Windows and overexposure

Dutchboy · Jan 28, 2009

I just finished shooting 2 condos on the beach and I'm currently in the middle of uploading all of the footage. I took notice while shooting and I definitely notice it now, the windows and sliding doors are all extremely bright from the sun. While shooting, I couldn't close the iris any more without making the room too dark. I'm sure I'm not the firs to encounter this problem. Any suggestions on how to fix this while shooting, as well as in post? Thanks.

(sample coming soon)

Dutchboy · Jan 28, 2009

FatalFire · Jan 28, 2009

Maybe lighting the interior with more lights or something

Dutchboy · Jan 28, 2009

FatalFire said:
Maybe lighting the interior with more lights or something

Considered that already. Don't exactly have the time to light each room how I want on the job.

WideShot · Jan 28, 2009

"Fixing it in post", this is one of the toughest things to fix like that. You best chance is to play with the gamma and get the lows to come up, or do a curve in the curves control so that the lows come up but the highs don't.

How do you fix it when shooting?

Shoot at night and create your own lighting if possible
Shutter/Curtain all unnecessary windows
Light the foreground more
ND gel the Windows
Use flags/scrims/silks/etc to control the light outside so its not so harsh

Almost every major motion picture that uses on location indoor sets starts their lighting setups by first controlling the light coming in, by using flags to eliminate direct light, and silks to filter the rest. Rarely will a light ever shine straight through a window without diffusion (because that wouldn't make sense on screen).

If you "don't have the time" or more realistically, "aren't planning that far ahead", then you're going to get blown out windows.

Dutchboy · Jan 28, 2009

10-4 thank you.

lunar1369 · Apr 17, 2009

My camera (DVX100B) has a built-in digital ND filter that works quite nicely.

Will Vincent · Apr 17, 2009

Really you should add several rolls of ND gel to your kit. If you put ND film over the windows you'll effectively knock down the exposure just of the window, and bring the light levels closer between inside and outside.

An internal ND filter really won't help because that will knock down the exposure of the entire image.

The other thing you might consider would be gels to correct for the difference in color temp between tungsten and daylight. Using those you can either gel the windows or your lights to match color temp between inside and outside -- if you choose to. If you like the look the different color temps give you, and you opt to shoot at night to have full control over your light levels outside the windows, you could gel those exterior lights to give them a daylight look.