film fireballs at night

Bob Hayes · May 11, 2005

Any tips on shooting fireball explosions at night. I?m shooting 500 asa Tungsten. I?m blowing the front of a large warehouse. It?s tough because It?s hard to pump the light level up. It's an exposure issue. Expose for the fireball the pre-explosion in dark.

Stuart Brereton · May 11, 2005

Any chance you can shoot two passes at it? One exposed for the exterior, one for the fireball, then matte them together.

Patrick Neary · May 11, 2005

hi there-

not that i've had the pleasure of shooting an exploding warehouse yet, but maybe, despite the tricky scheduling, shoot at dusk-ish? It seems like the fireball is such a brief bit of action that (while you don't want it completely blown out) a couple frames of overexposure wouldn't be worth sacrificing the overall ambience for. Or 2 cameras (you're using a couple I assume?) with the tighter shot stopped down a bit?

If you're shooting 5218 I'm betting it will hold a surprising amount of the highlight detail.

Edited May 11, 2005 by PatrickNeary

Kevin Zanit · May 11, 2005

It is a tuff situation. I have found shooting fireballs; a 5.6/8 will really hold the detail. Hell of a stop to light an entire warehouse to.

I like the idea of doing two passes. The only problem is you may lose the interactive lighting provided by the fireball it's self. I don't know, it may work fine though.

You could try doing an iris pull on one of your cameras, although the likelihood of getting the timing right is low.

Kevin Zanit