Moonlight Color Temperature

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Hello,

 

So I have a shoot coming up which requires me to replicate moonlight coming in from a window.

I do not have the luxury of color correcting the image so I am trying to get it all in camera.

The reference I had in mind was from the scene below from House of Cards.

I have access to tungsten fixtures and daylight fixtures.

I am shooting on a RED One.

Any suggestions on how I can replicate the light in the image below [ from HOUSE OF CARDS] using a combination of filters on the lights do let me know.

Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

[Brian Drysdale]

Moon light usually has the same colour temperature as sunlight, since it's just the light from the sun reflected off the moon's gray surface.

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Any tips on how I can acheive the color of light in the reference image I shared.

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Bounce daylight off a grey surface ?

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Lee also has a filter called Moonlight White .. Has anyone tried it ? Would that be helpful ?

[Aapo Lettinen]

color temperature difference within the image matters much more than the actual color temperature of the light.

Because you are looking for a colder look for the light you'll definitely want to create it with daylight source (to get correct blue channel exposure) and then you just have to figure out how much colder (how many mireds) it is compared to white light. you can try something between 40 and 80 mireds and then add your inside lights which are supposedly warmer than your middle gray?

 

You have to color correct anyway with the redcode footage so you can dial the color temperature in afterwards when transcoding the footage

[Brian Drysdale]

Usually a HMI or other daylight light source is used for moonlight effects, your example looks rather like that. Using CTB on a tungsten lights is another possibliy.

 

Gray is the same as white in colour terms, the moon is the same size as the sun, so think of it as low level daylight.

 

I believe Moonlight White is relatively new filter,. there are other filters you can test depending on the "moonlight" effect you want.

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Thanks all,

Any tips on how to come close to the reference image I shared ?

There is no tungsten to bring out the contrast of the moonlight in the reference image.

[Brian Drysdale]

You can use different grades of colour temperature blue, not just full blue or tungsten, plus the colours within the set and costumes. The end result will depend on how you use your eyes, helped by normally having a monitor available, so can see what you're getting.

 

Your reference seems to be just daylight blue, perhaps with 3/4/CTB on the interior.

[Satsuki Murashige]

The color just looks like a cool daylight source, so assuming you are shooting at night or on a dark stage then I would use the HMI to key and simply white balance the camera to between 3200K and 4700K, depending on how blue you want it to be. That's the easy part.

 

The more difficult part would be to get the same quality and direction of light. The light source is quite soft looking at the shadow cast by Kevin Spacey on the wall, so the source must be relatively large. The angle is also fairly high, easy to do on a stage but less so on location, especially on a low budget. If you have the crew and equipment to pull it off, maybe start with a 12x12 frame of bleached muslin up high on stands and either bounce the HMI into it or light through it. You'll need some large flags to keep the light from spilling all over the background, though it does look like there is more 'moonlight' on the background in your 'House of Cards' reference frame.

[David Mullen ASC]

If the only light in the scene is moonlight, just use a daylight source like daylight Kinos and dial in a degree of color temp on the camera that gets you the shade of blue you want. Start at 3200K for a traditional "full blue" moonlight and if you want less blue, use something like 4000K or higher.

 

If you have to mix the blue moonlight with warmer tungsten sources in the room and uncorrected daylight looks too blue in comparison, then add some degree of warming gel to the daylight source to take some of the blue out, again assuming a base color temp on the camera of around 3200K.

 

The blue saturation of the moonlight is also dependent on its exposure, a brighter moonlight will look less saturated than one that is exposed darker.

[Stuart Allman]

Vivek,

 

The Hive Bee plasma light allows you to dial in the color temperature from about 4500-14000K, so this may be a good light to get your hands on if it's available for rental in your area. That way you can keep the Red One camera near its native color temperature and just adjust the light until you find a "moonlight" you like. The Arri LC series might be another possible light to look at, but I don't have any personal experience with it.

 

You might want to test how noisy the Red One is when you dial down the color temperature. You didn't say if this is the original sensor or the MX sensor. That might make a difference.

 

Stuart

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[Vivek Venkatraman]

Thank you all,

 

Im going to use tungsten , balance the camera to tungsten and use kinos with appropriate color temperature adjustment by means of gels to acheive the effect.

 

Once again Thank you all.

[David Mullen ASC]

Why not use daylight Kino tubes rather than adding CTB gel to tungsten Kino tubes to get moonlight?

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Sorry I meant I would be using daylight Kino Tubes but the rest of the set would be lit up with tungsten lights

[Jim Hoffman]

This was shot with a Red One and a 4x4 kino with daylight tubes. Color temp set in camera for a touch of blue. Kino is low to rake the scene and offer longer shadows. Lower ambient light offers some nice contrast. This was a fast setup but thought I'd post since it seems to be relevant.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

you know, personally i like a little steel blue in my moonlight and a balance of around 4000K give or take. just a thought to look at, though it won't look like the house of cards image.

[Phil Rhodes]

People seem to like green moonlight now, too.

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Thanks for the help, I got pretty close to what I was aiming for with camera balanced to 3900 WB will post some stills soon

[Daniel Meier]

Could it be that the venetian blinds got a seperate light thrown onto? Especially the left one.

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Anyhoo here is what I got in the end and I am quite pleased with my result, once again thank you all for your help :)

Edited November 27, 2015 by Vivek Venkatraman

[David Mullen ASC]

So what did you end up doing?

[Vivek Venkatraman]

Camera at around 2900 K with daylight kinos as the light source with a touch of blue added in resolve .

[Bill DiPietra]

Looks good. I buy it.

[Satsuki Murashige]

The close up looks good. How did the wide shot end up? Were you able to get enough out of the Kinos?