Day for Night

1 - never never never clip highlights
2 - use ND's so you can get the iris open and make the dof shallower than normal
 
Noob question, I've heard that one shouldn't show the sky, but I see many opportunities where I 'think' I can pull it off. Is this something that's been done? Can one shoot outdoor day for night?
 
It never looks good if it has too much sky in it, you can't bring a bright sky down, so consider that in framing.

Pick an overcast day or diffuse the subject if you don't want a fullmoon look with shadows.

Processing is standard.

Transform the image to low key by lowering overall exposure a little bit. There is obviously little light. If there are no highlights to capture, do it in post to get better signal per noise.

Lower grey exposure a lot to achieve a low key image. Gamma perception changes in low light, the middle grey is a lot lower compared to daylight.

Undersaturate a little bit, the eye does not see much color in low light. Low light is handled mostly by the rods, the cones are not sensitive enough.

Distort the color balance to blue. Scotopic vision has more blue. Don't overdo it, it screams day for night processing.

I wouldn't use a plugin, they generally look unnatural.

Check on a monitor with good black calibration. Low key images are full of surprises. Check on a gamma of a computer (2.2) and on a CRT if possible (2.5).

All this is personal preference of course, not nuit américaine.

No 2 is realistic, no 3 is popular.

EDIT: larger image (which was reduced to the size of the original image lol)
 

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Yeah, I just looked at your thread. Your frame grabs looked great. The problem I have is we are shooting in the desert, so there will not be a cloud in sight so I will have severe shadows.
 
phudsontx said:
Yeah, I just looked at your thread. Your frame grabs looked great. The problem I have is we are shooting in the desert, so there will not be a cloud in sight so I will have severe shadows.
Click to expand...

We did very heavy post work on those scenes but we also had a large moving silk+bounce to prevent any shadows or fill in dark areas.
 
phudsontx said:
Yeah, I just looked at your thread. Your frame grabs looked great. The problem I have is we are shooting in the desert, so there will not be a cloud in sight so I will have severe shadows.
Click to expand...

Shadows will look very realistic. Moonlight produces hard shadows with little diffusion, just like sunlight.

http://www.widerange.org/images/large/hideoutMoonlight.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3133/2351919969_7a43bee3de_b.jpg

If very long exposures it can look like daylight (except from the sky):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/upshift/galleries/72157622311984789/#photo_3917137899http://www.flickr.com/photos/upshift/galleries/72157622311984789/
 
Btw, as a viewer I would prefer all day for night material to have some deep DOF. Day for night is low key so it will look soft anyway. On shallow DOF it wil be hard to spot the sharp area and the eye will wander around every time a shot changes.
 
Otis Grapsas said:
Btw, as a viewer I would prefer all day for night material to have some deep DOF. Day for night is low key so it will look soft anyway. On shallow DOF it wil be hard to spot the sharp area and the eye will wander around every time a shot changes.
Click to expand...

I'm the opposite. In low light the iris should naturally be much wider. Perception of depth should be reduced. Deep dof is a dead giveaway for day-for-night. Just my $2.
 
J Davis said:
I'm the opposite. In low light the iris should naturally be much wider. Perception of depth should be reduced. Deep dof is a dead giveaway for day-for-night. Just my $2.
Click to expand...

The viewer has seen lots of night scenes with tons of lighting and deep DOF. I have never heard a viewer saying that a shot was unnaturally sharp. Does the DOF of your vision change significantly in low light? It just becomes softer overall due to the drop of contrast perception in low key images. This is my point, we should help the user see what he perceives as natural, not emulate what we would be forced to do in low light due to light/equipment contraints.
 
To me DOF on a screen represents what our eyes cannot focus on.

Similarly at night the iris of the human eye opens to let in more light exactly like a camera would.

I know that when I am walking around outside in the dark my ability to perceive stuff outside of what I am focusing on is reduced. And very noticably my peripherals.

My point is that shallower dof will help sell the shot. Deep dof will work against you.




edit:
To the original poster – actually all of this is very subjective to 'what the DP and director want' and it boils down to artistic choice

there is some good info in this link if you want to dig thru
http://www.saccard.com/edited-pages/Shooting_Day-For-Night.htm
 
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Great tutorial Artman. Good news, we actually have an overcast day forecast for Friday. Production has rescheduled or day fro night shot for then. I will let you guys know how it works out.

Thanks for all the tips.
 
Wow, after reading my last post I can tell what three weeks of feature production in 100 degree plus does to the brain.

I must be super tired I should have said "our" not or and for not fro.

Anyway, I am enjoying a day off. We go back on tonight for an all nighter and we only have twelve days of principle photography left. That is the good news. The bad news is it is 107 degrees outside! Ouch!

People schedule these desert films wanting the atmosphere and have no idea how brutal the weather is in the Valley in the summer. Don't think I am complaining. The money and work is great. You just can make the desert look just as desolate in March and April as June and July.
 
Expose for the highlights, let your shadows go dark. 2 stops under is a good place to start.

You can tinit it slightly blue when you shoot it, or in post, but it should go a little blue to look right.

If you shoot carefully, you might be able to key out or roto out the sky and replace it, that works very well.

Hi contrast. Moonlight is very bright compared to night shadows, just don't blow out your highlights.

Good luck!
 
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