Another stab at night lighting

EP2005

EP2005

Well-known member
i tried to light another night time scene. I think it turned out a bit better than my last attempts at night scenes, but i still know im missing some things.

outsidenight2.jpg


outsidenight3.jpg


outsidenight4.jpg


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outsidenight6.jpg


outsidenight7.jpg
 
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the lighting itself looks good, the high master ped doesn't though. :( Maybe you can find a happy medium in post and bring the contrast up without darkening the frame too much.
 
Way washed out. There's hardly enough light to work with if you wanted to adjust contrast or highlights.

What were your scene file settings?
 
Calibration is your friend.

See the black of your letterbox ? Your shadows should be 'really damn close' to that. Use your scopes and levels!
 
Agree with the two posts above me. Not near enough light on subject, and the blacks are not even close to black. They're grey. You can try and work with it in post, but I doubt it's gonna meet your expectations. Arrrgggggggg! night shots are difficult. Go blue, and people will be decieved and think it's night.
 
John_Hudson said:
And is he smoking a Clove ?

But why ?
Click to expand...

Because of the resembleance to the infamous opium smell, of course.




Here's a quick grab from the last wedding I shot. I had about 30 seconds while they were seating the guests to grab the nearest "spotlight" and blind the officiant so I could get ANY sort of decent footage.

Tape1copy.jpg


P.S. no color correction done on that.
 
directinglegend said:
wow.. where is that shot at? in the middle of no where? can't see a thing!
Click to expand...

Yeah... tell me about it. Not fun. Actually they were on a landing that was higher than the guests, and I was situated lower than them, so I was shooting up at them. If you look closely, you can see a guests head underneath their hands.


It was in the back "yard" of a mansion, by the golf course.
 
Lake Films, nice job with the contrast add in your jpeg. It made it look like a night shot instead of pushed night shot. I will have to try that on the bmx video I am about to throw together.
 
John_Hudson said:
And is he smoking a Clove ?

But why ?
Click to expand...


good question...is it for the sweet smelling cinnamon aroma? or because black cigarettes are "cool"...or maybe because the cigarette he smokes represents his current mood...dark, depressing, not normal.


i put up some newer grabs, ones with the black levels correct on this monitor, but on a mac, there's no difference, so i think im just going to have to wait till I get back at home (im out in cali right now, far far from MI) before things actually look correct. Im not using my editing machine, so of course things arent going to be right.

So more lighting on the subject is needed. Is there a specific area that needs that extra lighting?

Thanks for all the advice guys (are there any gals on this board??) I'll have my short done in the next couple weeks, so hopefully then i'll have something that's semi-decent.
 
Try a spot light from far away! I witnessed a guy use his van spotlight to light an art piece I had outdoors and at night. The beam was straight and far away so that you could have a wide shot.
 
Yes, the level of light in all of those shots is way too low. As a test, load up any one of those shots into your photo editing software (Photoshop for example). Then select the Levels filter and look and the histogram of the image. You will see that most of the light/data falls into a tight/narror peak down low on the graph. A properly exposed image will have a majority of its datra fall in the middle of the curve.

This site has some good examples and information:

http://home.surewest.net/frcn/Histograms.html
 
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