mikewest13
Well-known member
what is the best way to light a scene so its as dark as possible, but still able to see the actors, without using nightvision.
just do it in post?
just do it in post?
filming as close to pitch dark as possible
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Joshua Provost
Veteran
Even "pitch dark" needs some motiviation for some light source. Perhaps the moon, a distant street light, etc. Once you know where the light is "coming from" you can simulate that source of light to the degree you want. No need to do it in post at all, though you might err on the side of caution and use more light than necessary and lower it in post.
Try lighting it with a lot of sourceless fill light, putting a little more light on the actors faces than on the walls/surroundings, and then stop down the iris a lot. Blue gels should help, but have the lighting mostly dark, and not mostly blue.
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're going for, but here is an example of a shot I did on my current shoot:
We had a 500 watt key light w/ a blue gel about 4 ft away from the actors face with the barndoors closed off so that there was just that sliver of light. I believe we also had a floodlight pointed at the ceiling, also w/ a blue gel. Our shot might be different than yours, since ours doesn't have much movement. We had to have it look good like that in the image as well as if with a lot more light on, because the shots starts with what looks like a bedlamp on, and the actor turns it off, and lies in bed for a while. And it wasn't supposed to look pitch-black, but like some sort of light was peeking through the window / around the blinds.
I should also point out that the room was actually fairly bright with all the lights we had on. It was only after we stopped the iris down that it looked dark.
I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're going for, but here is an example of a shot I did on my current shoot:
We had a 500 watt key light w/ a blue gel about 4 ft away from the actors face with the barndoors closed off so that there was just that sliver of light. I believe we also had a floodlight pointed at the ceiling, also w/ a blue gel. Our shot might be different than yours, since ours doesn't have much movement. We had to have it look good like that in the image as well as if with a lot more light on, because the shots starts with what looks like a bedlamp on, and the actor turns it off, and lies in bed for a while. And it wasn't supposed to look pitch-black, but like some sort of light was peeking through the window / around the blinds.
I should also point out that the room was actually fairly bright with all the lights we had on. It was only after we stopped the iris down that it looked dark.
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
Using minimal lights and stopping down the iris is a really bad way to do it. Reason are, by using minimal lights, you get a lot of noise from underexposure and when you stop down the iris too much, you still get a lot of noise. It's better to use the ND filter but still keep the iris as open as possible.
Doing it in post might be acceptable for some but not for me because it always looks fake.
The secret to lighting night or dark scenes are lots of lights. From there, cut the lights as you see fit to get the final look you want.
For example, look at these stills. These are from a horror short I DP-ed.
This was done with a redhead from a 45 degree angle from the left of the frame. I would put another light inside but the director wanted the interior dark and the only light source from outside.
These were done with one blondie as key and a redhead as edge light. To me at least, I must have an edge light for my subject whenever possible. It is a small but important factor that really gives a three dimensional quality to my scenes.
This one is from a noir-ish video I did. Again, one redhead as key and one redhead as edge.
Without an edge your subject just blend into the background and that is not very nice looking.
Remember, if the lights are not making you sweat on the set, you are probably not lighting enough.
Doing it in post might be acceptable for some but not for me because it always looks fake.
The secret to lighting night or dark scenes are lots of lights. From there, cut the lights as you see fit to get the final look you want.
For example, look at these stills. These are from a horror short I DP-ed.
This was done with a redhead from a 45 degree angle from the left of the frame. I would put another light inside but the director wanted the interior dark and the only light source from outside.
These were done with one blondie as key and a redhead as edge light. To me at least, I must have an edge light for my subject whenever possible. It is a small but important factor that really gives a three dimensional quality to my scenes.
This one is from a noir-ish video I did. Again, one redhead as key and one redhead as edge.
Without an edge your subject just blend into the background and that is not very nice looking.
Remember, if the lights are not making you sweat on the set, you are probably not lighting enough.
cardmaverick
Well-known member
ANY dark area in a digital image is going to have some kind of noise in it. Using ND filters and wide open irises aren't going to reduce noise... If you record it dark in camera, you'll still have noise. Now if you crush the blacks in camera then odds are you will not see as much noise in the raw footage, but the fact of the matter is this, it's still there! Wheater or not you see it depends on how you handle it in post. Brightening a dark shot in post will make it visible everytime. Also, darkening in post is much more controlled. Doing it in camera is risky, if you too far south, what are you goin to do then? Once its crushed, its basically gone forever. If post darkening looks fake, its because it either wasn't lit right, or (and this is very likely) it just wasn't post processed very well. I won't lie, color correction is an art all by itself. All DP' s should be well versed in it.Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said:
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Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
The noise I am mentioning is the grain/noise you get from closing the iris way too much.cardmaverick said:
Go outdoor during the day and shoot something with the appropriate ND filter and exposure and then shoot the same scene by matching the exposure of the earlier shot by closing the iris only.
That shot will be a lot more noisier/grainier.
As for dark parts being noisy. Look at those stills, looks noisy to you? Only CC done were desaturation and tinting.
Those stills were not the best of quality though as I captured those from MP4 and for whatever reasons, the conversion to MP4 darkened the footages quite a bit.
Even digital, if lit properly will produce noise free blacks.
As for post darkening, the ones I am mentioning are those day scenes that has been converted into night scenes. Those looks really FAKE all the time. I have yet to encounter really great examples of 'day turn into night in post' night scenes' (or I probably have but they are so good I cannot tell).
I can see where you are coming from. I seen your other posts and it's a great alternative to getting the 'look' if you have the time, budget, and privallege.
But here, the average production have very little time and budget for post work. This is a country where digital features are usually shot in ten to twelve days and edited in less than a week. Hence it is expected that you get the look in camera. With digital, WYSIWYG anyway. And even if the monitor or LCD is not 100% accurate, through experience, you can usually tell if it is too dark/or bright on the final product.
DPs here also rarely have the privallege of participating beyond pre/production so you will never know if the editor actually knows how to handle the 'information rich' footages. It is not a surprise if they just do a straight cut with some basic sound mixing and that's it.
I guess at the end of the day, there are two school of thoughts, getting in on the spot or getting the final product in post.
Both are different means to a common goal.
cardmaverick
Well-known member
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said:
Yes, you can make it look noise free. My point is simply this, once its recoreded dark, noise is there. Take my word for it. Try brightening any of your dark shots. The darker it is the worse the footage looks if you try brightening it. Easier down than up with shadows.
I agree about your situation though. I can totally understand. I've been in some situations where I can't control the image in post. That always sucks, and you just do what you gotta do. Over the years though, I've begun making it clear to directors and producers that I must be involved from start to finish (pre-production, production, and post production) if they want the absolute best I have to offer. Once I show them raw and cc footage comparisons though, I win them over. I think thats the big issue, they don't realize the potential, and are sometimes less knowlegable about the technical side of film.
My last film was a big parody film of The Departed, and the director was very new to a higher level of filmmaking (ie, HD, pro lighting gear, bigger crew, etc..). He was a little worried when looking at the monitor, but after doing some CC dailies, he was blown away. I've recently done some more posting on it, looks great, I posted some stills a while back, but its totally different now, my bit settings were too low the first time around (a real "opps" moment I know...), and I got rid of some other settings that smeared my entire image a bit too much.
But quality also suffers when the iris is wide open. The f-stop of that shot I posted was 8.0, which is definitely within the high quality range of the DVX. We had a lot of light in the room, hardly minimal when a 500 watt light is less than 5 ft away from the actors face. We may have had the ND on, most likely 1/8 on the DVX100A.Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said:
If the iris had been at 14 or 16 then I might agree with you, but wide open is just as bad.
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Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
Now where did you hear the thing about quality suffering with the iris wide open? As far as I know, camera lenses perform the best with the iris open as wide as possible.agcohn said:
I know some cameras (Canon A1) have CA if it's too wide and the iris all open but surely not the DVX.
The DVX performs best with the f-stop around 4.8 or less. There is a really noticeable drop of quality at 8.0. It will be grainy as hell compared to stuff shot with a smaller F-stop.
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
Oh, now I see your point about the noise but that was never a problem for me. There was never a need to brighten up in post because I make it a point to get the exposure right in camera each time. Sometimes in some really tricky situation, I will just do another take with one or two stops lower for safety. With the LCD and a monitor, it would have been obvious if your shot is severedly underexposed even if the LCD or monitor is not a 100% accurate.cardmaverick said:
As much as I would like to have some creative decision making privallege in post it just doesn't work that way here even if you can do magic is post. In the industry here, it's still old-fashioned and there are hierachy that has to be respected meaning as the DP, you do your job as the DP, and the editor will do his job as the editor and so on and so on.
Multi roles 'Mariachi' type filmmakers are not very accepted here by the old guys. Me thinks they are feeling threatened probably:laugh: .
According to Barry Green, and I'm pretty sure we can trust Barry Green, the DVX100 performs best between 4.8-11, and it delivers the absolutely highest level of resolution of 540 lines at 5.6. He says that lenses, in general, perform their very best in the range between two stops from being completely open, and two stops from being completely closed.Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said:
This is coming straight from his book. At f16 the resolution of the DVX falls to about 520 lines, but at wide open the resolution falls even more, to about 470 lines of resolution. The worst hit comes when you take it past 16 to right before the shutter is completely closed down, where it only displays 270 lines of resolution.
All in all he recommends staying between 2.8 and 16.
Here is quote from a photography website, though I have no idea about the site credibility, there are just so many on the internet:
"Lenses typically have fewer aberrations when they perform the exposure stopped down one or two f-stops from their maximum aperture (such as using a setting of f/4.0 on a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.0)."
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-lenses.htm
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
You sure you got the numbers right cause NTSC cameras only have like 480 lines of vertical resolution?. It's us PAL people that have 576 lines of vertical resolution.agcohn said:
The resolution thing is surely news to me, while I am sure it is true (it's Barry Green after all) but what I always noticed first is that with a higher f-stop (starting from around 8.0), you introduced a lot of noise/grain to the footages, even if it was shot in broad daylight.
I usually light for f2.8 whenever possible mainly for DOF and so that I can zoom in without losing any light. I never go beyond f5.6. I only use open when I need some ECU and I guess since it's an ECU I did not noticed any resolution lost. In fact the DVX gives really amazing and sharp looking CU.
The website you quote I can agree with as some lenses introduced Chromatic Aberration if the iris is wide open but that is not the case with the DVX.
cardmaverick
Well-known member
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said:
Thats kinda strange to me, guess its cultral business differences, in America, the DP is closely involved with post, becase his image, the creation of which he directs, is affected by how it's handled at a post house.
Vincent Wong Yoon Wei
Active member
Haha, that's a cool thing in America. I usually try to adopt a more Hollywood way of doing things but sadly, there are just too many moments where I told the director "That's how Hollywood does it", and I always get a free lecture on how I should not look up to Hollywood too much and how I should develop my own style and all.cardmaverick said:
I am beginning to think that these 'old' bunch have some serious ego problems. The way I look at it, Hollywood is best at the art of filmmaking and it is only normal to learn from the best.
The numbers are straight from Barry's book. They're taken from resolution charts. It's not about how tall the image is, which will always be 480 for DV NTSC, but how finely detail can be resolved. The size of the image stays the same regardless of the aperture, but at certain points, wide open and almost shut, the camera can not pick up as much fine detail as it can at 5.6, which is where the camera achieves the absolute highest possible resolution.Vincent Wong Yoon Wei said: