Shooting day for night.

[Travis Thompson]

I'm doing some experiment shots with day for night shooting but haven't found much info about it online.

I have a set of filters for the Aaton LTR package i'm shooting with and one of them is labeled "day for night 2". With the filter do I also underexpose taking into consideration compensating for the filter?

What about instructions for development, does the lab push at all?

 

Also, I was going to do the test with some 250D, but I also have some 50D and maybe some Tungsten short ends. Which stock is best for Day for Night?

 

Any info on the process helps. Thanks

 

T

[David Mullen ASC]

Most people want a blue-ish cast to DFN so using tungsten film without a correction filter, or only a partial one, is an easy trick -- if you use daylight film, you just need to use a blue filter. One of the two Tiffen Day for Night filters has a blue cast to it.

 

As for just letting the filter do the underexposing by not compensating for its density / filter factor, that may work fine but I always like to know by how much I am underexposing, so I would measure what the filter is doing, you may want to split the difference (i.e. if the filter cuts exposure by 2.5-stops, you may decide you'd rather it only cut it by 2-stops so would compensate for that half-stop.)

 

If it's sunny outside, 50D is good in the sense that it's a good idea to shoot at a wider aperture like would happen with true night photography, and it's easier to get to a T/2.8, for example, if your stock is not too fast. Same goes for 100T, it's a good stock to start out for DFN.

[jasonknightvfx]

I'm doing some experiment shots with day for night shooting but haven't found much info about it online.

I have a set of filters for the Aaton LTR package i'm shooting with and one of them is labeled "day for night 2". With the filter do I also underexpose taking into consideration compensating for the filter?

What about instructions for development, does the lab push at all?

 

Also, I was going to do the test with some 250D, but I also have some 50D and maybe some Tungsten short ends. Which stock is best for Day for Night?

 

Any info on the process helps. Thanks

 

T

 

my day for night tips:

 

Don't shoot in bright daylight. If you can shoot late in the day when there are mininal highlights and no sharp shadows, that would be best. It will be a bonus if the day you are shooting on is overcast.

 

Turn all lights on that are in your scene. Its easier to enhance lights already switched on than to create lights in post. ie. shooting a car - turn the headlights on in the shot.

 

jasonknightvfx.com