Cinematographer, inventor, winner of 2 technical academy awards and creator of the Dedolight – Dedo Weigert, was recently in Sydney and I got a chance to hear him talk and also meet this industry legend. I just love meeting key industry figures like Dedo, it is safe to say he has forgotten more about lighting than I know!

His talk centered around a detailed overview of the entire Dedo range which is much larger than I would have guessed. Of course we all shoot with the standard Dedos but that is only part of the product range. Dedo clearly loves what he does and it shows. A very good cameraman in his own right, he builds lights to solve problems not to make money or grow companies (although I am sure those don’t hurt!)

Apart from a lot of really great light lensing and cool lighting tricks (which we’ll put into fxphd) he completely surprised me by also giving a detailed discussion on the UV harm of studio lighting. I had never expected that short-term lighting exposure could result in serious cancer risk, but it actually does. As humans we need to avoid UV light, and it comes in three basic wavelength types, UV-A, UB-B and UV-C, and it is the last of these that is really evil. In terms of wavelength, UV- C starts at say 100nm and goes to 275nm. Visual light starts around 400nm. Some companies produce lights that do cutting down UV-C but still allow scary amounts of UV-C to be radiated onto an actor or interviewee at levels that can affect the subject after just a day of filming.

There are cases of subjects being hospitalized after just 4 hours under faulty lights. The UV is not only is harmful to the skin but also extremely harmful to your eyes. Dedo is proud that their double system of UV glass and UV- cut filters really kills UV at UV-A end of the spectrum and thus virtually completely kills any UV-B or UV-C light.