ND on Paned Window

N

notharrylume

Active member
For any of you out there into details: I am planing a shot where I need to ND gell a paned window to balance interior and exterior light levels. It will of course be applied from the outside, but I'm wondering if I can get away with using one large sheet over the whole window, or whether it's better to cut individual sheets to fit into each pane (8"w x 11" h +/-). And if it's individual pieces what is the best way to attach them?

Any thoughts will be much appreciated.
 
I would personally cut individual pieces but as long as you keep the gell tight and keep the window out of focus you can do it with one sheet.
 
We usually cut it up into the individual pieces as wind might affect the gel. That causes reflections that are undesirable. You might also want to consider gels with ND+Color correction for balance.
 
Depends. If you stretch a full roll over the panes and tape it down, the issues are if the wind blows, the gel will move and you might see this from camera. It depends on lighting, camera angles, depth of field, distance camera is from the window, and what's ON the window (curtains, blinds, etc.)

Usually soapy water in a spray bottle is used to adhere the gel to the glass. Use a squeegy to smooth it on and then push it hard into the edges and trim to fit with a sharp utility knife. Jam one corner of the gel into the corner of the pane and then all you have to cut are 2 sides. You might want to pre-cut the pieces to slightly larger than the pane so they're more manageable to hold and apply.

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notharrylume said:
For any of you out there into details: I am planing a shot where I need to ND gell a paned window to balance interior and exterior light levels. It will of course be applied from the outside, but I'm wondering if I can get away with using one large sheet over the whole window, or whether it's better to cut individual sheets to fit into each pane (8"w x 11" h +/-). And if it's individual pieces what is the best way to attach them?

Any thoughts will be much appreciated.
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I often use tinted acrylic or perspex instead. It's advanatge is that it's much faster to apply, espcially if you just mount it against the window from the outside. Gel tends to either bubble and peel off or rattle in the wind and make lots of noise, especially in a single sheet.

It's a bit more expensive but well worth it. If you take care of it and don't abuse it, it's reusable too. I use it all the time to shoot day for night for interiors. It means you can also *see* outside the windows. I hate tenting and seeing black windows.

All the night interiors on THIS film were shot day for night using ND perspex on the windows.

You can also use 70/30 shade cloth from a gardening supplier as long as you aren't looking too closely at the windows and are shooting with a shallow depth of field. You will see it if you have characters close to the windows, but if it's in the background it works great for taking heat out of windows too.

jb
 
John Brawley said:
You can also use 70/30 shade cloth from a gardening supplier as long as you aren't looking too closely at the windows and are shooting with a shallow depth of field. You will see it if you have characters close to the windows, but if it's in the background it works great for taking heat out of windows too.
Click to expand...

We're using this very trick with this very substance in a couple of weeks. Tech rehearsals and tests suggest it'll be an excellent approach, and the mesh even keeps air moving through it a bit more than against it, as it would with a gel suspended above the windows. Cheap as heck, too!
 
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