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

White Balance and Filter...lighting problem? DP's chime in.

CommanderGoat

CommanderGoat

Ok, here's yet another lighting question to add to the mix.

I'm planning on doing a 4 minute "Steadycam-ese" shot in an apartment. The apartment isn't well lit, so I'm relying on a mixture of window light and lamps, fixtures, practicals, etc. Now, my camera is just a consumer grade miniDV and I can't manually set the white balance. I can however set it to indoor, outdoor, and auto WB.(I have a Sony DCR-TRV20 if you want to know). So, I'm going to be moving in and out of rooms, some of which have big windows, and others that have NO windows. Basically, here's want I want to avoid:

1) The Auto-Iris. I don't want the iris opening up and close excessively. I'm guessing the only way I can do this is by lighting the entire apartment the same brightness in every room.(I don't have a light meter btw)

2)The Color shift in rooms. I don't want one room to look blue and the next room to look orange. Even though I'll have some people trying to convince me "it looks cool dude," I think it looks amatuerish. I want to achieve a consistent color tone as I move from room to room. So, would an 80A or 80B filter do the trick for me if I set my white balance to outdoor? I'm just not sure what to do about the mix of daylight and indoor light.

Any suggestions? questions? concerns?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Well, you have a mighty ambition and your heart is in the right place, but without extensive lighting it would really be a pain in the ass if not impossible. I would suggest re-considering the shot. Do something else. I mean, what your doing may have a great cinematic effect or whatever, but if you can’t get the picture to look good, it’s all moot.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
First the exposure problem, does you camera have manual exposure? If so, then set it where you want it. This means you're going to have to bring all the light levels to one level or close to it.

The color balance issue is the toughie. This is where gaffers earn their keep. You want consistant color temp, but say you're moving past windows and through rooms with now windows. What you need to do is either gel all the windows with orange (CTO, color temperature orange) gels which will take a lot of gels to bring them into the tunsgten range or add blue (CTB) to all your house lights which will make them match daylight, but will cut their output by 75%.

Through designing this shot, you've created a ton of lighting headaches. I deal with stuff like this all the time and it takes time and some money for gels.

The cheap alternative is to go with auto white balance and correct the color balance issues in post.

Scott
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It would be less expensive and more practical to blue gel all of the lights as Scott said. Just use as much lights as possible at the same temp, and use blue gels to bring them all down to the same level. That way in post even if the color temps of the lights aren't perfectly matched with the window, you will have relative uniform lighting to fix in post. Another possibility if you have a lot of lights is to simply remove the windows from the equation by closing the blinds.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
film8ker said:
I would suggest re-considering the shot. Do something else.
Click to expand...

Umm...no..

scottspears said:
First the exposure problem, does you camera have manual exposure?
Click to expand...

It has pre-set exposure setting. Like for portrait, beach, snow, etc. It has a manual exposure control, but I'm 80% certain that this is just boosting the gain because I've used it in the past and the image has look alittle grainy. My camcorder is just consumer grade. Maybe if I just keep it on manual in the midrange levels it won't look grainy? I've just noticed sometimes the images look better on the present exposers vs. manual.

scottspears said:
What you need to do is either gel all the windows with orange (CTO, color temperature orange) gels which will take a lot of gels to bring them into the tunsgten range or add blue (CTB) to all your house lights which will make them match daylight, but will cut their output by 75%.
Click to expand...

This was my orginial thought, but then I remember the 80A and 80B filters. Will these not work in place of the gels? or do I have to use both in conjuction with one another?

WideShot said:
Another possibility if you have a lot of lights is to simply remove the windows from the equation by closing the blinds.
Click to expand...

Well, I wasn't going to flood the room with daylight, but one room has a sliding patio door, and that happends to be the dimmist and biggest room. And since I don't have lots of lights, I kinda thought the practical way would be to use the daylight from the window as mush as I can.

Now that I've looked at it, only one room looks orange, and that's the bathroom, which also has no windows. But I've been thinking of eliminating that shot.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A filter is going to effect the shot throughout the duration of the shot, so if you have changing color temperatures through the shot, then the filter will only be correcting certain parts of the shot and when you go to another area , it will not work. For example, you slap on an 85 filter because the daylight is making your shot too blue, but the minute you move out of that room into a room with tungsten light or even practical, the filter will make everything too orange. It's an all or nothing deal.

As to your comments about your camera's manual exposure just boosting the picture and adding grain, that doesn't sound right. There are features which will boost the gain and in turn add grain, but manual exposure should just effect the iris and make the picture lighter or darker without creating grain.

What camera do you have?

Scott
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
scottspears said:
A filter is going to effect the shot throughout the duration of the shot, so if you have changing color temperatures through the shot, then the filter will only be correcting certain parts of the shot and when you go to another area , it will not work. For example, you slap on an 85 filter because the daylight is making your shot too blue, but the minute you move out of that room into a room with tungsten light or even practical, the filter will make everything too orange. It's an all or nothing deal.
Click to expand...

Ahh..that makes perfect sense. Thanks.

scottspears said:
What camera do you have?
Click to expand...

A Sony DCR-TRV20. It's just a consumer grade camcorder, so that's why I think it's just boosting the gain. I'm not sure though. I finally found my manual, but it doesn't say the words "iris" or "gain" anywhere in the topic of Manual Exposure. But I have noticed a grainy image when shooting in low light and using the Manual Exposure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Got something to throw into the pot... what's the colour temperature of flourescents? I know they're on a wierd scale and you have to use minus-greens to balance them but does anyone know the true colour?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Shot Renegade said:
Got something to throw into the pot... what's the colour temperature of flourescents? I know they're on a wierd scale and you have to use minus-greens to balance them but does anyone know the true colour?
Click to expand...

Depends on the flourescent. There are "cool white", "warm white" and "daylight" flourscents.

Look at the writing on the bulb, and then look up the specs, and it will tell you the kelvins.

There are also gel sleeves you can buy.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, I'd be shooting in my apartment, and I have all "Daylight" blubs because I like their white color. But they are incandecents and flourescents. According to Sylvania's website, the Daylight Extra Flourescent bulbs are 3500K.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top