Shooting against window

Z

zigizigi

Active member
I have a client who wants to make a shot in this location against the window. They insist that the background cityscapes be visible. The subject is supposed to be at 2-3 meters away from the window. I'm trying to figure out how much light is required to tackle that?

image5.jpg

I've found a similar situation described in this video. 6000 Watts of fill light were not enough to expose the sunlit background. Uh-oh.


Of course, I will do a check and a test shot if I am allowed, but if anyone has any previous experience with accomplishing a similar task please share your story.
 
You want a roll of ND 0.9 gel, some tape, and some time.

Exactly how much fill you will need will depend on the brightness of the subject, available light in the room, the dynamic range the camera can handle, and most importantly the weather outside.

I suggest bringing some Kino Flo 4' 4-banks and keeping them really close. Other alternatives include a pair of 1.2K HMIs, or timing it just right and bouncing sunlight in.
 
Looking at that video.. the idiots have got that key way too far back (for their final tight frame), which makes it less soft and also induces drop off

Remember if your key light is twice as close it is four times brighter, im guessing they could have got it four times closer, 16 times brighter.


OK your client, they are bound to want a wide and therefore you need to keep the keylight back (or overhead out of shot)

So you want two things.. sheer power, and if (as they brought up) you are running off the mains you need to minimise power.. well Id be renting some top end LED lights

And as above, you can gel the window, this will take time and care but can pay huge dividend on the rental budget!

For the light to really 'read' you would ideally need some form of wrap to motivate the light.. that would be a softlight placed above the window out of shot.. grip tastic!

Basically you have the hardest shot of all to light you will need every ounce of skill to do it on a budget.

Reflector boards, high pwer LED, decent camera, consider fresnel beam, not soft, and a camera that has a bit more DR than the FS700!

..or shoot at late dusk and you can light it with a torch (almost!)

S
 
The fact that I can even see the ceiling fluorescent lights in your shot tells me you'll need far less than 6000 watts. Time of day is EVERYTHING here of course.

Kino Diva style lights could work. Not a bad suggestion. A pair of 4-bulb types would probably just barely do it. 6-bulbs would be stronger.
There is also the Kino 4-Bank. These are 4' fluorescent fixtures that are super handy. Every local rental place should have them too.
The benefit here is that these lights are not hot.

A couple of 1k fresnels with some flags and/or diffusion would also be quite good. Have a couple good reflectors handy too for filling in any cold spots.
These WILL heat up your room though, if that's a problem.

The only LED panels that I can think of that would have the power to go against this are remote phosphor - like the Area48 - but those are expensive.
I don't see really any 1'x1' LED panels being strong enough to fight that amount of daylight.

There is one other LED light I use that is really powerful but "might" have a noisy fan. I say "might" because I have 2 and one is really quiet and the other came noisier so I replaced the internal fan with a super quiet one - but that was not the simplest job...
Here's the master blaster I use:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-Godox-S...b&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=221307216249&rt=nc

And for THE EASIEST diffusion and control I put this instant pop-up 120cm octo-box on it. Takes about 60-seconds:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bessel-120cm-Octabox-Popup-Speedbox/dp/B00NAPPA7A/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_5



As for the windows - if you want to go the ND gel route there is a company called GAM that makes a product called "Window Grip" that is rolls of ND gels with a mild adhesive on the back. Not too crazy expensive either. Since your windows are of uniform width it would be a pretty easy and straight-forward job.
Their .9ND gel (3 stop light loss) is $213 for a roll 4-feet wide and 25-feet long.
Find them at gamonline.com.
 
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Hmm.. those ceiling flouros are not clipping at all - showing quite how bright the background is - so they 'evidence' counter to your concept that the ext is not that bright.

For lighting I suggested rental LED. Not puny 1.1 panels but the LED fixtures that are competing against HMI for brightness while drawing a lot less power. Im not up on the brand names, Arri have some stuff and other brands too.

The comments on gelling and shooting hour are highly valid of course.

Silver polyboards would also help.

S
 
I estimate that you need 60,000 LUX of light to compete against the sun (open sky, no overcast at noon time) assuming a nominal 12-stop DR camera and you are shooting using a single exposure (non-HDR, and not using RAW for post processing/compositing).

So where your subject is standing, you need to be able to meter 60,000 LUX. This is an insane amount of light depending on how far your subject is to the camera AND what quality of light you need (harsh or soft).

A harsh 60,000 light will most definitely blind your talent. If you need 60,000 LUX of soft diffused light then your source needs to be at least twice as bright to begin with.

To put it into perspective, an ARRISUN 120 which goes for around $32,000 will do about 80,000 LUX at 6ft using a 7 degree spot (estimated based on their photometric data) and consumes 12,000 WATTS. Note that 80,000 LUX @ 6ft is still configured as a harsh light, so this assumes you need harsh light and your talent is off axis to this light otherwise he/she will get blinded. If you were to diffuse the light then expect a drop to at least 40,000 LUX which now puts you below what you need to compete against the sun.

I'm also assuming the sun is shining somewhat directly into your window and at around noon time, if you have a North/South facing window at magic hour then your LUX requirement will be lower.

Interestingly,Nila's Arina LED light is said to output 100,000 LUX at 10ft with a super narrow beam angle, but diffused would put you at 50,000 LUX (or less) which would put you below what you need.

In short, competing against the sun is very difficult for continuous lighting.

Note that in the video link, they were using 6,000 watts of TUNGSTEN light. Tungsten is the least efficient lighting system on the planet. For each 1 watt of light only a fraction of that as actual light output. On the other hand if he said he used 6,000 watts of HMI lighting, then that would be a different story altogether. For example a 2K Tungsten Fresnel @ maximum spot will give 4,000 LUX at 6 meters where as a 2K HMI equivalent would give 16,000 LUX.

The fixture also affects how much of the light is utilized. For example going from a 2K Tungsten PAR to a 2K Fresnel will have different lighting outputs. Some say a Fresnel lens wastes between 20-30% of the light compared to an open lens fixture like the Nila lights.

As a side note, I found the slider move to be very cheesy. They should have used a 50mm FOV up close with a slight rocking movement and with the talent looking off screen. That would have made the subject come off as being more genuine.
 
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Thanks for your suggestions, guys!

I have just made a basic test. A subject in direct sunlight is lit at about 80000 lux. But the luminance at my bedroom's window on 7th floor on a shadow side is mere 5000 lux. When I stepped 1m off the window it was just 1200 lux. It's inverse square law, remember. So as I stood 1m away from the window with an 500W halogen light placed at 1.5m away from my head it yielded 2000 lux on my face. Thus I could easily expose my face correctly without even blowing out the clouds in the window on the background.

I guess a couple of 1.2K HMI will do perfectly provided that they are even more efficient than hallogen at the same wattage.

So I lean towards renting HMI since they are focusable. The question is: do ARRI HMIs have a fan or produce any noticable noise that could interfere with sound recording?
 
zigizigi said:
Thanks for your suggestions, guys!

I have just made a basic test. A subject in direct sunlight is lit at about 80000 lux. But the luminance at my bedroom's window on 7th floor on a shadow side is mere 5000 lux. When I stepped 1m off the window it was just 1200 lux. It's inverse square law, remember. So as I stood 1m away from the window with an 500W halogen light placed at 1.5m away from my head it yielded 2000 lux on my face. Thus I could easily expose my face correctly without even blowing out the clouds in the window on the background.

I guess a couple of 1.2K HMI will do perfectly provided that they are even more efficient than hallogen at the same wattage.

So I lean towards renting HMI since they are focusable. The question is: do ARRI HMIs have a fan or produce any noticable noise that could interfere with sound recording?
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Damn 80,000 LUX!!!!
 
Get long cables and put the ballasts out of the room if possible.

I would still think about gel on the windows.
 
These are going to be musicians performing there. So I'll have to do shots from various angles and some slider shots as well.

This window looks South-East and the session is planned at 15:00. I checked a similar location at the same time and it's 10,000 lux at the window and 5000 lux 1m away from it. That's what I will have to fight with. I checked the photometric specs of ARRI 1200W HMI. It yields 7500 lux from 3m in flood mode. And nearly 100,000 lux from 3m in 5 degree spot mode. Wow, that's direct sunlight brightness!

If my calculations are correct two of these will be more than sufficient. Or I can rent two 2500W ones, at nearly the same price, and even make the daylight outside the window look like a night with them if I will. That amount of light might be of a challenge for the talents, however.

I've also found this video where a DP handles a similar situation at around 3:30 with ARRI 1200. It's placed quite far away and still is able to light the scene agaisnt the bright window. Impressive.

 
zigizigi said:
These are going to be musicians performing there. So I'll have to do shots from various angles and some slider shots as well.

This window looks South-East and the session is planned at 15:00. I checked a similar location at the same time and it's 10,000 lux at the window and 5000 lux 1m away from it. That's what I will have to fight with. I checked the photometric specs of ARRI 1200W HMI. It yields 7500 lux from 3m in flood mode. And nearly 100,000 lux from 3m in 5 degree spot mode. Wow, that's direct sunlight brightness!

If my calculations are correct two of these will be more than sufficient. Or I can rent two 2500W ones, at nearly the same price, and even make the daylight outside the window look like a night with them if I will. That amount of light might be of a challenge for the talents, however.
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As long as you do not modify the light at all, and I can't think of too many situations (especially interior) where I'd want to put a hard HMI par direct frontal right onto talent's face. Keep in mind that it's OK for windows to look bright, if you dont let the windows overexpose a bit it will look pretty unnatural to have the interior look brighter or as bright as the sunlit exterior. Also a couple unmodified pars lights usually don't do a very natural job of lighting talent unless they are actually playing as the sun, and it might be pretty odd looking to have direct sun lighting talent so far from windows, especially if the window in shot is south facing and the actual sun is clearly casting shadows through the window in the opposite direction.
 
zigizigi said:
I've also found this video where a DP handles a similar situation at around 3:30 with ARRI 1200. It's placed quite far away and still is able to light the scene agaisnt the bright window. Impressive.

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Not really impressive.. the quality of the light is horrid and he has still lost the sky, but it does look to be a pretty terrible camera.

Remeber as your talent moves around, well they mustnt get too hot so IMO you need diffusion.

Personally Id still be renting LED - Nila is one of the brands, probably a minimum of four fixtures and look to fire them through at least 4.4 softboxes/diffusion (I mention softboxes becuse you dont want to lose 50% of the light out of the back!)

S
 
zigizigi said:
These are going to be musicians performing there. So I'll have to do shots from various angles and some slider shots as well.

This window looks South-East and the session is planned at 15:00. I checked a similar location at the same time and it's 10,000 lux at the window and 5000 lux 1m away from it. That's what I will have to fight with. I checked the photometric specs of ARRI 1200W HMI. It yields 7500 lux from 3m in flood mode. And nearly 100,000 lux from 3m in 5 degree spot mode. Wow, that's direct sunlight brightness!

If my calculations are correct two of these will be more than sufficient. Or I can rent two 2500W ones, at nearly the same price, and even make the daylight outside the window look like a night with them if I will. That amount of light might be of a challenge for the talents, however.

I've also found this video where a DP handles a similar situation at around 3:30 with ARRI 1200. It's placed quite far away and still is able to light the scene agaisnt the bright window. Impressive.

Click to expand...

The light falling on the subjects is not what you are fighting. The light in the sky and on buildings outside is what you are fighting. Do a reflected measurement (prefer 1 degree spot) of the buildings outside and you'll see it barely changes as you walk around the room.

If subject to window distance will be somewhat large, you can maybe use scrim over the windows Like Rosco 3421 https://www.rosco.com/filters/cinegel.cfm?menuReturn=quickFilmTV&CategoryID=4 down at the bottom of the page.

Once in a while we would hang this up at sporting events to get beginning and half segments from the announce booth with the field in the background. But it only really looks right if there is some distance between talent and scrim, otherwise you can see the scrim.
 
I can 'see' this shoot the director isnt gonna buy tights with small gelled areas behing (how ever much he/she wont pay for the kit/time do do it properly) - if I were DP id be assuming to light the whole space from lights that are not in shot, even if it is a wide.

S
 
Is renting lights cheaper than buying scrim/gel? What if you need to bring in a bunch of extra power for the lights?
 
Another kink in the party, that no one has mentioned yet, the windows appear to be floor to ceiling. If you are moving the camera around that space, its going to get really difficult to NOT see your lighting reflected in the glass somewhere.
 
theReflex said:
Another kink in the party, that no one has mentioned yet, the windows appear to be floor to ceiling. If you are moving the camera around that space, its going to get really difficult to NOT see your lighting reflected in the glass somewhere.
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Good point!
 
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