soft sunlight

[ashraf islahuddin]

Hi

I have a commercial shoot coming up in the next month.The effect i am looking for is a soft sunlight coming through a large window.What diffusion material should i use to get the soft sunlight effect.I know different cinematographer see it differently,but any idea,thought od advice will be a great help.

Ashraf islahuddin

[Adrian Sierkowski]

How are you creating the sunlight through the window? Using natural or going with an HMI?

 

For smaller units, I like some 216, perhaps doubled, over the window. For something larger, muslin.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sunlight tends to be hard, so what are you describing? Sun coming through very thin layers of clouds? Or are you just talking about soft daylight coming through windows, not the sun?

 

How much diffusion you use, and how large, just depends on how soft versus directional you want the light.

[Geovane Marquez]

I think a 216 would be quite nice. I once saw a beautifully rendered portrait done by a 1200 HMI shot through about 3 layers of diffusion. It looked really nice and soft.

 

From my side though for a shoot of mine, I tried recreating a sunset look hitting through a window, so I used a full DOUBLE CTO layered on top of a Baby-Solar Spot. I then had options to create a more softer look, bounce it off a mirror into the window, shoot it through a 4x4(or 8x8,12x12) , or use a beadboard. We tried them all and the 8x8 looked great. There's really no right or qwrong way to light up a scene. Just follow the mood and understand the motivated light.

[Geovane Marquez]

I'm not quite sure but maybe that 1200 HMI was a 12k HMI

[Ari Davidson]

Hi

I have a commercial shoot coming up in the next month.The effect i am looking for is a soft sunlight coming through a large window.What diffusion material should i use to get the soft sunlight effect.I know different cinematographer see it differently,but any idea,thought od advice will be a great help.

Ashraf islahuddin

 

Once upon a shoot I clamped some old (clean) parachute silk outside of a large window and threw on a H&H diffusion 1, and had some really nice results. The alternative I would suggest is girdcloth. Double up until satisfied.

[ashraf islahuddin]

Sunlight tends to be hard, so what are you describing? Sun coming through very thin layers of clouds? Or are you just talking about soft daylight coming through windows, not the sun?

 

How much diffusion you use, and how large, just depends on how soft versus directional you want the light.

 

Hi David,my idea of sunlight is,sun coming through a thin layer of clouds,that is the look i want.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hi David,my idea of sunlight is,sun coming through a thin layer of clouds,that is the look i want.

 

Then what diffusion you use just depends on how much softening you want. Half Soft Frost would barely soften, like Opal diffusion does, whereas a Silk or Light Grid Cloth would soften a lot. In between there are Half and Quarter Silks, or Quarter Grid Cloth.

 

Also depends on how big the windows are and how big the lighting units you are going to use outside of them. Or are you talking about softening the actual sun coming through the windows, or using reflectors or mirrors?

[Serge Teulon]

Hi Ashraf,

 

For a look like you've defined, I've used half light grid cloth with a 10k tungsten unit through it....the unit was about 3/4 meters from the 'window' with the LGC about 1/2 meters in front of the light and additionally the subjects were a further 3 meters from the 'window'.

Worked for me.

 

This was in studio.