question about reflectors and exposure...

[Cephalectomy]

Ok. After being outside yesterday on a nice sunny day and shooting some stuff I'm finding it very difficult to know what to do. Everything i read says for a persons skin highlights (forehead) to be around 80%, i made a reflector using a hoolahoop and some shiny silver material i bought at walmart. however, i didn't find it had much impact, and it made me wonder, what about wider shots? Obviously if i need a wider shot I can't throw a reflector next to their face. I'm planning to do a short film this summer and my main 2 characters are wearing hats, can anyone give me some suggestions as to how I should go about lighting them. Can i do this properly with natural light, i don't have any strong lights, all i have is a 650, 300 and 200 open face light and 2 work lights to use for background fill (for shooting at night). If i go out and shoot and mildly underexpose is this something I'd be able to fix easily in post? Anyways, if anyone has any suggestions I'd greatly appriciate it. I know a lot of people say don't shoot in sunlight, use an overcast day but i'm limited to what days I can use and i require a nice blue sky for the beginning of it. Also, mixing overcast days and sunny days seems like something I'd want to avoid due to the fact that the lighting would just be very different. In the sun you have bright areas where as overcast is basically all the same. Anyways, sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm just very eagar to do things properly. If anything's worth doing at all, it's worth doing right

 

[PUNCH]

Not a stupid question at all. It's hard to do on a budget. You'll really need to take the time of day and position of the sun relative to your actors into consideration. so do some good location scouting. Depending on the level /type of modeling I'm looking for, I tend to key or sometimes back light with the sun and use reflectors and bounce card to fill. But again, this is a low budget approach. Wide shots are tough but I recently bought a lastolite Sunfire reflector (which I seem to be talking about a lot on this forum today...I'm really not a rep...I swear) which gives you some good range. Its just tough to control in a windy situation. You'll want to go out with a number of different strength reflectors if you take this approach. Good professional reflectors cost about $35. You'll definately see an improvement over your walmart special.

The other option is to flag the sun out with a big black overhead. Agian, i guess it depends on how wide the shot needs to be and what's in the background.

Good luck!

 

[Rogue Crew]

I'm on something of a budget also, but always seem to be breaking it. However, I just picked up a PhotoFlex Lite Panel kit from B&H. Its 77" square and clamps onto a stand on two opposing sides. It's big enough and light enough to raise over the actor's heads in bright sunshine, where I use a net fabric to softly diffuse the sunlight on them. I also got a reversible black/white fabric for large bounce reflection or using the black side, for negative bounce. It can also be used as diffusion in the vertical plane indoors or out - just power up your lights behind this sucker, and wallah - instant gorgeousity! I was surprised that B&H didn't have it as a kit, but they pieced it together for me for about $350 for everything, and I didn't have to pay for fabrics I knew I wasn't going to use. Surprisingly light and portable.

http://www.photoflex.com/Photoflex_Products/LitePanel/index.html

 

[MattinSTL]

I've got a 42" Photoflex 5-in-1 that was around $99 from B&H years ago... it's been a great tool. That gives you gold, silver, silver-gold mix, extra reflective white, and a silk in the center.

I have a dual monitor system and I can't get my images to even look the same on each freakin' monitor! It's been driving me nuts as I want to show you something... so whatever... first pic is the untouched footage from Vegas timeline... second pic is tweeked contrast and color... I have NO idea how it's going to look on your monitor! Whatever... that is NOT the point... I shot this with an ordinary white sheet fixed to the top of an existing trellis-like framework... so the white sheet was out of the shot all the time... then I set up my Photoflex 42" with silver side reflecting (they had to get used to it) from pretty darn far away! Like 30' or so... I had the reflector held firmly so that it casted a consistent fill. These people are actually in what would have been virtually direct sunlight.

This 'aint great, but I'm showing you what you can do with a $10 white sheet and a decent reflector. I should have shot some video before setting this stuff up so you could see 100% blown highlights and dark, featureless faces.

Make friends with a good reflector... it'll be one of the most frequently used items in your kit.