Leigh Miller

Thanks for all the info again guys, I'll check out redusers and certainly check black shading more.

Also, I think your first shot is just underexposed. When shooting very low-key scenes in digital, I find what happens is that everyone forgets to recalibrate their monitors and consequently, because you are using the monitor for lighting reference you end up grossly underexposing, thinking that there is more shadow detail than there actually is.

Since you can easily expose brighter and bring down the exposure in color grading, I find it to be safer practice to use a lower ISO (for cameras shooting raw) in these situations. I'd also keep checking your histogram, waveform, and false color tools as a guide. If you know how many footcandles you need for your base ISO setting, than an incident meter can be quite helpful as well.

Am I right to assume though, even if the shot is underexposed the blacks should not be that noisy? I have shot dark scenes before and never had that much noise, and of that 'kind' so to speak, it looks very 'digitaly' compared to regular RED noise.

I also have a question regarding noise, specifically on the Dragon. We have shot with this camera before and had no problems, it then got the upgrade to the Dragon and we took it out for a run, and found the RAW footage had tons of noise, especially in the darker scenes. Though, some of the shots didn't have noise at all, mainly the daylight scenes, but some of the daylight scenes did have noise as well. My assistant and I can't think of anything we did differently from previous shoots, apart from use the Dragon, so we're wondering what could cause this amount of noise to be in the image.

Should also note that we had a split on the day which is pretty nice and we, nor the director or anyone notice noise levels like this, it looks nice on all the monitors.

exposed for 800iso

Noise (dark) - http://postimg.org/image/5d6c03of3/(obviously far more noticeable when played)

Clean (day) - http://postimg.org/image/g4svcdc69/

Would love to hear any possible ideas. Is it simply just too dark? Though I've shot things this dark before pre Dragon and not had an issue.

It's been suggested that perhaps we didn't wait for the Dragon to get to temperature before shooting, though I don't think this likely as we'd frame up and light, rehearse, do multiple takes etc.

In addition to the other suggestions, these are two of my favorites:

 

Hitchcock/Truffaut

http://www.amazon.com/Hitchcock-Revised-Edition-Francois-Truffaut/dp/0671604295

 

When i first read the topic I came here to post this book, so good. Better if you've seen all his films as well it's an amazing 'fly on the wall' listening to two great filmmakers talk properly and in-depth about their craft, no other book for me comes close to being both informative and inspiring.

Though not books, I would recommend David Fincher DVD commentaries, Gone Girl and Dragon Tattoo are highlights for me, both incredibly informative on a technical level, as well as about character and working with the actor to get what he wants, and hilarious at times, he's one of those guys I can't stop listening to. (If you're a fincher fan)

Consider... Turning off all the overhead lamps and mostly lighting through the windows. You may like that much more!

This would certainly be ideal! We're shooting in winter now (Australia) and the room gets very little natural light even during the day. If I had the budget I would be lighting form outside only for sure.

Actually, perhaps this is off topic, we're shooting a couple of night scenes in a remote area and it's meant to be overcast winter feel, in reality it will probably be close to pitch black since the moon's hidden and there's no city lights, or even an house porch lamp or something, any suggestions? In the back of my head I keep think perhaps we'll have to introduce a house in the distance, or a bit of moon light.

I would first check to see exactly what kind of globes are in the existing fixtures. You don't want to assume that they are T12 and have them turn out to be T8 when you get there. Can you do a tech scout of the location with your gaffer?

Yes we're heading back out there soon (though the gaffer has not come out yet, nor do i know if he'll be able to!) it's over an hour and half drive, plus it's a school so we're pretty restricted with when we can go by, can't pop in unfortunately, but I'll be checking them.

 

Depending on budget, you might be better off buying a carton of tubes from a hardware store and basically just donating them to the school when you're finished. As Phil has suggested, ideally you should get "Tri-Phosphor" tubes which are similar to Kino Flos but they are somewhat more expensive.

 

We're going to hire what we need at this stage, it's a bit cheaper than buying, they have what we need in the Philips range. And unfortunately we wouldn't have the budget for LED. The good news is I've managed to get us on location the day before to fit the tubes, so we'll find out before if there's any issues.

Thanks heaps for the information, this will be very valuable!

A better option may - and you should test - be something from the Philips TL-D 90 Graphica range, which come in either tungsten or daylight. The daylight have somewhat better colour rendering, but both are adequate for background work and even for noncritical keying. The four-foot tubes are 36W and will be correctly driven in conventional fittings.

 

P

Great thanks Phil, will look into that! Ideally not having to gel each bulb (18+ in all) would be good.

Hi, I come here a lot for all the great information you guys dish out! But this is my first post, It's one that has been asked before, but I'm looking for a more up to date specific answer, so any help is appreciated.

I'm shooting a class room scene, in the classroom there are over head fluro lights already. Our gaffer is coming with kinos, and has said, with no real confidence, "they should work".

So I've been told about needing older 40w globes rather than newer 75w, and this:

"a standard fluorescent fixture they will be under driven resulting in less light output and incorrect color balance. It should be about the same as running a 4ft tube in 2ft mode in a kino fixture. When under driving the bulbs they will appear more magenta than normal. "

Should I be hiring some different type of bulbs for those scenes, rather than using the standard kino blubs?

Will I need to balance out the color across all the blubs with gels?

Will the light be diminished (I know this may be impossible to answer without actually being on set)?

Would love any help or more information before we head out onto set!