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I can't get outside daylight to be bright enough without lighting.

H

harmonica44

I can't light outside cause I don't have permission. I also wouldn't have time. I am about to shoot the last scene for my short film, hopefully if the actors will all show up and it all goes according to plan. But where I live daylight is not currently bright enough to light my camera lately. There is a good amount of grain. How much grain could I stylistically get away with, if I want to make it look professional as possible for a newcomer?

Here's a test shot, of what daylight looks like. I shot it with the shutter at 50, the aperture at 4.5. cause I have to zoom in from far for the shots I want, which causes a decrease in aperture. And I shot it with the ISO at 800. I also shot it set on 'tungsten light', to make daylight look blue for moonlight, since I'm doubling for night. Too much grain? If so, how do I get rid of it during daytime, without being able to light? I can only hope that it will bright enough when I shoot the scene that day.

http://youtu.be/_Aeamuk_dRQ
 
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Still showing as "not available" but with those settings something isn't right. What time of day are you shooting? Even on an overcast day, you should be pretty over-lit at 800ISO f/4.5.

Don't you have a nifty fifty too? If you're zoomed all the way in on your kit (4.5 sounds about 28-40mm) then you'd be at 50mm anyway. Move the camera back, swap lenses and run somewhere in the 2's.

If you're shooting at sunset and there's not enough sun, then you're shooting at night.
 
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I don't have the 50 anymore. I took it back. I couldn't use the 1.4 for scenes where people had to move fast cause it keeps constantly going in and out of focus. I'd figure I'd use the money for more lights, but now I see that does no good, when I can't legally go around lighting outdoors. I also have money for another lens in the future, but not sure which one would be the best to get yet. Th 50mm I had for this scene, but it would not work in the past. Since it's a chase scene, it keeps going in and out of focus. I tried it at the 2's but it wouldn't stop going in and out of focus so easily till I got to 4, which is why I just stuck with the 18-55mm zoom. But I guess I just needed more practice in the 2s. I just got lights instead. It's just the time of day during the short day time. The sun starts to go down like at 4pm where I live, but most of the actors are not available to shoot earlier for that day anyway. How do I do a shot where a guy can run 50 feet towards the camera, without going in and out of focus with a 1.4? Can I eliminate the grain in post for now maybe?

K I got the video working.

http://youtu.be/_Aeamuk_dRQ

The trees and cars is where the grain is more noticeable, and was more noticeable on a bigger screen.
 
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Across the street, there is a window with a tungsten light, which can be clearly seen to be much more bright than the light outside. Are you sure this is a daytime shoot? How far north do you live?!
 
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It will be a dusk shoot more so, since the actors can only come around then. If it doesn't work I will reschedule another one for a sunnier day. It's very cloudy lately. Maybe I am just being too picky though and grain is okay for night scene style. But if it's not after 4, the day for night doesn't look near as good, and it looks too much like day. I could see about getting a 1.4 again. How do other DPs shoot a scene of actors running towards the camera though, coming closer, without loosing focus? Are they so good, they can just refocus again and again, every second? Cause it seems even with it at 2, I couldn't even get that shot. I could shoot both if I can get a 1.4 but if it turns out of focus set on 2, then maybe it's better to just use the grainy takes with the 18-55mm.
 
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yeah, your doing a tough shot. In full daylight I would stop down as far as I could to maximize the DOF, but in low light.. I dont think Id try.

In this shot, near sunset, it was hard to get the focus, you can see me hunting for it..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmJ2-pWUW0I


Id turn the one shot into a couple static focus shots. Shot of the action from the side, where the actors run across the frame instead of into it.
 
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Are they so good, they can just refocus again and again, every second?
Click to expand...

If the focus puller can't pull the focus - he wont have a job. Same goes for the camera operator wouldn't have his if the shots were too shaky, or boom operator would have crappy sound, or grips doing inconsistent dolly shot, or gaffers keep f**king up the light.

So yea, you BETTER get hit the focus on the mark every single time.
 
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Can you drop the blue filter, use a larger aperture, shoot it, and then color correct add blue in post?

Also, I gather you need the smallish 4.5 aperture because you have a subject moving towards or away from the camera and you need it to remain in focus across that distance traveled.
Is there a way to break up the shot with quick cut aways as you piece two or three shots together each with shorter focal depths from a slightly larger aperture?

In other words:
- Exchange one forty foot travel shot @ 4.5f...
- For one twelve foot travel @ 2.8f, cut away, a second closer/farther twelve foot travel @ 2.8f, cut away, and a third closer/farther twelve foot travel @ 2.8f.
 
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I would move the camera closer so you can zoom back out so you can get your wider aperture (sounded like you were shooting from inside to out.

Make sure you don't have any filters on (even UV will cut some light) especially in camera filters.

Since having it set for tungsten specifically moves the color space away from the sun's color, the result is that not as much information is gathered from that side of the color wheel (in essence, we could get into the math, but that would suck to have to read through). I would definitely set your color to sunlight, the adjust in post so that you can capture as much information in the primary lighting that you can, then adjust in post.

Run the tests and see what works.
 
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Oh okay thanks. So tungsten light definitely effects the grain then? Unfortunately I am acting in this scene, so someone else has to shoot it, so I won't have control over the focus. So set it to sunlight then, and make it blue in post.
 
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balancing the image to the non-dominant lighting needs to be made up for by raising light levels as it reduces the complementary color in the footage (dragging the white point across basically from orange to blue/cyan). To make that move, each of the color channels needs to be altered going from Mostly Red + a little green to mostly Blue diminishes the information in the red and green channels to achieve that color balance. The channels are represented as a grayscale image with brightness values from 0% (black) to 100% (white) stored as integers (no decimal points).

If you can capture all of the true life colors (correctly white balanced), all 3 channels are filled with information, if you white balance away from that, you end up compressing the data in the opposing channel/s. If you then stretch that data out, what was 50% becomes 100%, but what was 49% becomes 98%, leaving a gap at 99% and no data. So you've artificially compressed the data and lost information when you try to color correct, which can show up as banding or noise. If you can't control the lighting... expose correctly for what you do have, then apply effects later.
 
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Okay thanks. I really have no idea how to balance the color that precisely. I am shooting tomorrow and I hope all the actors show up this time. This will be my third attempt, after finding replacements, again. I hope they do, and I will do my best and hope I won't have to tell them it turned out too grainy, and could use a reshoot. So when it comes to action scenes, an actor can go out of focus, in a fraction of a second, if moving fast. How does the focus puller readjust the focus that fast?
 
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Lol I'll get you next time. Okay last night's shooting went very well acting and takes wise, with lots of angles, close up's etc. Couldn't have done better in that department at my skill level. But there was a problem with weather conditions, going from sunny to do dark, with the shots being shot out of order, to match parts of the street I need.

But there is as bigger problem with the indoor action shots. The action takes place in two rooms, one with fluorescent lights, the other with tungsten. First it takes place in the tungsten room, then the flourescent, then back to the tungsten room. When we got back into the tungsten room the second time, I forgot to switch back to tungsten on the camera, as I had it before within that room. I feel stupid, as I had a hundred other things to think of, such as continuity, performance, lighting looking good, storyboards, angles, enough coverage etc.

Now with After Effects or other post software, will I be able to change it back to the tungsten light look I had in the room originally? I noticed when shooting that when we got back into the room, it looked a little darker, and more red on the actor's skin. But I didn't have time to figure out what the problem was and had to keep shooting, before our time was up. If only I had remembered to switch back. Is this going to be a problem, or can I fix it! Some of the morale with new actors, was not as good on the set, so I don't know if I can get one of them back, so I would really want to avoid a re-shoot, of what took 12 hours of otherwise great stuff. Plus I would have to make sure the location looked all the same and get all my props back, which I borrowed from others.
 
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