Is it possible to get the Drive (2011) look with natural lighting?

Testing, testing testing is absolutely critical as stated above. When thinking about white balance in available light night scenes I think that it is important to make sure that "Normal" lights look "Right". For example, if I am in a situation that is lit by ordinary incandescent light bulbs I will white balance so that the light from those lights is white light, adjusting a little bit warmer or cooler depending on any specific look that is wanted. In a driving scene, I think that the white light reference, depending on how it is shot, would probably be the headlights of the car. So, I would white balance so that they look like white light. If you get off on white balancing to the ambient discharge street lights it might be that the head lights go way to warm, or cool. I think that would be visually disconcerting. If you are not going to be seeing anything lit by the headlights, I would go through what is going to be seen in the shots and find something that, to the normal eye, looks like it is lit by white light, like a store exterior, a lighted bill board, lights coming from a house or building or what ever and white balance so that that light looks like white light. Then, let everything else go where ever it goes. By doing in that you establish your visual reference. If you balance to get the street lights the way you want, but you drive by a McDonald's restaurant and it looks all orange or blue it might not look "Right". Adjust accordingly to the look that you want. You may not get the street lights to look exactly the way you want, but with limited resources you do the best you can.
 
I like the logic of balancing to the headlights. It actually makes enough sense to almost not bother testing since the headlights will be the only guaranteed constant from location to location.
 
Shooting on a tight bugdet with the RED or Arri I would probably cheat and balance the camera for the non-sodium vapor lights and then correct the sodium vapor lights in post by tweaking the (very) yellow colors as these are quite easy to single out.
 
Egg Born Son said:
I like the logic of balancing to the headlights. It actually makes enough sense to almost not bother testing since the headlights will be the only guaranteed constant from location to location.
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With the cameras we have and the availability of pretty powerful after market 12 volt lights of varying color temps (Think those annoying blue headlights that are all over) you could set a white balance to the head lights across a pretty broad range of color temps and coordinate that to pretty close to what you want the ambient street lights to look like (Generally speaking). I haven't had the opportunity to do a night driving scene with a modern large senor camera yet, but am looking forward to it. I always figured that when I get to that I am going to take a couple of days and hit auto parts stores and off road suppliers and spend a few hundred bucks setting up a small 12 volt kit with available aftermarket automotive lights. That may not be the best way to do it, but I think there would be a good bit of fun in the doing, ya know.
 
Testing is always fun. There's no pressure and you get to experiment. I don't understand why people are so reluctant to just try something out when it doesn't really cost anything. Then when you come to ask your questions on the forum you can ask intelligent questions, inspire the wiser heads to comment and be better able relate to the answers.
 
Egg Born Son said:
Testing is always fun. There's no pressure and you get to experiment. I don't understand why people are so reluctant to just try something out when it doesn't really cost anything. Then when you come to ask your questions on the forum you can ask intelligent questions, inspire the wiser heads to comment and be better able relate to the answers.
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I do a lot of testing... but unfortunately I don't have big or even teenny weenie 'film' lights to test with... I took a 'production' class at a local jc a few years ago, and all they had was a lowell 3 point kit...

I just bought the Wife an upgrade that has been waiting in the wings for several years for her camera... but still no lights...

(And even the trusty old Norman strobe needs repair... the last time I used it as a prop for a short film, and put it on 'high power'... I smelled the exotic fumes of cooking bakelite... low power seemed to work ok... so now I have to find a somewhat local service to repair the Norman as the factory has disappeared from Burbank...)

But I do agree testing, even gedankenexperiment testing is better than nothing... or asking a zillion questions...

The Wife does this... she won't read the manual... that's my job, then gets mad at me for 'having all the answers', having asked a zillion of them...
 
Okay thanks. I have done tests on the T3i and it seems that the best lighting for the white lights outside is around 6000 kelvin. Maybe a bit up and down, depending on the light source. However I want to shoot with my friends T2i at the same time. And her camera does not have the kelvin setting option. The only way to get it to match mine is to find a source to white balance off of, that is the opposite color of the kelvin I want. Finding such a source is tricky, and still haven't Basically when it comes to the white fluorescent lights, I want this color that is 1:44 into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOQvnSGy8Iw

When it comes to the type of orange I want for the warmer lights I would like something like this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz8UBPWhTdU

I can keep trying to balance it till I get it right.
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks. I have done tests on the T3i and it seems that the best lighting for the white lights outside is around 6000 kelvin. Maybe a bit up and down, depending on the light source. However I want to shoot with my friends T2i at the same time. And her camera does not have the kelvin setting option. The only way to get it to match mine is to find a source to white balance off of, that is the opposite color of the kelvin I want. Finding such a source is tricky, and still haven't Basically when it comes to the white fluorescent lights, I want this color that is 1:44 into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOQvnSGy8Iw

When it comes to the type of orange I want for the warmer lights I would like something like this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz8UBPWhTdU

I can keep trying to balance it till I get it right.
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If you want both 'greenish' and 'orangish' colored lights in the same shot, you will have to filter both lights, and get the colors in camera.

'white balance' removes, or induces a general color cast over the entire image. It is not 'selective'. If you light the scene with the same color temperature of light, then one can adjust the K to give warm, cold, or neutral depending. But it is over the entire shot.
 
ironpony said:
The only way to get it to match mine is to find a source to white balance off of, that is the opposite color of the kelvin I want. Finding such a source is tricky, and still haven't

I can keep trying to balance it till I get it right.
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I can't believe I'm actually posting this and risking more questions..... but....

Your computer is that source. You can put any color you want on your screen and white balance off of it. Here's how I've done it in the past to trick a certain color cast that I wanted for a shoot:


  1. First, watch this video (in case you don't know this already): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlPszRgHhUM
  2. Next, open Photoshop on your computer and create a new document.
  3. Using the paint bucket, fill the document with the color you want to white balance off of. (You should already have a good idea of what color that might be based on your testing.)
  4. Snap a picture.
  5. Now make a small adjustment to the fill color. Not a big change, just a little bit. Paint it on your document again.
  6. Snap another picture.
  7. Now make another adjustment to the fill color.
  8. Snap another picture.

You can snap as many pictures this way as you want, all with slightly different fill colors.

Then go outside at night and start testing:

  1. Load the first picture as your custom white balance picture (as they show you in the video I asked you to watch first).
  2. Shoot 10 seconds of video.
  3. Load the next white balance picture.
  4. Shoot another 10 seconds of video.
  5. Go through all your pictures, each time shooting a little video.

Now you can go back to your computer and load all the video. Look at each test and find the one that comes the closest to matching your other camera.

Since you're trying to trick the T2i into a white balance setting that will match your other camera, this is a much easier way to do that than playing with lights and gels and trying to find a light source that gives you the right color to white balance against. Your computer has thousands of colors you can white balance against.
 
Okay thanks, I can't believe I didn't think of this. I guess I have been thinking of otherways and it didn't occur to me. I am doing tests right now. Does it matter what light is on the in the room, that is shining above the computer?
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks, I can't believe I didn't think of this. I guess I have been thinking of otherways and it didn't occur to me. I am doing tests right now. Does it matter what light is on the in the room, that is shining above the computer?
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See ironpony, when you do that - ask a question you obviously should already know the answer to - it is evidence that you're trolling.

If you genuinely don't know the answer, and can't be bothered to spend 5 seconds to figure it out on your own,,,, then I can't be bothered.

But don't worry. Some other poor sap will come along later tonight or tomorrow to provide you with another answer that you'll pretend to not quite understand, leading you to ask yet another question.
 
You're just making your posts too long key light. Too many opportunities.


Yes, make it dark in the room.
 
Okay thanks. In order to white balance I have to use the opposite color. I have been trying research on google as it was suggested to me, but every site so far I have come across, tells me how to make the light white. Their is none that tells you how to make it different colors as you like. But I will keep looking.
 
ironpony said:
Okay thanks. In order to white balance I have to use the opposite color. I have been trying research on google as it was suggested to me, but every site so far I have come across, tells me how to make the light white. Their is none that tells you how to make it different colors as you like. But I will keep looking.
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Stop looking, start doing! You have a camera, you have a computer, and you have a brain. Right? So stop searching for answers and do what everyone before you has done. Play with it, experiment, and discover the answer yourself!

Honestly, if you put all the time you spend lOOking for answers into trying to answer some of them yourself by experimenting and trial and error, you would learn a lot more and be MUCH further along.

So... stop asking, start answering!

Hey, maybe you can actually write something up and post it on the web to help the next person. Wouldn't that be great!
 
Okay I will. All the lights produce different colors in the winter time though, so I will have to wait till summer, the season I want to shoot the project in. But that's okay, I will just test and make a decision before the shoot date. Thanks.
 
ironpony said:
Okay I will. All the lights produce different colors in the winter time though, so I will have to wait till summer, the season I want to shoot the project in. But that's okay, I will just test and make a decision before the shoot date. Thanks.
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Bravo! That's exactly the RIGHT attitude!
 
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