Ugh. Highlights are a pain in the arse.

D

DanHD

Well-known member
Hey you guys. Me again with all my questions. I love this community.


Anyways, I was DP on a short today. Today's shoot called for an indoor location with light streaming through the windows.

We filmes at 2pm and the light from outside was so intense, and the interior was so dark, that the highlights blew out completely.

I had to expose for the inside, so I could get around 70ire on the guys skin tones (it looked the best that way) but the damn windows were just massive blobs of white.

I numbered my questions so you could answer any random one you please.

1. how do you guys deal with outside highlights when shooting indoors?? is it common practice to either expose for one or the other, or does film usually have the latitude to capture both adequately?

2. On the hpx170, is CineD actually worse for highlights, because of the lack of knee? Should I use another gamma curve with a low knee function indoors and just try to match the look of my other footage in CineD as best I can?

3. My friend at film school told me he just lights the hell out of the indoor stuff so he can Iris down and lower his overall exposure for the outside highlights while retaining the inside stuff. Is that a normal practice?



More questions soon to come. You can bet on it
 
1. how do you guys deal with outside highlights when shooting indoors?? is it common practice to either expose for one or the other, or does film usually have the latitude to capture both adequately?

Latitude is important but you can never rely solely on the cameras performance for the image. What happens when a cloud passes over? It best to try to control the light coming from outside (look at answer 3)

2. On the hpx170, is CineD actually worse for highlights, because of the lack of knee? Should I use another gamma curve with a low knee function indoors and just try to match the look of my other footage in CineD as best I can?

Never used the 170, sry.

3. My friend at film school told me he just lights the hell out of the indoor stuff so he can Iris down and lower his overall exposure for the outside highlights while retaining the inside stuff. Is that a normal practice?

You can always gel the windows with .9ND or more but plan a long set up. I usually keep a portable 6x6 or 12x12 silk and use that outside the windows to control the light. I would not recommend over lighting the interior unless you have ceramic lights to keep the heat+power manageable. Trying to shoot a few 24K HMI's through a silk is too expensive so ND+silk+light interior modestly is the cheapest solution.
 
You have to try to equalize the light levels. Which means either super-lighting the interior to bring it up to a comparable brightness level to the exterior, or cutting down the window light to bring it down to match up with the interior light. No easy way out of that one, you have to do one or the other. Or, the third option is to reframe your shots so that no windows are visible in your shots (but of course this is not always possible).

Cine-D will give you a little bit better latitude, about 1/3 to 1/2 stop.
 
You can buy ND filters but in a sheet...and cover the windows to try and cut light, even in double layers.

EDIT: Just realized this was mentioned already...my apologies.
 
Does anybody have any good suggestions where to buy different size rolls or ND filteres for windows? Also, are there ND solutions for car windows?
 
If you don't have HMIs at your disposal, I would recommend the ND + CTB gel, a lot of non-DPs don't even know that this gel exists. It's great for the typical DVXer who owns tungsten lights like Arris or Moles.

I did a shoot in a downtown LA skyscraper this year and had to accomplish this exact setup. Just beware that on a cloudy day in the AM, even with ND .09 on the windows of the skyscraper, I still used a 1200 watt HMI par through my medium Chimera to even make it so you could see the LA skyline out the window.

There is a big difference between keeping windows from totally blowing out and actually being able to visually discern detail and color through the same window. The 1200 watt PAR was just barely enough too, if it would have been bright and sunny, I would have needed a minimum of a 4K HMI to keep up.

Competing with the sun is tough, even indoors. Takes labor to put up the ND on the windows and it takes a lot of footcandles of light.

Dan

Dan
 
pardon my ignorance but i'm quite new to all of this... how do u get the gels/filters to stick to the window? is there a special solution to make it stick? or is the filter already sticky...or gaffers tape...painting tape?
 
We use gaffers tape the same color as the frame. If it is just glass we try to use transparent tape.
 
I would go with ND/gelling the windows to try and cut light. Back in film school I found a cheap alternative was slightly transparent plastic sheeting or solar screens/mosquito netting. You can find all of that at Home Depot or Lowe's. It even worked for car shots.

Best,
Andy
 
Pre-cut the gel to the size of the glass (as accurately as you can) and mix a solution of one drop Dawn dish soap to a 16oz (or larger) bottle of clean water. Pre-spray the window and squeegee the gel into place. It'll hold for a good bit.

e
 
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