Shooting outdoors at night

Monglane

Monglane

Well-known member
I will soon have to shoot some outdoor scenes at night in a large city (well, Paris ;)). Some scenes will be set on brightly illuminated avenues, some may be set in darkish streets.

I will do some tests but I'd be interested by any night-shooting tips you guys may have to provide.

Just to make it more fun :-/, shooting will have to take place under available light...
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

related question:

How do you white balance at night? Everytime I use a white card at night the white balance reads "low light" (or whatever it says). I really like available light at night as the stuff i've shot outdoors at night has a nice look. I just end up using ATW but would like to get a true WB setting, or be able to WB against different settings.
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

I have my F4 on the Scene Settings dial set up to shoot outside at night. I am at work now so I don't have the settings right now. As for white balancing at night. Just put a light on the white card or point the camera toward something that is white where there is light and press the button. You can get a 3200k white balance if you turn the dome light on in your car and aim the camera at something white. Finally, you can always put the camera in PRESET mode for the white balance if you do not have anything white to shoot. The camera adjusts the white balance automatically based on the shooting conditions.

I just wrapped editing on a project that I shot outside at night. If your going to be shooting in a downtown like area with a lot of city lights you should be okay shooting 24P. You would be better off to set up some lights but if your in a well lit area you should be okay. If you have no lights and your shoot is in an area where there are few city lights, you might be better of shooting 60i in my opinion because the 24p will be dark.
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

When doing a WB - Always do it as your lighting conditions change. You are free to use the PRST of course.



If it is too dark and the camera tells you "No good" well, then it's not good. You gotta get a light source in there. Some people say to up the GAIN while others say Dont up the GAIN.
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

I noticed that gossamer mentioned using a "white card". In my brain, at that moment a cog was set in motion.

Apparently I am in the dark when it comes to white balance, so I ask this related (retarded) question:
Does white balance mean, stick a piece of white paper in front of the lens and press the AWB button before shooting?
If not, what does it mean?
And if so, how far away do I hold said piece of paper?
Endif

(I have just been pressing white balance after framing my shot.)

 David.
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

Yes, that's basically what it means.

White Balance is done because different types of lights are different colors. The human eye compensates, so looking directly at a light, your eye will tend to make that light look "white", whereas the camera sees it for what it is: tungsten lights are reddish-yellow on the scale, daylight is bluer, etc.

So when you "white balance", you're telling the camera what the "color" of the light is, in a given circumstance. You do this by holding up a white object, and whatever light happens to be hitting that object will be color-corrected by the camera so that the white object actually renders on the video as white. Once the camera knows what color white should be, it basically knows how to process all other colors as well.

As to where you hold the white sheet of paper, you have to hold it in the light that's illuminating your scene. Whatever it is you're shooting, whatever light hits that scene, that same light needs to hit the paper. If you're shooting an interview, for example, you might stick the white paper right in front of the subject's face (standard rules of etiquette will apply, but you get the point).
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

Wonderfully put, thank you. And I am going to assume there is no need for the white paper to take up the entire frame?

David
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

just zoom in on the paper if it doesnt take up the whole frame, then you can zoom back out and frame your shot after white balance
 
Re: Shooting outdoors at night

technically you do not have to zoom all the way in and fill up the screen with white. You would be surprise to know that it only requires 10% of the white to get an accurate white balance. What I am saying is that you CAN zoom into something white but it does not have to fill the entire screen.
 
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