85 filter? Yes or no?

[Brendan mk Uegama]

I'm shooting a projet on 7218 soon with close 65-70% Day scenes and the remainder night scenes. I was talking with another DP and he was saying I shouldn't put an 85 filter on to correct for the daylight and should fix it in post, since were going digital. Slapping on the filter doesn't take up more time on the day so why not correct there? It's not like we loose a lot of stop. I've always like fixing as much IN camera as possible before going to digital.

 

Any suggestions, thoughts or comments on why it's an avantage to fix it in post?

[Stephen Williams]

I'm shooting a projet on 7218 soon with close 65-70% Day scenes and the remainder night scenes. I was talking with another DP and he was saying I shouldn't put an 85 filter on to correct for the daylight and should fix it in post, since were going digital. Slapping on the filter doesn't take up more time on the day so why not correct there? It's not like we loose a lot of stop. I've always like fixing as much IN camera as possible before going to digital.

 

Any suggestions, thoughts or comments on why it's an avantage to fix it in post?

 

Hi,

 

I usually do, many people don't bother. You will use 2/3 stop but with 7218 in daylight wouldn't you want a stack of ND's in any case?

 

Stephen

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

The 85 will only help you as you take it into digital post. It's better to capture "correct" color images and then manipulate, then start with an image that's already experience a lot of color loss due to non-correction while shooting.

 

Also, if it's a clear day, 7218 will be tough to shoot with. You'll really need to close down that aperture. Try and get your hands on a bit of 7217 if you can, otherwise, I'd try and get an 85-Pola filter and some ND 6 or 9 to really help you stick around the lower T stops.

[Dennis Kisilyov]

I had some footage on Tungsten - that was shot in daylight - corrected in post, and some shot with a 85A and 85B. I prefer the look of the Real 85A - not the one added in POST - though it looks similar.

[chris kempinski]

I agree,

The "fix it in post" metality I think is a preference to some, but not for me.

Color and image quality is what cinematography is all about. Using gel on

your lights and filters on your lens will give you a truer image in the end.

 

 

Cheers

Chris

[Michael Nash]

When you shoot uncorrected under the "wrong" color temperature of light, you're skewing the densities of the film's color layers. Specifically, with daylight on tungsten stock you're overexposing the blue-sensitive layer and underexposing the red. This can have the result of slightly less saturation in reds (and skintones) when corrected in post. It's a minor difference, but it is a difference nonetheless.

 

Getting "true" color on any given film stock is relative though, since every film reproduces color a little differently. Some people filter their cameras to compensate for slight color biases of the film they're using, even when shooting under the correct color temperature. Other times you can deliberately skew the color reproduction of the film away from normal if you want, to change subtleties of color reproduction in an otherwise correctly balanced scene.

[Elliot Rudmann]

While we're on this topic - i've heard of some cinematographers completely staying away from daylight stocks completely, preferring filtered tungsten stocks instead. Why is this, and would this be a wise path to take? I've heard that tungsten stocks are a bit sharper than daylight but I cannot cite any sources on that.

 

Brendan - you should really try to get your hands on some 200T 7217 - in my experience using it, the grain is significantly tighter than '18 - and like others, I would prefer to use the 85 filter rather than relying on it being corrected in post. Good luck

[David Mullen ASC]

It's just personal taste -- there's nothing wrong with daylight stocks. The old ones used to be more contrasty ('45 and the old '97) but that's not really true anymore. Daylight stocks have a slower-speed blue layer, so blues are less grainy.

 

The advantage of tungsten stocks is the ability to use them for both daylight and tungsten scenes, or pull the 85 filter in low-light and gain 2/3's of a stop in fading daylight.

 

Personally, I use daylight stocks all the time, but right now, I'm working with another DP who doesn't like them. But since he's avoided them for years, I don't think he's familiar with how good the modern daylight stocks are. However, since he likes to use one 500T stock for everything, I don't think it matters to him anyway because he doesn't want to carry two stocks. We carry both 5212 (100T) and 5229 (Expression 500T) and I use the 100T outdoors with the 85, but he uses the 500T for everything.

 

I don't like having to use an 85 filter just to get correct color in a scene, nor do I like using a faster stock and getting less speed out of it just because of the filter. It annoys me if I can't put the 85 filter behind the lens so I don't have to look through it. It's misleading to see everything through that golden bias in the viewfinder. Also you put an 85 filter on 500T stock to get (almost) the same working speed as a 250D, but you still have the grain of a 500 ASA stock, not that these days, it's a problem.

 

But if I were shooting a movie where I wasn't sure what the exact breakdown was going to be between the daylight and tungsten-lit scenes in order to get the correct amounts of each stock, I'd probably use tungsten stocks just in case, and filter for daylight.

[Guest Zulkifli Yusof]

Outdoors with 200T and tungsten lights. If I use an 85 on the film, would I need to use CTB on my tungsten lights?

[Frank Barrera]

Outdoors with 200T and tungsten lights. If I use an 85 on the film, would I need to use CTB on my tungsten lights?

If you want the tungsten units to read as "daylight" then Yes. If you don't CTB them they will be rendered very orange.

[Dominic Case]

Outdoors with 200T and tungsten lights.

Regardless of what filters you put on the camera, and what stock you use, you have mixed lighting. Outdoors is daylight: tungsten lights aren't. So first, you need to filter the lights to match the daylight.

 

Then, you can consider how to expose the filmstock.