lighting A Technical Problem Involving Too Much Light

[cameronchapman]

I'm trying to shoot a short, and I'm running into issues with too much natural light. I want to shoot with a really shallow depth of field for most of the shots (this is vital and not something I want to compromise on), which means a wide open aperture (the lenses I'm using go down to f2 and f2.8, and those are the fastest lenses I own, and I'm shooting on a GH1, so the crop factor is 2X). The problem I'm running into is that at that aperture, I'm getting way too much light with my shutter speed set at 60.

I'm going to try shooting around twilight tonight to see if I can manage to get the right amount of light coming in, but barring that, I'm going to need to do something about the amount of light.

I know the logical choice would be to buy an ND filter. And it's on my wishlist, but at the moment, I honestly can't afford one (let me rephrase: I could get one of the cheap $20 Rocketfish ones, but I've heard so many awful things about them I'm thinking I might be better off with all my highlights blown out). And I really don't want to put off filming this short just because I lack one (minor) piece of equipment.

My only alternative is to up the shutter speed. According to my histogram, I'm hitting the sweet spot right around 300-400. It's obviously way faster than I want, but it might be my only option unless I want to put off filming for another few weeks (which I really don't want to do).

So here's my big question: could I add more motion blur in post to make the faster shutter speed of the outdoor shots look more like the indoor shots? I've got access to both After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Is there something else I could do to compensate for all this light? I'm really hoping twilight will work, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but just in case it doesn't, I'd like to have a backup plan.

 

[DeJager]

This happens a lot. With the feature length I just shot this summer, I found myself almost always using 2 ND filters. This is where a matte box would come in handy for all you 5D, 7D, GH users.

 

[Ernest Worthing]

Off the top of my head:

If it's indoors:

Look into gelling ur windows to stop the light coming in instead of buying expensive ND's for ur lenses.

If it's outdoors:

1. Shoot during golden hour
2. Shoot in the shade
3. See if you can get the shutter down to 120 with only small parts blown out here and there
4. Cover those blown out areas with non reflective dark material
5. Keep movement minimal or slow when using a 120 shutter speed so the staccato effect is not so apparent
6. Use negative fill. eg, is ur actor is standing under a tree in the shade and the sunlight is coming from the left, blowing out one side of his face, have someone stand there with black cardboard or even tinted glass

Get creative and see what you can do to get the shutter speed down to at least 120/125, have only tiny parts blow out here and there in the background, have ur actors exposed properly.

As for AE, i dont know much abt it so somebody else might be able to help u out there.

Goodluck!

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

I'd buy the cheap ND filter (the ones I use cost MAYBE $40 and are fine if you can go just a little higher on budget). Even if they give a slight color cast I'd rather try to fix that than try to fix shooting at a really fast shutter speed.

 

[cameronchapman]

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to see if I can swing ordering an ND filter this week, and I'm going to try filming around dusk tonight (if we could just get one really cloudy day, I'd be all set, but we keep either having sun or really thin clouds ). I'll let everyone know how it goes!

 

[Cracker Funk]

Shooting at dusk sounds problematic, cuz you're adding a very serious time-constraint. Plus, even if you only shoot for half an hour, how different is the footage going to look, from the first shot to the last? Very different. In my opinion, get the ND filter, or learn to be happy with wide depth of field.

 

[cameronchapman]

Shooting at dusk sounds problematic, cuz you're adding a very serious time-constraint. Plus, even if you only shoot for half an hour, how different is the footage going to look, from the first shot to the last? Very different. In my opinion, get the ND filter, or learn to be happy with wide depth of field.

Well, the good news is that there are only six shots that need to be done outside, and all are very simple (and only a few seconds each). And they take place on three separate days in the script, so differing light is workable. I may also adjust ISO levels between shots as the light fades, and/or film on more than one day.

But ND filters are moving toward the top of my list of things I need to hurry up and buy.

 

[Cracker Funk]

Well, the good news is that there are only six shots that need to be done outside, and all are very simple (and only a few seconds each). And they take place on three separate days in the script, so differing light is workable. I may also adjust ISO levels between shots as the light fades, and/or film on more than one day.

Oh. Well, that changes things. Okay, then do what Ernest said!

Also, since there are so few shots, I'd think you could do test-footage for each and every shot, with stand-ins? You could completely take the guess-work out of it.

 

[dlevanchuk]

I have an exact issue.. Luckily I live in seattle and we have thick permanent sun diffuser aka clouds for 9 months

 

[rayw]

Try setting your ISO down to 50/100 before manually setting your shutter speed.
You might not have to speed it up so fast with the ISO so low.


EDIT:
Never mind.
I just tried to override my manual ISO with manual aperture + shutter speed and the camera keeps overriding the aperture to a smaller iris.
Maybe your camera will do all three at the same time.

Fun doing these experiments, though.