Best settings for shooting in the desert and getting some sky definition?

A

ATlasIAm

Member
I'm making a film in the up coming weeks. The first part of the shoot is in an apt., and the second is out in the desert where a man goes and stumbles upon a drifter with a camp site out there. We'll be shooting at about 2 pm in teh afternoon and it will probably take us 3 hours to shoot.

I'm wonder what the best settings are for being able shoot the actors clearly and also gaining some definition in the sky (ie, some blue and clouds). It seems to me that when the nd filter is on, it is too dark to shoot the actors, and when the shutter speed is raised (ie 1/500) the motion becomes strobed. Is there a happy medium where the light and motion of the actors would be "normal" and where i could also get some definition in the sky without it being completely white and overexposed.

Donald
 
A polarizing filter can help bring out cloud detail by by blocking some 'sky light' and will also provide some ND effect.
 
I just spent 5 days in the desert, and got some magnificent shots with excellent sky color/cloud detail. Here's the techniques:

First, whenever possible, stage your shot so the sun is in your actor's face, and at the cameraperson's back. The sky is blue when you're pointing away from the sun, and white when you're pointing into the sun. Putting the sun in the actor's face helps brighten the actor up, compensating for the brightness of the sun. They may squint, but the light is the best in these circumstances.

Second, bounce bounce bounce. You gotta have some silver bounce cards. White's useless, you need bright reflective silver. It will hurt, it'll make your actor squint, but you gotta have it. Get on the shadow side and bounce the light all over your actor, and it'll really make the actor pop out of the scene and brighten them up while keeping the sky in exposure range.

Third, don't shoot at 2:00. That's the worst time to shoot an outdoors scene. The sky's the brightest, the shadows are the ugliest, and the sun's directly overhead. Wait until 4:00 or 5:00, when the sun's lower. The lower the sun gets, the less intense the sky is, and the better the light on your actor's face. "Golden Hour", the half-hour before & after the sun sets, is the best time to shoot for beauty shots outdoors, but it's also very limited -- the sun moves *very quickly* at that time, so if you're going for shots you can intercut, they're tough to get. The sky stays the most consistent at around noon to 3:00, but it's also the ugliest.

Fourth, a polarizer can help in some circumstances. It can also hurt. The thing about a polarizer is, to get the best effect, you have to be shooting 90-degrees to the sun. Meaning, when you're pointing the camera at your actor, the sun would be exactly 90 degrees off axis, either directly to your right or to your left. In those cases, the polarizer can have a great effect. But if you're shooting directly into the sun or directly away from it, then the polarizer has no effect at all. So it can make it difficult to intercut shots, some shots might have a dramatic blue sky, some might have a pasty white sky. You really have to be careful with it. But if you are, it can help a lot.

Finally, as Shaw said, the graduated ND filter can be a lot of help, but only for certain types of shots. If your actor's head is framed against the sky, a graduated ND won't be good for your shot. But if you're shooting an actor against a street scene, and there are buildings etc., and then the sky above them, then yes, a graduated ND can be used to really darken and saturate the sky.
 
what are silver bounce cards?

i took pictures at the great sanddunes in colorado awhile ago and have been wanting to take my dvx there.
 
A silver bounce card is the single most important thing you can have in your arsenal for lighting outside (well, a full complement of 12K and 18K HMI's would be more important, but I'm thinking indie/no-budget here!) It's just a bounce card with a silver reflective surface.

Here's an example:
http://store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/sg-1825.html

You can also do it with Photoflex Flex-Fills, the spring-steel rings that pop open, but the're much less useful when the wind is blowing. They'll cause rippling light all over your subject, almost like you're looking at a reflection from a body of water. They're great when the wind's not blowing, but when you're out in the desert you never know what you're going to get (wind, bikers, repeated swarms of killer bees, a dead lamb, industrial barrels of anti-freeze-looking goop, and unbelievable hordes of flies are just a few of the things we encountered).

An alternative is bead-board, the insulation stuff you find at Home Depot, it's about 1" thick with a silver side and a white side. It works okay, and it's thick enough that it won't ripple on you, but it'll take two people to hold it relatively stable when the wind is blowing.
 
Barry_Green said:
I just spent 5 days in the desert, and got some magnificent shots with excellent sky color/cloud detail. Here's the techniques:

First, whenever possible, stage your shot so the sun is in your actor's face, and at the cameraperson's back. The sky is blue when you're pointing away from the sun, and white when you're pointing into the sun. Putting the sun in the actor's face helps brighten the actor up, compensating for the brightness of the sun. They may squint, but the light is the best in these circumstances.

Second, bounce bounce bounce. You gotta have some silver bounce cards. White's useless, you need bright reflective silver. It will hurt, it'll make your actor squint, but you gotta have it. Get on the shadow side and bounce the light all over your actor, and it'll really make the actor pop out of the scene and brighten them up while keeping the sky in exposure range.

Third, don't shoot at 2:00. That's the worst time to shoot an outdoors scene. The sky's the brightest, the shadows are the ugliest, and the sun's directly overhead. Wait until 4:00 or 5:00, when the sun's lower. The lower the sun gets, the less intense the sky is, and the better the light on your actor's face. "Golden Hour", the half-hour before & after the sun sets, is the best time to shoot for beauty shots outdoors, but it's also very limited -- the sun moves *very quickly* at that time, so if you're going for shots you can intercut, they're tough to get. The sky stays the most consistent at around noon to 3:00, but it's also the ugliest.

Fourth, a polarizer can help in some circumstances. It can also hurt. The thing about a polarizer is, to get the best effect, you have to be shooting 90-degrees to the sun. Meaning, when you're pointing the camera at your actor, the sun would be exactly 90 degrees off axis, either directly to your right or to your left. In those cases, the polarizer can have a great effect. But if you're shooting directly into the sun or directly away from it, then the polarizer has no effect at all. So it can make it difficult to intercut shots, some shots might have a dramatic blue sky, some might have a pasty white sky. You really have to be careful with it. But if you are, it can help a lot.

Finally, as Shaw said, the graduated ND filter can be a lot of help, but only for certain types of shots. If your actor's head is framed against the sky, a graduated ND won't be good for your shot. But if you're shooting an actor against a street scene, and there are buildings etc., and then the sky above them, then yes, a graduated ND can be used to really darken and saturate the sky.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. We do have a flex fill so that'll help out tremendously. I know that shooting in the high afternoon is terrible lighting but we don't have much time. We have about a 5-7 minute scene to shoot, and then we also have to shoot the actor walking to the place, with a vareity of long and close shots that take a lot of time to set up.

The problem is, we really only have the one weekend to shoot it. My partner is going to Alaska for the summer and then is off to London for a year, so we are really working against a deadline (both of us are students, and we're trying to complete teh film by the end of school, ~may 10). But this should help, and i'll get some practice in before it comes time to shoot to expedite the process.
 
One can use the folding insulated silver thingies that unfold to block light from entering a car windshield. They're a little harder to work with because they're more flexible and they give a slightly different color and light due to the "wrinkles" on the silver side but not really objectionable. Easy enough to test this method in advance and compensate as needed. Nice that they fold out of the way for storage.
 
The sky is blue when you're pointing away from the sun, and white when you're pointing into the sun.
Click to expand...

When I was learning photography way back when ....

There is a polarized band of sky which, if shot against, will be the bluest.

This is located by holding one's thumb and forefinger at a right angle and pointing one of them at the sun. The other, if the hand is rotated, will point at that polarized band. If the sun is fairly high, your hand movement will almost sweep the opposite horizon. If the sun is low, that band will arc from one horizon, straight overhead and on down to the other horizon. If you go ahead and use a polarizer filter against the band, you'll get some really deep blues. Rotate filter to liking.

I am not very good with words, but if you go to a book store and find a SLR camera "how to" book, you'll likely find the above accompanied by diagrams.

Larry
 
Barry_Green said:
A silver bounce card is the single most important thing you can have in your arsenal for lighting outside (well, a full complement of 12K and 18K HMI's would be more important, but I'm thinking indie/no-budg....
Click to expand...


thanks barry for the tips. i just got your book today in the mail and will be reading it the next few days.
 
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