lighting a dark room

smelni

smelni

Veteran
funny title isnt it.

I am shooting in a dark room but i need to light it enough to get proper exposure with the HVX. - any suggestions on how to do this. I was thinking of lighting it relatively flat and then making it red in post because shooting the scene in red will give lots of jaggies. Any ideas?
 
What is the scene about. Exactly what kind of look are you going for and where would the light naturally come from in the scene?
 
ITs a scene of a photographer in a dark room working - so it should look like a darkroom with the red light on
 
Do you need to see any of the photographic processes that go on in a dark room? If not then shoot it clean and filter in post. Job Done. However, if you want to see prints being developed, thats a different matter altogether, let me know if you are and I'll give you a few tips on what to do.

Regards

Rich
 
Here's a hint, use a purple light and adjust the color in post to red. (recomended by fotokem)

NTSC (and most cameras) have a hard time with red. Even in sharp focus, it can appear soft. I had to shoot a scene lit with red X-mas lights. I warned the producer and director that it would appear soft, but to no avail. When the edit came back guess what they complained about... and blamed it on me! Oh well. next time I will take a stronger stance.
 
Ahhhhh, a photographer's darkroom. I was thinking just a regular old darkly lit room. This makes much more sense now. I'd do a few tests using the suggestions above and see what works best for you.
 
I understand why red isnt a good choice - but is there a reason that purple filtered later is better then clean adjusted to red in post?
 
You still haven't answered the fundamental question of are you needing to see any processing? If not then I would highly recommend you shoot clean with no filtration.
 
Prob do not need to see processing - so there are 2 recommendations here:

shoot clean and post

shoot purple and post

If there are no advantages to shooting purple then I would just shoot clean.

Is there a way to actually shoot while processing - i would think the red light and the level of light would make it impossible to get good exposure on the hvx
 
smelni said:
Is there a way to actually shoot while processing - i would think the red light and the level of light would make it impossible to get good exposure on the hvx
Click to expand...

Yes there is, but depends on what way you want to go (several ways to peel a banana).

The cheapest and most cost effective is a Lock Off of the developer tray with a plain sheet in the fluid. Get your talent to use tongs on the liquid (displacing the liquid surface, this will help cover the next step).

You can then replace the blank sheet with an already printed image and do a dissolve in post. That way, you can actually control the length of the shoot required.

The above process allows you to shoot clean and add filtration in post. I've done it several times and people are always asking me.....how did you shoot that!

One other way is to reverse print the process by not "fixing" (second to last stage of film printing) the printed image and then dropping it back into a bath solution that removes the print. I've done this once before but on super16mm and have to say the first option is probably the path of least resistance and you can control everything about the shot.

I could go on but as I said there are many ways to peel a banana.
 
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thanks steadicamsteel - i would love to do something like this but i dont think time will permit and the developing is less critical then the establishing of the darkroom

thanks for the suggestions
 
Another option is to shoot in a yellow darkroom. This is much more common in the professional world, but amateurs tend to use red bulbs because they are cheaper. Yellow bulbs also give off more light and look closer to daylight (why professionals use them) so that you can watch the contrast on the developing better. This would be your best bet if you want to record the print developing.

Only problem is that for some reason in movies red is used more often because thats what most people think of w/ darkrooms, but if I remember right Peeping Tom does a yellow darkroom...
 
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