Interior Car Lighting.

D

DVX100Shooter

Veteran
I think the best thing for me to use would be some portable Kino Flo's for inside of the car. I am shooting some guys racing their cars at night. I want to be able to add a soft light inside of the car so I can show them changing gears and other cool shots I have planned. The thing is that I want the inside of the car to still look dark but just have enough soft light to be able to see the hand on the gear shift switching gears, etc.

Any thoughts.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

Portable Kino's are great, but expen$ive.

You could maybe use a taplight to serve the same purpose, and that'll only set you back $10 or so.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

This probably isn't what you are going for, but for a real cheap way to light a car interior at night, and have it "pass" for normal is to have the interior light switched on(the one on the ceiling), and tape a gel over it. You may want to try 1/4s, 1/2, fulls until you find what you want, but it can do the trick. Works quite well for lighting people without looking like a source light.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

By taplight, I mean those inexpensive little round lights that you stick up anywhere (like in closets) and you push on 'em to turn 'em on and off. They take like 2 'C' batteries. They have a small low-power light in 'em and a white frosted translucent dome (which makes them be a reasonably large softlight).
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

Oh ok somebody gave me one of those for Christmas one year and I never used it! I guess I can give that a try.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

Any sheet of gel could be used, from any lighting store, or filmtools.com or studiodepot.com, etc. Just cut a small piece and tape it over the light (and frame it such that the light doesn't appear in the shot). If the dome light has to appear in the shot, you'd probably need to unscrew it and put the gel inside, custom cutting it so it fits like it belongs there.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

For car interiors, the pros do use mini flo's, or 18" kino flo's rigged for DC. You can also use an AC inverter to power a kino or two. As mentioned, they are expensive. I found these little 12volt lamps used for recessing in cabinets etc. at home depot that I wired to run off of a car battery. I put velcro on the back of them, and can stick them up almost anywhere. They work well for a subtle car interior light.
 
Re: Interior Car Lighting.

Another inexpensive solution is 12v christmas lights. They make them to run off of a car lighter socket. String them around to mould the light and a controlled but soft way.
 
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