Using tungsten outside (daytime)

V

vision_filmz

Carbonite Member
In an attempt to save some money and not having to rent HMI, is it even possible to use tungsten lights in the daytime, would they even be bright enough? I have an arri kit that has a 300,650 & 1000. Nothing to serious as it would only be for lighting a couple of people, at least hoping to get some catchlight in their faces.

Thanks
 
It totally depends on the situation. Shade, you can probably get more out of them.

Straight up daylight, nothing but close ups or very tight mediums.

Use shiny boards/mirror boards or cali sunbounces and shake 'em up during the day, move fast.
 
Kholi said:
It totally depends on the situation. Shade, you can probably get more out of them.

Straight up daylight, nothing but close ups or very tight mediums.

Use shiny boards/mirror boards or cali sunbounces and shake 'em up during the day, move fast.
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Thanks for the response, as you are always helpful. Now my question if you are able to reflect light with one of the mentioned reflectors wouldn't moving them fast create an in and out patter over the subjects face, or maybe I am not understanding you?
 
Oh, my bad. I meant move fast shooting. Haha. That way you can maximize daylight.

Cali Sunbounce and Shiny Boards will do PLENTY if you have at least two other people helping you manhandle them. By shake them up I mean "move them when the sun moves to keep the light bouncing." So periodically adjust them.

Wish I had some stills to show you of how to work 'em, but once you have either you'll immediately recognize what I'm talking about. The Shiny/Mirror requires a combo stand/riser to hold it and definitely some bags so it doesn't tip over and kill someone. I've been hit in the head with one AND had one fall on my hand, trust me, it will kill you. That's not even a joke.

The Cali Sunbounces can be held by one person or you can rig em up on a c-stand. They're really good for everything just about, but especially kick and rims/edges.

This doesn't replace what a giant HMI can do, but it also doesn't cost nearly as much money.
 
In general, not even worth using tungsten outside during daylight. The only time I did this was when I shot a day for night scene in which the action took place in a very shaded area, I used probably the exact same 1k as the one you have to key them (no gels since I wanted to make the sunlight look like moonlight) But just to give you an idea of what you're working against, A 1.2k HMI PAR with no lens barely does anything in daylight at more than 15 feet. That was when we had some decent cloud coverage too, forget about direct sunlight.
 
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Kholi is right in that you'll have to put them really close, especially the smaller lights, to get anything out of them, especially after you gel them to daylight. It would work in a closeup and maybe a medium.
 
Kholi said:
It totally depends on the situation. Shade, you can probably get more out of them.

Straight up daylight, nothing but close ups or very tight mediums.

Use shiny boards/mirror boards or cali sunbounces and shake 'em up during the day, move fast.
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Yup, +1 The advantage with using reflective boards, is that your bouncing the same color temp as your shooting in. When using halogen, you technically, should be gelling to the correct color temp, and when doing that you will loose light you can't afford to loose. Thats why 99% of the time, HMI's are about the only light worth using in daylight.
 
On sunny days there is really no reason to use the lights for a simple shoot. White reflectors for shadows fill, silver/gold reflectors for catchlights or hairlights if needed. That should work better than any light.

And on overcast days the color temp difference between the tungsten and the outside light will be even greater. Tungstens can be useful at dawn/dusk to get deep blue sky, but it doesn't look like what you are after.
 
+1 for the shiny board, they really do wonders.

The only time I've used a tungsten fixture outside is right when the sun is going down and used it as a warm fill. Any other time of day you're not going to be able to beat the power of the sun with a small lamp.
 
If you find that you want to drop the kelvin, throw the bounced light through a frame of 1/4 CTO. This is a really nice way to go about creating a warm(er) edge or hairlight. Or, if you have enough of it, try using coral for people that have very pale skin.

And, of course, do not be afraid to diffuse the bounce or bounce ... the bounce. xD Having the ability to control your beam can create a very interesting, soft wrap if your bead/foam is positioned in the right place.

Cali Sunbounce is on my list of to-grabs, it's a pretty crazy piece of gear.
 
This took a long-darned time to find:


Bounce.jpg


See the Mirrors back there on the high rollers? Those are the units.

They aren't doing a ton right now, but it did do plenty at that time for following people around in this shot:

gunsling.png


You can see what it did here, along with the slight bounce of the diffusion:

derbandit.png


And here:

hero.png



Wanted a hyper-stylized look, which meant super strong rims and kicks. There's one mirror low, catching the sun, off to the back of him (camera right) doing all of the work from his thigh up to his head.

I would've done one for his leg, time constraints, and maybe overkill.

So you can use them for decently wide shots as well, again, you need manpower for it but not as much as trying to wrangle, power, manage an HMI and Generator.
 
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Wow those are some expensive shiney boards and silks. I think a trip to the fabric store is in order.
 
You can buy some flexible carnival mirror and just tape it down onto some foam core, works great and very cheap. I think film tools sells the mirror for less than $15 if memory serves correctly.

And of course you can go to home depot and just buy some foamcore that has silver on one side and use that.
 
On that note and not wanting to create another thread, can anyone tell me how did they get these lights yellow in the background? I'm assuming gels, but every time I have used gels you see the paper and c47's which I actually hate. these appear a lot different than what I have done

 
vision_filmz said:
On that note and not wanting to create another thread, can anyone tell me how did they get these lights yellow in the background? I'm assuming gels, but every time I have used gels you see the paper and c47's which I actually hate. these appear a lot different than what I have done

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Actually, very simple. Use a daylight source for your subject, then white balance to that. Then use tungsten sources in the b/g. They will appear warm just like the photo.

The trick is, if you don't have flo's or HMI's or LED's for the subject place CTB on these lights and leave the b/g lights clean.
 
Paul Hudson said:
Actually, very simple. Use a daylight source for your subject, then white balance to that. Then use tungsten sources in the b/g. They will appear warm just like the photo.

The trick is, if you don't have flo's or HMI's or LED's for the subject place CTB on these lights and leave the b/g lights clean.
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They may be warming these up even more than normal if so add more blue to the fore ground or use gel frames and add CTO or possibly in this case yellow.
 
I want to comment on a pet peeve about using bounce. The easiest thing for the grip to do with say a 4'X4' beadboard is set it on the ground or hold it up and look over it. What that does is bring the light up into the faces from below and that is a horror flick look, not what you usually want. So put them up higher on a C-stand or at least have the grip hold them over her head and look underneath the bounce in order to get natural shadows.

I don't have any shiny boards in my kit, though they are great when I rent them because the hard side has a long throw, but 95% of the time beadboard with some sliver lame on one side and the beadboard on the other works great.
 
I can agree with that, although sometimes I'll purposely bounce right into the shadows under someone's face to fill them out if they're a bit too dark. Given the range of cheap digital cameras (cheap meaning sub Alexa, Epic) it's helped in post when it's time for balancing.

That's pretty light bounce, though. Like barely tilted off of the ground depending on time of day.
 
Kholi said:
So you can use them for decently wide shots as well, again, you need manpower for it but not as much as trying to wrangle, power, manage an HMI and Generator.
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Boards are great when you have uninterrupted sun all day like when you are shooting in the desert. But, if you shoot in the city like I do, you usually only have the sun for a short while before it goes behind a cloud or building. Thats when you need HMIs. If you can’t afford a big HMI and the big generator to operate it, your best bet would be a 4k Par. You can run a 4k on a modified 7500W Honda EU6500is generator.

Josh "making it in the shade" White
 
White Hot Josh said:
Boards are great when you have uninterrupted sun all day like when you are shooting in the desert. But, if you shoot in the city like I do, you usually only have the sun for a short while before it goes behind a cloud or building. Thats when you need HMIs. If you can’t afford a big HMI and the big generator to operate it, your best bet would be a 4k Par. You can run a 4k on a modified 7500W Honda EU6500is generator.

Josh "making it in the shade" White
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vision_filmz said:
In an attempt to save some money and not having to rent HMI, is it even possible to use tungsten lights in the daytime, would they even be bright enough? I have an arri kit that has a 300,650 & 1000. Nothing to serious as it would only be for lighting a couple of people, at least hoping to get some catchlight in their faces.

Thanks
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Naturally, if someone has the money to get a generator, permits, HMI, crew, transport for that setup, then that's what you would do.

OP asked about the exact opposite.

Chances are, if you're in the city and it's not enough shade to shoot without ND etc, there's enough light to still create bounce for certain situations. The same kind that you'd be limited to using Shiny's for.

In addition, this is why people on a budget should choose locations wisely.
 
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