shooting tungsten in daylight w/o correction

[JONATHANEDWARDS]

i am attempting to create a vary cool blue image with saturated colours by shooting on 200t 5217 outside with out correction, then hopeing that with the aid of a colour chart the telecine operator will be able to correct the blue with out looseing anything that is blue eg ( a blue building , blue shirt ).

 

i was going to use a haze filter and most of the shots hopefully with a compresed background useing 50-80mm lens. thankfully theres vary little movement in most of the scenes.

 

the lab i have been talking to does not think this will work vary well.

and i have some reservations about the image being to saturated that vary little colour will show up or looseing all colour

maby some one here has some suggestions.

 

thanks in advance

[David Mullen ASC]

Is this for print or for telecine only?

 

While shooting outdoors on tungsten stock without the 85 filter will overexpose the blue layer and underexpose the red layer, after you correct the image in printing, you will probably mostly see a mild loss of saturation in the reds more than an increase in saturation in the blues. Still, this may be a look you want since softer reds naturally will make the blues look richer.

 

And if this is for telecine only, I worry that the method of correcting the image to normal colors involves dropping the blue channel, so you might not gain anything in terms of making the blues stronger. You may even have noise problems in the blues since they will be denser. If this is for telecine only, I'd shoot normally and use the telecine controls to pump up the blue chroma.

 

But you said you want a cool, blue image so why do you want to correct everything to normal? Don't you want to leave some of the overall blue tint in the image?

 

I think this is a situation where how you art direct the image will be the most powerful way of achieving the look you want.

[JONATHANEDWARDS]

this is for telecine only.

i guess i was worried that the blue would be too blue and kind of sick looking.

 

Most of the outdoor scenes are kind of uncontrolable, but the wardrobe colours are.

 

hum loosing the reds might be kind of the cool. B)

 

 

Thanks david

[Dan Salzmann]

Try shotting with an 81B or 81C on the lens. this sort of half corrects the bluish cast when shooting tungsten film outdoors.

[Dan Salzmann]

Try shotting with an 81B or 81C on the lens. this sort of half corrects the bluish cast when shooting tungsten film outdoors.

[Tony Brown]

I've shot 5248/79 for years without correction. I find the corrected image gives more realistic skin tones while allowing the rest of the image to be more desaturated.

 

I've never liked the grades I get from the daylight stocks.

[Leon Rodriguez]

I agree with Dan. Shoot a coral filter for partial correction. It will still have a blue cast but you may need the reds for realism in the color suite. Better to have them if you need them.

 

Another thing, just to avoid surprises, Here in Texas, daylight can go above 5600K. This is going to effect how much your blue layer is overexposed. Your partial correction should reflect the offset from the 5500K on the preset of your color meter. So measure first, then filter.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Here the light can go enormously over 5600K - murky English spring and autumn skies often read at more than 6500 on my camera. Generally I balance on the clouds to bring the daylight back to neutral and avoid things looking too arctic.

 

Phil

[Sam Wells]

"Daylight" can and does go way over 5600K to considerably under. Skylight can be well over 10,000K.

 

Tiffen's LLD is designed to block enough UV in these cases where you don't want an 85 correction filter.

 

-Sam

[JONATHANEDWARDS]

thank you everyone, you have givein me lots to think about. i will post my results as i plain to do some 16mm tests.

 

i have allways been courious about how blue it gets outdoors, sometimes i can see the difference in a big way between a HMI and daylight . i am small time (indies) so as of yet i do not own a colour temp meter and have looked in to it , but scared away by price. if i do is there any suggestions on models or a good way to judge the temp outside.

[Nitin Sagar]

whats a good color temperature meter to own.my budget is about $1200-1500MAX???

[Tony Brown]

You'll get a minolta mk2 for $500 on ebay.....

[Paul Bruening]

This is amazing. I've always followed Kodak's filter info. Are you gents saying that I can shoot tungsten film in sunlight and color correct for good results afterwards? Can I quit gelling my Tungsten lights outdoors now?

[JONATHANEDWARDS]

This is amazing. I've always followed Kodak's filter info. Are you gents saying that I can shoot tungsten film in sunlight and color correct for good results afterwards? Can I quit gelling my Tungsten lights outdoors now?

Paul my hope was by not correcting in camera i would get a more saturated sick looking image. As the story is vary sad and depicting vary lifeless people, its still a work in progress as I am planning on shooting some tests and funding for the project is up in the air. But I would not suggest shooting w/o correction in daylight w/o your own tests. As my experimentation is not a science. I know some people have good experiences but I would hope not to mislead you. Maybe Tonybrown could jump in here

 

If you use two diff colour temps (tungsten or daylight) you will make it vary hard to correct in the transfer or print. I don’t think you will ever be able to equal out the colour.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Always best to use film that matches the light source, or use a correction filter:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/faq/#prod2

 

Do I need to use an 85 filter?

It is always best to expose film as accurately as possible. This allows more tolerance for any other errors that may creep into the system. If, for example, the 85 filter is not used, the film is overexposed in the blue layer. This difference could be printed out, but if the film was processed in a negative process that was fast in blue or slow in the green and red, or if the intermediates made from the negative were slightly blue, etc. then the results might be too blue, and unacceptable.

 

But you can shoot a tungsten balanced film with daylight or HMI, if that's the "look" you want. As noted, test, Test, TEST to be sure it fits your production.

[David Mullen ASC]

You have to MATCH color temperatures still if you are using tungsten lights in a daylight sitiuation if you don't want the color temperature difference to be visible.

 

Once all your lights are daylight-balanced in a daylight situation, the difference between using the 85B filter on tungsten stock (or daylight film) versus not using the 85B filter on tungsten stock, is that the uncorrected tungsten stock will render a blue-ish image on the negative, but it's withing a correctable range in post. You will have some mild artifacts though, a loss of red saturation (i.e. in skintones) and some overexposure in the blues. In a color-timed print, your shadows and blacks may pick up a tone. So it's not a free lunch but it may get you the look you want. If I were shooting something that I wanted to be rich in oranges and reds, like a desert landscape, I'd probably use the correct filter, but if I were shooting something cool and green, like a forest or green field, I might consider not using the filter. Just depends.

 

The 85 filter also acts as a UV filter, so shooting with no filter may increase you UV haze in some situations, so you might want to still use a UV, skylight, or LLD filter.

 

Of course, if you plan on only partially correcting the image to leave it blue-ish, then it makes even more sense to shoot without the filter.

 

I think though that you'll get richer colors by using the correct filter or daylight stock in daylight situations, if you plan on making a print. For telecine only, it's less of an issue since you can play more with color levels.

[Tony Brown]

This is amazing. I've always followed Kodak's filter info. Are you gents saying that I can shoot tungsten film in sunlight and color correct for good results afterwards? Can I quit gelling my Tungsten lights outdoors now?

No, obviously you mudt still correct the tungsten units for use alongside daylight.

 

I shoot HMI with 5248/5279 and correct in telecine, though be warned its is NOT exactly the same, the color palette available becomes slightly altered, especially lilacs/mauves etc

[Landon D. Parks]

You can always color correct in post to get any look you want. Why sacrifice the actual image being captured?

[Tony Brown]

You can always color correct in post to get any look you want. Why sacrifice the actual image being captured?

I disagree. In my case you cannot adjust the colours in the same way, the palette is permanently changed, I prefer the colour options given to me with the blue bias left in.

 

I leant this when I started a shoot years ago, the 85's hadn't turned up, so we started shooting without. During a scene that invloved some of the lilac/mauve colours I mentions the 85's arrived and we dropped one in.

 

At the transfer we took a split screen from the same scene and found it was impossible to amtch all of the colours exactly. Neither was right or wrong, but they were very different. I preferred, and still do having tested it on many occasions, the 'alternative' palette.

 

So it's not a case of making any sacrifice at all, it's a choice. Try grading a daylight stock and a tungsten stock, you'll notice a similar difference. We don't generally notice it because we don't hard cut the stocks within a scene.

 

You just have to be aware of high UV areas that can get up to 10,000k very quicky.