Lighting an Aquarium

[Stephen Mick]

I need to light the inside of an aquarium, but not the kind you might think.

I've got a shoot at a marine lab/aquarium. It's your typical twenty feet of flat glass, pretty dark, with pools of light from recessed cans. (I'll try to post a few pictures.)

The hero tank is a recreated wreck of a German U-Boat. The tank is about sixty feet of glass, with light coming in from above the tank. Otherwise pretty dark.

I've got an Arri Softbank IV kit, with a 1K and three 650s. My plan was to use the 1K with softbox to throw a wash of light over the scene (people milling about in front of the tank) and use one or two of the smaller lights to augment the lights coming down from above.

I'm shooting at 720/24p, and my plan is also to shoot at 1/24 shutter to capture more of what little light there is.

Any thoughts? How would you guys approach lighting something like this?

--Steve

 

[filmat11]

Rent more lights ?? Sorry, I don't mean to state the obvious..
And secure the stands above the water with ropes or other saftey chains.
One light in the tank, and you owe them alot of goldfish.., also, make sure your stingers(extension cords) don't get too wet either.
You might also need to rent some 4ftx4ft floppies, use duvetyne or large flags to keep your outside the tank lights, from reflecting in the tank glass.

 

[smithy]

another thing you might consider is to pickup a circular polarizer to handle the glares from the surrounding lights onto the glass.