Shooting a Commercial in Low Light this week, debating what settings:

B

BennyWhiskers

Active member
Hey everyone,

I'm going to be shooting a commercial later this week in bright and low light environments on my GH1 and I'll list what I'm having trouble with deciding:

-I was planning on shooting in 720/60 and conforming to 23.976 since there wil be time remapping using twixtor, and 1080/24 might be dicy and the quality won't be as smooth as 720/60.

-The location is outside, daytime, bright white snow all around, some locations might have lower light due to overcast and shooting in the woods. Should I change the apertures and color settings to combat this? I'm hesitant just cause I wan't to keep everything as basic as possible and fix it in post(fix anything in post with the right programs).

I'm using stock lens and a SanDisk Ultra 16gb/ 15mb/s if your wondering.

Also, I'm using twixtor in AE5, the pro version, if that helps.

Thanks.
 
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I just did a very low light shoot and you will be in big trouble with the kit lens, don't even attempt it, and don't shoot 720/60. That needs MORE light, not less.

I HIGHLY suggest you at least get $300 together and get the lumix 20mm 1.7 lens. Even with that, I had to go up to iso 1200 on some shots for a club scene with smoke and beam light effects in order to have the talents faces lit:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255785&id=51395027759

http://facebook.com/blackout
 
Wait a second.. I just re-read your post....

EXT. SNOWY PLACE. DAY.

What is low light about snow during the day?
 
Usually for low light I would advise 1080/24p at a 1/30th shutter, but that is gonna wreak havoc with twixtor.

HOWEVER! Nothing you've described sounds like low-light. First of all snow adds tons of light to a scene. Following the sunny 16 rule I can determine that on a sunny snowy day with direct sunlight you would need to shoot at F/32 assuming a 1/60th shutter and ISO 100 (so bring ND filters.) On overcast days you'd probably end up at f/11 or so, and in the woods (shade) probably f/8 on a bright day and maybe f/5.6 or even f/4 on a darker day. Snow makes everything almost a stop brighter! All of these things would be a stop darker if you shot at 1/125th shutter.

Sunny 16 rule states that on a bright sunny day with the shutter speed as the reciprocal of your ISO proper exposure is achieved at f/16. There's a whole table you can use. None of this sounds like low light to me!

Take a look at the table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule

You're gonna wanna bring them ND filters and long lenses if you need shallow DOF...light really should not be a problem. The way I quickly guesstimated the above apertures was starting with the table values, adding one stop for the lower shutter speed (1/60th instead of 1/100th) and then adding a stop for the snow.
 
Depends on how much motion detail is in your shot. If there's a lot, you might get mud. If you get mud, that's probably not good enough for broadcast.
 
Does anyone hear have an example of a commercial spot shot with an unhacked or hacked GH1? I haven't hacked mine yet, I better get on it if that's what makes the difference.
 
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