• Wondering which camera, gear, computer, or software to buy? Ask in our Gear Guide.

Shooting with car headlights

I am shooting a music video and I am wondering what results I could get in a pitch black area with only CAR HEADLIGHTS and a REFLECTOR. Does anyone have any advice for shooting with such limited lighting and achieving the best results?

The scene will be the artist performing to camera.

(I am using the Panasonic GH3 with 25mm 1.4 lens)

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
It is doable. Multiple cars and reflectors as well as diffusers will work. I've done this in my feature film. I've also used home made 12 volt light set ups with 100 ft extentions to run off car batteries.

It doesn't get much talk in here because it's out of the box thinking.

Good luck.
 
It is doable. Multiple cars and reflectors as well as diffusers will work. I've done this in my feature film. I've also used home made 12 volt light set ups with 100 ft extentions to run off car batteries.

It doesn't get much talk in here because it's out of the box thinking.

Good luck.

Thanks for the response! Yea I found that diffusers were key! I got amazing results and the lighting looked fantastic - lighting the artists face, with a lot of the background in shadow. However, although the shots appear well lit, there is very little flexibility in editing. If I try and color correct at all, the footage becomes grainy. The footage is as lit as I would like it to be, so any ideas what the problem may be?
 
When you have noise it's usually because either you're under exposed or you're shooting at a lower bitrate than you need for the final output. If it's after the grading process, it could also have something to do with your workflow and/or software you're using.

I got amazing results and the lighting looked fantastic - lighting the artists face, with a lot of the background in shadow. However, although the shots appear well lit, there is very little flexibility in editing. If I try and color correct at all, the footage becomes grainy. The footage is as lit as I would like it to be, so any ideas what the problem may be?

Post some screen shots (before and after) of what you're having problems with and include as much information as possible. What you used to shoot, codec, software used, etc.

As I said before, it may be your equipment/tools may be ill suited for the task at hand or the process being used may be incorrect.
 
As I said before, it may be your equipment/tools may be ill suited for the task at hand or the process being used may be incorrect.

It is most likely my equipment, I just don't understand why it's happening. Here are a couple of screenshots.

Raw:
Example1.jpg


Post:
Example2.jpg
(I have only boosted the red in the shadows)

I don't know how easy to see it will be in the screenshots, but when the colour-corrected footage is played there are splodges dancing around the most affected areas. These splodges don't appear too obvious in a single frame.
 
Yeah, I cannot really see what you mean from the screen shot. It's also tough to work out especially considering you didn't include the information I suggested to include.

What you're describing, depending on the actual effect can happen for a couple of reasons that I'm aware of.

Since (you say) you're adding red to the shadows, it can depending on what kind of adjustments you're making and how far you're pushing them.

One example is the differences between log more and primaries mode in Davinci. Log mode has more overlap than primary mode. Both have benefits and drawbacks depending on the situation. If you're in primary mode, you can make an adjustment to the shadows and there is an arbitrary spot where it'll just stop. If the light changes from frame to frame it can cause unexpected results. This doesn't happen as much in log mode unless you're pushing the wrong information too far.

Another common place is when you cause artifacts is where there is no information to recover when you're readjusting the boundaries (Eg lifting the reds in your blacks). Under exposed or over exposed footage most commonly, though it can also happen when an aggressive codec compresses your video information too far to have the information altered or recovered. When you adjust that portion of the video, it has no information to use so it extrapolates or guesses (depending on how your software reacts to this) what should be there, often guessing wrong.

I'm not sure if this is happening to you, If it is the case, you're moving into damage control instead of creative choice in your color grading process.

It'd odd though, since I don't see any red in the blacks, more in the lower end of the mids. Also note, some red seems to made it on to his face. It might be worth deciding if you want to keep it there.
 
Yeah, I cannot really see what you mean from the screen shot. It's also tough to work out especially considering you didn't include the information I suggested to include.

Ever so sorry! Thanks for taking the time to help me, here is a lot more detailed information.

Here are before and after videos of the raw file and then after boosting the red, so you can see the splodges in action!

Before: http://youtu.be/3TWP93yKYwo

After: http://youtu.be/2xwG2kpSXTI

It was shot with a Panasonic GH3, using the 25mm lens at f1.4.
It was shot at 25fps 1080p mpeg movie.
The only lighting was car headlights that were diffused.
I am editing in Adobe Premiere pro.
I boosted the reds using Red Giants Colorista II. I (quickly) keyed out everything but the darker wood areas in Colorista to apply the red with secondary colour correction.

THANKS!
 
So you can see from your footage that what you're doing to the color is introducing noise, so unless you can live with the noise, that option is out.

To your description, this has reds in the blacks, though I tracked your talent so the effect wasn't applied to the talent too.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/um9nl5x1dzactjl/00000000.mov?dl=0

If I can download a video from youtube and apply a slightly different but basically the same effect without the noise you're having problems with (I have applied ZERO noise reduction), shows it's part of the tools (Software and/or workflow) you're using, not the camera or the footage being the problem. One thing to be aware of, the lower the quality of the footage, the broader strokes you need to do to avoid issues that crop up.

There is a somewhat common issue when you're dealing with highly compressed footage that people try to isolate specific color bands to alter and run into issues when what you choose pops in and out what you've picked to alter. It could be the problem, it might not. You just have to try something different until you either figure out how to get what works or you give up and settle for second best. Grading is something that takes a fair while to learn. Alternatively, you could always pay a professional to pick up the job and give you exactly what you need.
 
Back
Top