

Ignoring colour temperature and mixed sources

Mixing tungsten, LED panels and daylight from a studio window is a quiet way to create trouble. The camera is white balanced once, so any source that differs will tint skin or the set in a way that is hard to correct in the gallery. Presenters often look slightly orange on one side and cold on the other.

Choose one colour temperature for the whole rig and hold to it. If a window cannot be avoided, block it or gel the fixtures to match it. Check the cheaper fixtures especially, because their colour often drifts and the output can differ between two units of the same model.

Do a white balance with a card in the presenter's own position, under the final lighting, never before the rig is complete. Repeat it when the set has been left running for an hour, as some fixtures shift as they warm up.

Pick a single colour temperature for the rig
Block or gel stray daylight
Re-check white balance after warm-up

Skipping consistency checks between cameras

A set can look excellent from camera one and unconvincing from camera two. Shot-to-shot consistency is what makes a news programme feel calm, and it is lost when each camera angle is lit by whoever happened to be adjusting at the time. Cutting from a bright wide to a darker close-up is jarring for viewers even when they cannot say why.

Set exposure and look on every camera angle in one session, using the same reference, and write down the settings. Walk a stand-in through each position the presenters will use, including the move from desk to wall screen, and watch the monitor wall as you cut between sources.

Pay attention to the edges of the frame as well as the centre. A bright practical lamp or a reflective surface that is invisible on the wide shot can become a distracting hot spot on the tight one, and it is far easier to remove it during the check than during a live bulletin.

Match exposure on all cameras with one reference
Test each presenter position and movement
Check frame edges for hot spots and reflections

Leaving safety and rigging speed to chance

Lighting plans are often drawn as if the studio were empty and unlimited. In practice, cables cross walkways, units hang from grids nobody has checked for load, and a fixture that takes twenty minutes to refocus is quietly avoided by everyone. The result is a rig that slowly drifts away from its design.

Build safety into the plan from the start. Know the weight each point can carry, secure every unit with a safety bond, and route power away from where people and pedestals travel. Mark cable runs and keep a tidy habit of coiling and labelling.

Speed matters as much as neatness. Choose fixtures and positions that can be adjusted quickly, and keep a simple lighting plan on paper that any member of the crew can follow. A set that can be reset in minutes will be looked after; a set that takes an hour will be left as it is.

Check load limits before hanging anything
Secure every fixture with a safety bond
Keep a plan on paper for quick resets

Not recording what works

Even a good lighting setup disappears when it is only in someone's memory. A change of shift, a moved desk or a replaced lamp, and the look slowly wanders. Crews then spend the start of every show chasing something they got right a month ago.

Keep a short lighting record for each set: a sketch of positions, fixture types, dimmer levels, the white balance reference and a photograph of the monitor image you are happy with. Store it where the whole crew can find it, and update it whenever something changes.

Review the record from time to time with the camera and audio teams. They notice things from their positions that the person at the lighting desk cannot, such as a shadow from a boom or a glare on a screen, and their comments often lead to the simplest improvements.

Sketch positions and note dimmer levels
Photograph the monitor image you want to keep
Review the record with camera and audio crews

Most lighting trouble on a news set is not about equipment but about habit: lighting faces without the set, following a diagram without looking at the monitor, mixing sources, and failing to write anything down. Fix those and the picture becomes steadier and easier to repeat. If you are reviewing a rig this season, start with one camera angle, check it against the others, and record what you settle on.

About the author

Oliver Hartley

Head of Studio Production

Oliver has worked in studio galleries for over a decade and leads our setup and workflow projects.