Varying light levels

C

Captain Jack

Member
I have a shot that involves two subjects of equal importance. One is well lit (e.g. plasma TV) and the other is dark. I'm starting on one and ending my pan on the other. How do you compensate for the variance in lighting levels? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Well normally when using cine-lenses they have a non-clicked aperture, as such you would just stop down/open up the lens when you do the pan.
 
So you "pull aperture" like focus? I don't have the luxury of cine-lenses... yet. What would you suggest without cine-lenses?
 
Don't do an aperture pull unless absolutely necessary an you have something to hide it in. In this instance it might work to hide it in the pan, but why not just turn the brightness down on the TV? Or bring the light up on the subject?
 
This was a general question covering a variety of scenarios. One in particular is moving from indoors to outdoors. Or, let's say I can't adjust the light on the other subject. For instance a night time bedroom scene with a pan from the TV to a person sleeping.
 
You can't adjust your light levels in a controlled indoor situation?

I have radically adjusted TV sets in shots to match them to scene light levels, color balance too.

Balancing light ratios, color temp, and levels so you maintain a single constant exposure and white balance setting in camera throughout a scene is the best way to handle this. That is the heart of a "cinematic" look.
 
Razz16mm said:
You can't adjust your light levels in a controlled indoor situation?

I have radically adjusted TV sets in shots to match them to scene light levels, color balance too.

Balancing light ratios, color temp, and levels so you maintain a single constant exposure and white balance setting in camera throughout a scene is the best way to handle this. That is the heart of a "cinematic" look.
Click to expand...

+1 This would be my preferred method, unless you are working some low budget reality TV show where it doesn't really matter.
 
Captain Jack said:
This was a general question covering a variety of scenarios. One in particular is moving from indoors to outdoors. Or, let's say I can't adjust the light on the other subject. For instance a night time bedroom scene with a pan from the TV to a person sleeping.
Click to expand...
The only "normal" scenario for an aperture adjustment during a shot is moving from outdoors to indoors or vice-versa. An example like panning from a TV to a person sleeping usually involves lighting. Things may be changing as cameras get HDR capability, in which case, you'd have the dynamic range to properly expose a TV while exposing the person sleeping with the same amount of light. But since the invention of TV, that type of shot has been accomplished by having another brighter flickering light source falling on the person to imitate the TV light. I suppose if you had absolutely no budget for lights, you could do an aperture pull, but it would more likely look like a bad auto-aperture on a consumer camera, as the whole room would start to get brighter as the pan happened. To me, that screams "amateur".
 
Yes, as long as you are controlled (indoors) you can adjust forever. But the OP asked about inside to outside. And yes, this too can be controlled to a degree if you have the budget for the lighting and grip needed.
 
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