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DIY moon light

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dreamoftheiris

Hey all I have a shoot coming up and a lot of it takes place at night.

I really hate day for night and think it looks ridiculous. I was wondering if any of you knew a good way to make a cheap, DIY moon light set up that would work in a wooded area.

I will not have the luxury of street lights and the story requires backwoods.


Camera used will be a Canon T2i.
 
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Test, test and TEST. Be ready for razor thin DOF. Your talent moves 6 inches and out of focus.

I'd suggest if doing a night shot use some discreet diffused lighting. Shoot at a distance a bit and shoot wide to keep things better in focus and when shooting closeups, keep then still is my advise. I shot in a low light scene the other night w/ my T2i and a 50mm 1.8 and focus was an issue if the talent moved 6 inches to or fro.
 
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Lighting the dark in a cinematographical (word? lol) way would have to be one of the most difficult tasks for most, if not all, on this forum to give advice.

This is a specialty that experts in lighting debate and then only come to general a conclusion.

As far as I can tell, there is no DYI fix. Have you extensively tried to make day for night work?
 
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In a heavily wooded area where you can't see the sky, day for night may be a much better solution than trying to light up the night. I don't know how DIY you want it to be, but strings of fairy lights, festoon lights and/or china balls between trees could give you a reasonable level of ambient light with a DSLR and a fast lens. A popular look for moonlit scenes has that kind of soft, almost shadowless light from above, alongside harder lights used as kickers or backlights.
 
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I will let you in on one of my techniques i have yet to test but i suspect will create amazing moonlight effect. All you will need is a large piece of paper or card (A3 or A2) and a strong light. have someone hold the piece or card/paper up and have another shine the light on to it, the reflected light should be strong enough to make a difference on camera but also be subtle enough to look like moonlight.

If you use it, if you could let me know how well it works, that'd be great.
 
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If you're outdoors, lighting the background is the bit that will sell it... polcan99 has some bits on youtube for indoor night time lighting as well that is very good in his color correction video.
 
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What lights and power supply do you have available to you?

Do It Yourself lighting still requires two things: lights and power.
There are no DIY methods that do not include both of those. Tell
us what you have and we'll offer suggestions.
 
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What about making little changes in the script to allow for certain light sources?
Try adding a campfire, lanterns or flashlights...A car with headlights on... Be creative, maybe youcan work your way areound the moonlight.
 
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There are many different possibilities. But we don't know anything
about the shoot or the filmmaker other than the camera being used.
Which, in my opinion, is not even an issue when lighting an exterior
scene. I would light pretty much the same way if I was using a Flip, a
DSLR a camcorder or the F900.
 
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I think we are going to shoot most of the night stuff as day for night.

I recently tried it out using color corrector in Final Cut and the results were not as bad as expected.


However, due to some actors availability, we will be forced to actually shoot some stuff at night.

Good news, though we have a generator which we will be able to use as well as some portable LED worklights.

My thoughts are to string a few of those LED work lights on some trees overhead and use the generator to bring a few lights back with us.

Question: The lights I will be using will be Interfit SXT3200 tungsten lighting kit

http://www.interfitphotographic.com/Lighitng/Product Pages/SXT3200 tugsten.php


I have some old Daylight bulbs which will fit those lights. Would that be recommended for night shooting INSTEAD of the tungsten lights?
 
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