'Shooting using available light' poll

'Shooting using available light' poll

  • I am huge available-light-only advocate.

    Votes: 4 11.4%

  • I use some form of lighting no matter what camera.

    Votes: 5 14.3%

  • I will use a mix depending on circumstance.

    Votes: 26 74.3%
  • Total voters
    35
starcentral

starcentral

Veteran
With what are seemingly extraordinary ISO's capable on the F3, and my own humble opinion (and shooting style) on always using lighting when shooting anything, anywhere, anytime... my poll is to find out which side of the fence you sit on.

The poll: who plans to buy/use the Sony F3 to shoot only using available light?

1.) I am huge available-light-only advocate.
2.) I use some form of lighting no matter what camera.
3.) I will use a mix depending on circumstance.
 
Light quantity and quality are two different things. It was always easy just get exposure, even with an early hvx and an early 35mm adapter with an f.4 lens - all you had to do was buy $100 worth of hardware store construction lights. The problem was, the result, although sufficiently bright, looked like ass.

Nothing has changed - lighting is to shape a scene, define a character and set a mood, not just get exposure, even if your camera goes to iso 20 000 without noise.

If you are shaping a scene, then you have to counteract light sources that you cannot change. For example, outside during the day, you are not likely to see much effect from a light below 400W HMI - same goes for indoors with a window looking at bright outdoors that is not gelled with ND. This is always true - at 200ASA and at 20 000.

What high ISO/ASA does do is allow you to use smaller sources in the total dark , and see natural background lighting more easily - like architectural up-lighting in cities. It also allows you to shoot at F8 at night - something which is sometimes desirable, and use natural light AMONG OTHER SOURCES (or bounces) until later in the day.

If you don't shape your light and just get exposure, you are putting yourself one step closer to a soccer mom in your shooting approach.
 
The thing for me is this... I shoot on location a lot. Sometimes you dont have control of the lighting. Sometimes you don't want to. I was shooting a scene in an old hospital in Africa, there was a long hallway with many rooms down it. It was 10AM and it was already 95 degrees out. We had a limited time to use the hospital. The director wanted the whole scene to happen in the hallway... I thought to myself, oh boy here comes a crazy lighting setup for the day. Then I remembered I was shooting with the F3.

I set my 35mm lens to T2.2 (my favorite spot) put the gain up a bit, and looked down the hall way. It wasn't that dark, but it was missing something. I wanted a mix of light, then I though about all the rooms, they all had big windows in them. I decited to open up all the doors at different spots down the hall way. It looked great, it would have taken a long time to reproduce what I had created with available light in that hallway. After seeing that, I ended up shooting the whole hospital scene that way, the light just fell in a way that I liked. Windows ended up being our main source of light.

With that said, you need to understand what light will do. You need to control the lighting to an extent, even if it is a window. Use ND or curtains. We used curtains a lot to shape the lighting in rooms. Sometimes something as simple as that could make a huge difference in the quality of light and the shape of it.
 
Giuseppe Pugliese said:
The thing for me is this... I shoot on location a lot. Sometimes you dont have control of the lighting. Sometimes you don't want to. I was shooting a scene in an old hospital in Africa, there was a long hallway with many rooms down it. It was 10AM and it was already 95 degrees out. We had a limited time to use the hospital. The director wanted the whole scene to happen in the hallway... I thought to myself, oh boy here comes a crazy lighting setup for the day. Then I remembered I was shooting with the F3.

I set my 35mm lens to T2.2 (my favorite spot) put the gain up a bit, and looked down the hall way. It wasn't that dark, but it was missing something. I wanted a mix of light, then I though about all the rooms, they all had big windows in them. I decited to open up all the doors at different spots down the hall way. It looked great, it would have taken a long time to reproduce what I had created with available light in that hallway. After seeing that, I ended up shooting the whole hospital scene that way, the light just fell in a way that I liked. Windows ended up being our main source of light.

With that said, you need to understand what light will do. You need to control the lighting to an extent, even if it is a window. Use ND or curtains. We used curtains a lot to shape the lighting in rooms. Sometimes something as simple as that could make a huge difference in the quality of light and the shape of it.
Click to expand...

What you did sounds very nice but doesn't sound like it would require a high ISO camera.
 
It did require I higher ISO that I ever would have used, I was at 1600. I would never go that high shooting anything. The walls were not white, they were a darker cream color, which doesnt bounce light as much as you'd think. It wouldn't have ever worked shooting with another camera without introducing visual noise.

Here are the screen grabs:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kpCC4mwm3...1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-01+at+8.46.24+PM.png

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9uwyn9HFG...1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-01+at+8.45.28+PM.png

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3rxWej8UU...1600/Screen+shot+2011-04-01+at+8.44.43+PM.png
 
Last edited:
It did require I higher ISO that I ever would have used, I was at 1600. I would never go that high shooting anything. The walls were not white, they were a darker cream color, which doesnt bounce light as much as you'd think. It wouldn't have ever worked shooting with another camera without introducing visual noise.

Here is the screen grabs:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kpCC4mwm37...8.46.24+PM.png

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9uwyn9HFG6...8.45.28+PM.png

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3rxWej8UUN...8.44.43+PM.png
Click to expand...

WOW! Thanks so much for posting. Funny how posting something like this REALLY puts your prior statements into perspective.

I am NO ONE and I don't know anything. It is my humble opinion that this is the future of "high end" indie film making. Those screen grabs look like a DOP spent a good amount of time working out the lighting setup.....I'm sure that the DOP had to have A BRAIN to make this happen (lol)....but it's more about SHAPING EXISTING LIGHT than it is about dragging light with a bucket and dumping it everywhere on set. I'm NOT SAYING that the old method will die.....but I'm saying that a talented DOP with the F3 has other options. :) Way to go Giuseppe!!!! Can't wait to see your film in its entirety. :)
 
Giuseppe Pugliese said:
The thing for me is this... I shoot on location a lot. Sometimes you dont have control of the lighting. Sometimes you don't want to. I was shooting a scene in an old hospital in Africa, there was a long hallway with many rooms down it. It was 10AM and it was already 95 degrees out. We had a limited time to use the hospital. The director wanted the whole scene to happen in the hallway... I thought to myself, oh boy here comes a crazy lighting setup for the day. Then I remembered I was shooting with the F3.

I set my 35mm lens to T2.2 (my favorite spot) put the gain up a bit, and looked down the hall way. It wasn't that dark, but it was missing something. I wanted a mix of light, then I though about all the rooms, they all had big windows in them. I decited to open up all the doors at different spots down the hall way. It looked great, it would have taken a long time to reproduce what I had created with available light in that hallway. After seeing that, I ended up shooting the whole hospital scene that way, the light just fell in a way that I liked. Windows ended up being our main source of light.

With that said, you need to understand what light will do. You need to control the lighting to an extent, even if it is a window. Use ND or curtains. We used curtains a lot to shape the lighting in rooms. Sometimes something as simple as that could make a huge difference in the quality of light and the shape of it.
Click to expand...

Had there been no windows or doors down this hallway, would you have still shot the scene?

starcentral said:
2.) I use some form of lighting no matter what camera.
Click to expand...

I would argue in your specific case that you did use "lighting" with the F3 by controlling it in your scene through different methods. The first being that you opened all the doors so you could use light coming in through the windows and brighten up the hallway. The second is that even with cream colored walls, and probably a white floor and ceiling you've effectively created a giant soft light box and put your talent inside of it.
 
One thing I want to ask about the hospital scene is how it was exposed? It seems as though not a single place on the woman's skin (3rd picture) got lost from underexposure - sure, the F3 is a good camera, but I have a lot of feeling that a lot of care was given to find the exact levels of how the scen would work. For instance, while the underexposed faces can't get to dark, the overexposed faces can't get to bright. Whatever exposure technique was used for this turned out amazing, but I'm just wondering how in the world it was done!
 
Varies on particularly situation for me as well,i enjoy outdoor available light tho. truthfully what better light source is their than the sun?lmao
 
Well once any light is on its now an existing light.

The trick is control. That's what makes it look like a film. You can make miracles happen with one source if you have the grip to control, bounce, and shape it.
 
A bit of a mystery to me though is how someone exposes for a scene where the lighting style is not typical. Like in the screenshots, the only spots that a Zebra would show as underexposed would probably be like the crease of an armpit or something - how do you know exactly where to set the exposure?
 
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