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Got a lighting problem.

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harmonica44

I am shooting a short film, and have a problem with shooting a chase scene at night. I have two lenses, the kit lense, and a new 1.4. Now the problem with the 1.4 is that it looses focus really easily and if I'm doing a chase or action scene, where I'm moving the camera with the actors, then it sucks.

The other lens is much better but is horrible for night lighting. I can get enough light to make it bright, but the problem is, is that the actors faces are way too bright. If I bring the light down, then there is a lot of red grain on the actors clothes. The actors are wearing black and I've noticed that the 18-55 lens is bad for black, cause of grain.

Take the movie Terminator 2 for example. In the night scenes, the Terminator was dressed in all black. But you could see everything he was wearing and could tell that his jacket was undone. In my scenes, with the 18-55, all you can see is black, and can't even see what they are wearing, just that it's black with grain. If I light it bright enough to see the black clothes, then it's way too bright for their faces.

The only way I know how to fix the grain is with the 1.4 but then I got focus problems. With my previous shots, I shot with both lenses, and have to choose which takes look better. The grainy on black takes look better than the out of focus, half the time, takes. But I would like to shoot the rest of this film without having to choose the lesser of two evils. Is there a different way of lighting, or different type of lens I could use for this problem? Thanks.
 
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My advice would be to go with the 1.4 lens (though maybe shooting a bit more open) and take the time to let your AC get marks and rehearse. Don't have an AC? For this sort of thing, you should, and someone with a bit of experience (not just a friend on the set).

I'm assuming that you're shooting with a Super 35 sized sensor (Red, FS-100, 7D). The f/1.4 lens is giving you what you desire: the shallow DOF that says "this is like 35mm film". You've found the drawback - focus is a bitch. A good AC is worth their weight in gold. Maybe hire someone for just the night shoots? Or get an AC to operate (for the operator credit) while teaching someone else? There is no substitute for experience.

Another option, shoot the night scenes with another camera altogether - 1/3", 2/3" - (say an HDX200). These (can) shoot in low light and everything is in focus.... which is why I hate 'video'.
 
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Well I don't have the budget right now to get another camera, and the next shoot for this night scene is in three days. I looked up several definitions for what AC could stand for, so forgive me, but what is one? I was hoping to get some new or different lights or another lens or something, or somehow make do with my T2i cam. I can see about boring a friends' camcorder but everyone I know has low quality camcorders by comparison, that are probably just going to look worse, in other ways.

I also looked up lenses off this sight, but not sure of course if they will do well for what I need, or if they can even hook up to my camera, the Canon T2i.

http://www.videography.com/article/92500
 
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AC = Assistant Cameraman, or camera assistant - your version of Google may be out-of-date. The AC is the person who. on a film of any size at all, focuses the camera. Trying to focus by eye is a black art and not many people can do it - you say as much yourself. The AC takes marks off the ground, matches them with marks on the lens, and manually pulls focus through the shot. A really good AC can do this even if the camera is moving and even if the actor misses their mark.

If you're trying to do this kind of shot with a Super 35 camera (defined above, but the T2i with it's APS-C sensor is one) but without an AC, you're missing the point. You want that cool DOF? This is the price you pay: someone, not you, has to deal with the focus without looking through the lens - it's a really tough job. You can shoot stopped down, or with a wider lens, and get everything back in focus, but wasn't the whole point the selective DOF? So stop down to f/4 and maybe it'll work with the ISO dialed up a bit. Basically though, you have the wrong camera.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.
 
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Hmm wish I had known that when buying the camera. Well it's too late to get a new one for the rest of this short film. And it will be a while before I have the budget for a new one. So they only way to get rid of grain on black is with a new camera, or what exactly is this camera's problem besides the lens focus?

I guess if no lens can cover this I will have to shoot it the way it is. I had a DP who made several goodlooking short films before, but he had to leave on a personal emergency. He was going to shoot the night scenes and thought the canon T2i would have done a better job than his HV20. What would he have done, or I guess I should ask him that.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I guess if no lens can cover this I will have to shoot it the way it is. I had a DP who made several goodlooking short films before, but he had to leave on a personal emergency. He was going to shoot the night scenes and thought the canon T2i would have done a better job than his HV20. What would he have done, or I guess I should ask him that.
Click to expand...

If the scene is properly lit you should have no issues. Even in low light an experienced DP should be able to come up with shots that will work, and will have the skills to keep things in focus. This isn't a limitation of just the t2i, it's just as much of an issue on all films.
 
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Well it seems no matter now much light I throw in I will always get that grain on black clothes. Even in my scenes that take place in the day time have it somewhat, and the only way to get rid of it, is to either overlight to the point of the actors faces being pale, or to switch to the 1.4 lens.

I think I will have to either splurge on more lights or another lens. For the indoor scenes at night more lights are on option, but for the outdoor scenes, most of the stuff is gorilla shooting at night, and it's not like I actually have the streets booked off. I'm going to have to shoot the actors running down the sidewalks and alleyways without permission. So not a lot of time to set up several lights. For example though, how many lights that are say 250 watts each, would I need for night?

Also some movies use grain at night as a stylistic choice. Green Zone for example has a lot of grain at night, and people call it style. So at what point does grain on black go from stylish to sloppy?
 
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So shoot around your limitations. Posting here blaming your camera isn't going to help anything. There have been limitations to work around on EVERY shoot I have ever been on. Figuring out how to work around them is integral to filmmaking.
 
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For sure. Just not sure how to work around them quite yet. But so far, most of the time, you can't know till after the footage is shot. It looks different on a TV screen or laptop screen, compared to the small screen on the T2i. I didn't even see the grain while shooting with the cam. So I definitely will have to do a lot of work in post.
 
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The lens doesn't lose focus, it just has shallow depth of field when used wide open. ngoforth and SinEater have some good suggestions, but if you wanted deep focus shots and/or auto-focus I have no idea why you bought the T2i.
 
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Well at the time I had to buy a camera without knowing exactly what the camera did. I can't know the full limitations of something till I use it unfortunately. Well if viewers won't mind the action chase scenes shot with a shallow DOP then I will shoot it like that. I got my friend who took classes in photography to shoot it, since the DP left, and she says that it looses focus easily. But yeah, I guess she meant shallow DOP.

Well I guess I'll shoot the scene with both the 18-55 lens and a 1.4 lens. I'll do several takes of course and try to get an equal amount with both lenses, then decide after, which looks best shallow DOP and grain.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well at the time I had to buy a camera without knowing exactly what the camera did. I can't know the full limitations of something till I use it unfortunately. Well if viewers won't mind the action chase scenes shot with a shallow DOP then I will shoot it like that. I got my friend who took classes in photography to shoot it, since the DP left, and she says that it looses focus easily. But yeah, I guess she meant shallow DOP.

Well I guess I'll shoot the scene with both the 18-55 lens and a 1.4 lens. I'll do several takes of course and try to get an equal amount with both lenses, then decide after, which looks best shallow DOP and grain.
Click to expand...

What do your test shots look like or were you planning on experimenting on location?
 
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Few solutions:

1. Don't run the lens all the way open. Even stepping it down to 1.8 will help a lot, all (cheap) lenses are soft wide open, even more soft than the aperture would allow. See if you can get away with 2 or 2.2. Still more light than the kit lens, deeper DOF.

2. Plan shots with very little movement. Put the camera on a tripod and lock it off. May not be ideal, but you have to work with what you got. That's the nature of night shoots.

3. Mark your focus. A follow focus unit would really help here, but put your actor in position a, mark the focus on the ring with a piece of tape. Move to position b and mark it again. Now, during the take roll from a to b as your actor moves.

4. Live with a little bit of soft focus. It's common, you see the camera rack too far and come back. I have one client that wants me to do that a lot because he likes the look. Even the famous dslr episode of House did it. They shot at night and even a pro DP and camera ops had the same focus issues.

5. Get an external monitor. Making the picture big makes it easier to focus.

6. Get a really wide fast lens. Like a 24 f/1.4 or wide as possible (the 28 1.8 is less). The wider the lens, the deeper the DOF.

7. More lights. Stick flood lights and work lights everywhere. Make them "practical" or part of the set. Then you can stop the lens down and get a deeper DOF with no noise.

Nature of the game. You can't always have what you want, make the compromises that work best.
 
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7. More lights -- and mainly on the clothing, which means you'll need fine grained control over where your light is falling...

8. Replace your black clothing with dark charcoal gray clothing and apply makeup to your actor that is a shade darker than their normal skin tone... this will bring the exposure levels of the lightest parts of the subject and the darkest parts closer together.

9. Don't compensate for the low light by changing your ISO setting, THIS ADDS GRAIN to the image... if the image is too dark, refer to #7. Move the lights closer or use bigger fixtures.
 
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The 'grain' (noise) is coming from cranking the gain on the camera up too high. What sort of ISO are setting the camera to? Some cameras (Canon 1D, Sony FS-100) handle radically increased gain better than others. Determine at what gain/ISO setting you start to get too much noise in the blacks and then never go there. A few simple test shots should give you this information. Shoot a white card, a gray card and something deep black (not a card - too reflective) in the same shot. Expose for the middle (gray) but don't let the white blow out. Roll 5 seconds, cut, then change the ISO and do it again. Change the ISO by whole stops (i.e. 100, 200,400,800) else you'll spend days on the test.

Believe me, you can pour enough light on to make the noise go away - basically by adding enough light that you can decrease the gain required to get exposure. But you probably don't have the budget for those lights.

Possible solutions:
  • Shoot at dusk/dawn when it's dark enough to read headlights etc, but while there is still ambient light. This would require extreme organization to do.
  • Shoot day-for-night (search for the term). For a long part of the history of cinema night shoots were just not possible - no film would work at night (without enormous banks of lights), so they shot during the day and treated the film in exposure and in post to feel like night.
  • Don't shoot at night. Re-write your scenes so that they take place during the day. [Easiest option]
 
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Also - I neglected to check which part of the forum I was in before my first reply on this topic. I replied expecting you to have some experience, but only this morning realized this was the Newbies section. I'm not normally that grumpy.

That being said - why, as a newbie, did you feel the need to do something so difficult as shoot at night? To learn the techniques of cinema, if you can't get experience (or go to school) then start simple: two people at a table (with plenty of light), then movement, etc., etc.
 
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Well a DP was originally suppose to do the shooting, but had to leave on a personal emergency. So I'm left to shoot the night scenes, and my friend is doing it for me. I actually had grain from setting the camera to 800 ISO, for night. I know not to go over 800, from what I was told on here before. I don't think the ISO is the problem, it's just that there always seem to be grain on black clothes and anything black, unless I overlight, or use a 1.4.

So the 1.4 doesn't loose focus easily, it just has a shallow depth of field then, right? If that's the case I can just shoot the chase scene, with a shallow depth of field and the actors should look fine, as long as they are clear and don't get lost in the shallow blurry background. Or perhaps I can shoot when it's not so late at night, with a brighter sky, then blacken it to look late in post?

As far as Knightly said, I can't get a make up artist in time, to make the faces darker, and I've already started shooting with the actors wearing black. I got the next shoot coming up and don't think I'll be able to find a make up person in time. I can get my friend to do it with her make up and see how it turns out, but will probably have to shoot with a back up plan. I will light it different ways, and try to keep the lights on their clothes more so. I can't get more than four lights right now, I don't think. I am shooting on real streets, and don't have the time or permission to hook up so many different lights with different extensions. I will see about getting that 24 1/4 lens, but how is that lens different exactly? And I will see about using going in and out of focus as Paul said, for style. Sometimes grain on black came off as stylistic too, in some movies.
 
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Just cause the lens has a max aperture of f/1.4 doesn't mean you have to run it at that. It can probably go to f/22 or something. Anything between 1.4 and 3.5 is faster than your kit lens.

24mm makes a difference because it's wider. As we said before, wider=deeper DOF.

And the focus problems you're having are due to the shallow DOF. Wide open on some lenses, I've had one eye in focus and the other out. You're also picking a few of our suggestions and asking how that works? If it doesn't work, do a different one.

Night shoots are HARD. There are a lot of factors and you need a lot of light. For your first few shoots, night is a bad idea.

We've talked about in the past biting off more than you can chew man. Tou're doing it here apparently.

You're first short should be 60-90 seconds, a little bit of dialogue, one or two actors. Practice technique. Baby steps. Short two, add another 60 seconds.

You oughtta look into a beginners photography class too. I've seen people (myself included) explain aperture, ISO, focal length, DOF etc over and over but reading about it doesn't seem to be taking. You need a hands on teacher, or at the least hands on experience.

And that's no insult either, please don't read it as such. I can only learn so much by reading too. I'm the type of guy that has to get out there and try every button and pull something apart to figure it out. No harm in it.
 
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