Guillaume Cottin

I am not sure if there even is a perfect trick to do this. The lower the light levels, the harder it is to create an eye light that will not have an effect on the rest of the lighting. Assuming you like a round eye light, my go-to tool is obviously the Rosco Dash and Dot diffuser mounted on the camera or close to it. It’s fast to set up and looks great even on a medium. But for wider shots, i would use something like a 3ft lantern in which I would probably put a 60w COB (60c) dimmed way down, or even just a NYX bulb if you want to go even lower (adapting the bulb socket to a Bowens softbox). I would put it on the key side and at the most reflective angle possible and as far away as possible. In your case of under-exposure it’s just a matter of getting it very dim, as we are not illuminating the subject but using the reflection of the source in the eyes.

You can ask your local expendable store for a gel and diffusion swatch.

It’s not hard to run stuff up to 300W on battery but beyond that it’s a bit of a head scratcher unless you can put a hand on 28.8V high load V-mount batteries, but they’re hard to source at a rental house. The few times I had a 600d on battery I used 14.4V regular camera batteries, I think they were 180Wh. The bigger the better. I had two batteries on each side with shark fins, so four in total in order to spread the load and not damage the batts. Still, it only lasted around 30mn it will shut down above 50%. It works for a quick shot (which is what we needed) but is not a perfect solution and as you can see the math and real world don’t always match. I recommend to only use this setup for 300w lights. Same for a VCLX, even at 28V you’re limited to roughly 300W (12A) of load. For a 600d currently I’d recommend using a good power bank such as the ecoflow River Pro which will run it for roughly 50mn at ≈90% power. They make a higher end model too, the Delta. Not really elegant, since you’re converting DC to AC and back to DC, but currently the most plug-and-play reliable option IMO.

You can still compare light outputs by taking the measurement at the periphery of the beam not the hot spot. I agree the reason for this hot spot can probably be found in the marketing department. The hot spot will create uneven spread. While not ideal, you can easily fix it with a piece of gel, maybe an opal or a ½ diffusion. Maybe this is also a good use case scenario for the new fancy Rosco Opti-sculpt gels. I personally am using a third party Bowens reflector I found that is more even than the OEM one.

For this task I would probably consider the Chroma-Q Color force 72 https://chroma-q.com/products/color-force-ii-72

I agree that thinking of it in terms of “layers” is maybe not the best way to conceptualize lighting. Here are some other roads to explore: Additive or subtractive: do you add lights or take away light from a bigger source? Ambient vs.directional? What’s the ambient lighting in the space, and then what are the different directions from which light can come from? How do they bounce around to create the ambient? Lighting space vs lighting objects? Do you create pools of light for actors to evolve in and then shoot freely, or do you create very precise lighting for specific positions?

That’s an… interesting situation! How about blue-tinted muslin as the diffusion material, under a clear plastic roof? Muslin will eat up to 2 stops of light. It’s available in large quantities. It would give a colder color temp as in a blue sky Or else maybe a sort of white plexi. Better look into construction building materials and which can work. Roof clearance for boom lifts might be an issue. Also rain noise on the roof. Also I think maybe that’s a perfect use case for a Softsun! Either direct or as bounce. good luck!

Hello, I have a shoot by the end of the month on a Red Ranger with the Monstro sensor. I’ve never worked on that camera and and am wondering if there are any tips on this camera, the kind you only learn from (painful?) experience. What are your preferences regarding which OLPF to use? Standard, skin tone? We’re not shooting low light. Thank you team forum

Hi I’ve noticed a green tint on my Aputure 300X. The warmer the color temperature, the greener it gets, which leads me to think it might be an issue with the warm white LEDs. Does anybody else have this issue? How green are your 300Xs?

Following up on Brian’s idea, I once shot a monochromatic blue night scene using ungelled tungsten lights. In Resolve instead of using the color wheels i used the color mixer tool to remap all luminance info to the blue channel. This induced no noise contrary to other methods. The key for this to work is was that the scene has got to be monochrome.

Yes and the reason why we perceive moonlight as softer and bluer is because of our eyes. Human night time vision is less sharp because of the rods and therefore we interpret moonlight as softer. Also blue cones in the retina are slightly more sensitive to darkness which explains why we perceive blue better in low light and nights look blue. But cameras that are very sensitive show the color temperature of the moon is actually roughly daylight. As a DP you can have two valid approaches: simulate nature as it is, or simulate nature as it is perceived by human eyes and brain.

Hello I am doing research for a future project and am wondering what would be the option to have something similar to a Trinity on a low budget. I'm not an operator ―just trying to see what options would be possible. That's to fly an Alexa Mini probably or something that size. Are there other versions of that kind of rig? Does it work to put a Ronin 2 on a steadicam? Thanks

Oh, he must be talking about the Rosco acrylic panels. Expensive! However, you don't necessarily need acrylic panels to do that. The concept stays the same: heavy ND. I did it twice, once as a gaffer and once as a DP on a short. I messed it up as a DP because I used ND and CTB filters, so now I can tell you the trick is to just use straight NDs and not color gels because underexposing saturates the colors, and the outside is already blue enough. Also, the gels need to somehow be mattified, otherwise they reflect all the lighting indoors like a mirror. Thats probably the superiority of the acrylic panel (or any scrim material). On the other shoot as a gaffer we used ND9, but a heavier ND like 1.2 or more would have been better. The DP then put a bunch of 4K HMIs outside shooting through the ND for moonlight.

With the car window screen, I’d be wary of color problems. I would splurge on real ND gel, you can put it on the windows using Windex then remove bubbles with a squeegee. It will hold for a few hours. And it’s reusable!

Honestly, I wouldn't touch that Amazon light with a 12ft pipe! For the same budget, same form factor, double the power, I would get this instead: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1342001-REG/godox_sl150w_5600k_150w_led.html That light will take any Bowens mount softbox.