Tips and tricks on shooting exterior under bright day?

K

Kenneth Lau

Active member
Hey guys, summer is coming soon and was wondering you guys have tips and tricks that can share when shooting day exterior in a bright sunny day.

I did a shoot last week and struggled a bit. It was a steadi cam shot going from fairly wide to MCU, and then during same take, pulls back out to wides. It was too wide for me to diffuse the sun as I only had a 12x12 1/4 grid silk.

I NDed it down with ND1.2 pairing up with a Polar. After I found my picture a little desaturated and the colour not as vivid as I wished it could be. I am thinking it might have to do with the fact that I did not have IR on.

From now on, I am thinking of stoping it down using shutter or T stop rather than relying too much on ND filtration when shooting in bright day exterior.

Any thoughts on this ?
 
Hmmm, I'm not sure the shutter will be the way you'd really go about getting the desired stop, as it'll make all the motion noticeably crisper. If you want that look though, great, definitely stop down a little using your shutter. Either way doing closes and wides in the same shot will make lighting pretty difficult, but at the same time, this could all change depending on the desired look.

If you want something soft and pretty, with no hard edge, you're going to have a tough time pulling that shot off without big overheads. If you'd like a hard edge, but a soft wrap, try a 12x ultra (or two) to fill them in. At the same time, maybe you want a darker look and in that case just go with what you've got...bare sun. Just try and plan your day around where the sun will be...shoot your wides early and late in the day, and closes in the middle where you'll have room to shape.

The day exteriors start to really push the limits of a lot of cameras, so if you can get something with a bit better dynamic range, that always helps.

The IR is pretty crucial though, definitely could be why you're having the problems you are. The pola could also be taking down smaller reflections that are decreasing the vividness you're talking about.
 
I just got off a bright day light shoot this past week. We used a Scarlet and I think we did alright in the highlights. We used a lot of ND and a Tiffen polarizer of mine which didn't work all that well. Depending on the scene I did what I could to use the sun as back light and maybe bounce a little back. Other than that it was trying to keep the action in the dappled light of the trees. A few times we were just in it and we were counting on the camera to hold those highlights. We shot at f4, 5.6 and sometimes 8 or a splt at 800 ISO. We didn't get too much more shallow than that except for a few shots. We were pulling focus on a stedicam. I'm really pleased with it.

If an actor was getting heat they'd be facing the sun and vice versa. Ideally the backlight is your friend. So shoot late and early and stay out of the mid afternoon sun.
 
Scrims and reflectors are the affordable method of lighting bright daylight.

With steadicam is is possible to have a reflector move with the talent

Going back to a wide is problematic.

I think two thoughts - lighting might be less critical with a wide - os if the reflector backs of it may not matter

The second thought is 'know your limits' - I have been hitting into a lot of low budget directors who plan shots far too complex for small crews/low budgets

S
 
Lots of great suggestions in this thread. It's not rocket science but I tend to forget some of these in the heat of the moment. The one I always remember: if possible, shoot in the shade.
 
Kenneth Lau said:
I did a shoot last week and struggled a bit. It was a steadi cam shot going from fairly wide to MCU, and then during same take, pulls back out to wides. It was too wide for me to diffuse the sun as I only had a 12x12 1/4 grid silk.
Click to expand...

Unless the camera movement was motivated by the scene you could've split the scene into 2 shots both correctly exposed. The audience would prefer correct exposure of the subject and likely never miss the steadicam shot.

"The bigger the budget the more background it buys you." I forget who said that but it's very true.
 
morgan_moore said:
The second thought is 'know your limits' - I have been hitting into a lot of low budget directors who plan shots far too complex for small crews/low budgets

S
Click to expand...

Amen to this. It's hard to get low budget directors to accept reasonable limitations sometimes. As DP it's your job to elucidate the technical concerns to your director and suggest solutions given the limits of their budget. I also test a lot and bring that back for discussion.

I was concerned about the same thing the OP is concerned with and I spoke to a friend, a DP who is much more experienced and works on shoots that are not limited as to gear and crew. He said "embrace it." He said, use the light to tell the story. If you have two characters and one has to be in the direct sun, make it during a moment where that works, like they're facing a harsh reality, or losing their temper. When it's right for the story, put them in the beautiful backlight.

I remember seeing a setup from Walter Mitty in ASC magazine for a standing two shot on the street with a huge 20 X 20 butterfly, a 10 X 20 bounce, another 12 X 12 bounce and bounce on the sidewalk probably another 10 X 20 in the shot. Even with this, you'll get 2 steps, turn, stop, scene. You wouldn't be able to shoot this setup wide and you certainly can't do a walk and talk. It's a great picture to bring to a low budget director. We can do all that or we can move across the street during this particular time of day, and shoot it in the shade with little more than a bounce.

I also recommend an iPhone app called SunSeeker that is great for scouting exteriors. It tells you where the sun will be at a given time of day.
 
hscully said:
I just got off a bright day light shoot this past week. We used a Scarlet and I think we did alright in the highlights. We used a lot of ND and a Tiffen polarizer of mine which didn't work all that well. Depending on the scene I did what I could to use the sun as back light and maybe bounce a little back. Other than that it was trying to keep the action in the dappled light of the trees. A few times we were just in it and we were counting on the camera to hold those highlights. We shot at f4, 5.6 and sometimes 8 or a splt at 800 ISO. We didn't get too much more shallow than that except for a few shots. We were pulling focus on a stedicam. I'm really pleased with it.

If an actor was getting heat they'd be facing the sun and vice versa. Ideally the backlight is your friend. So shoot late and early and stay out of the mid afternoon sun.
Click to expand...



I am a big fan of backlighting when comes to exterior day scene. The rim light that glows on actors/actress hair makes them look really nice, and just a kick of bounce you have nice exposure. Interesting enough that I also was shooting with Scarlet on my last shoot.
 
Nirv said:
Unless the camera movement was motivated by the scene you could've split the scene into 2 shots both correctly exposed. The audience would prefer correct exposure of the subject and likely never miss the steadicam shot.

"The bigger the budget the more background it buys you." I forget who said that but it's very true.
Click to expand...


I was shooting a musical short film. There were actress dancing all over the scene, some intimate moment that I want to push in close up, and they end the scene by one leaving the other and I want to pull out to wide to show how lonely she is at the end.
 
I was wondering, will you guys do a scene where you won't diffuse the sun in the wides, and rig overhead diffuse in MCU and CU.

That way, will continuity be a problem for lighting?
 
I will do that if I can sell it that they are "in the shade" in the wide. So say they are under trees and they're in and out of the sun just by blocking. Now we want to go in for an ECU. I'll throw up a silk for that if it works. Lately not so much.
 
Kenneth Lau said:
I am a big fan of backlighting when comes to exterior day scene. The rim light that glows on actors/actress hair makes them look really nice, and just a kick of bounce you have nice exposure. Interesting enough that I also was shooting with Scarlet on my last shoot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I chose the Scarlet so that we would have the info to pull out the mids and also protect the detail in the highlights. I will get a chance tomorrow to really take a look at it and push it around. We're really happy with what we have. My current camera is a Panasonic AF100 and I have shot a lot with it. I tested for this and the highlights were not bad but in order to expose properly under these conditions and pull the mids out on the backlit shots, the Scarlet was much better. There is also a ton of detail in the skies that would have been lost to us. We need it for the story. Plus the director wants to be able to keep it pretty rich in the grade. All in all I think we did pretty well. The Scarlet is a pleasure to shoot with.
 
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