Yon Thomas

@Dragos - Just curious, what makes Powerlight better than Arri? The fresnel selection on their website seems to be uncannily similar to Arri's line-up. Any insight?

Well, In the Arri camp the 18Kw HMI Fresnel is the go to lamp. Cinemills make a 24kw Silver Bullet. They do a good job of battling the sun. But if you want just brute force a good non-fresnel option is the 100k SoftSun.

I don't see true Fresnel lamps going anywhere quickly. Whether they are Tungsten, HMI, or LED heads. The quality of light that comes from a large fresnel lamp is so much more complex than a PAR or an Arri M series HMI. The fact the source can be fine tuned to be either very sharp with a clean single shadow or spotted or diffused to soften the edges makes it very versatile on my shoots. For sure LEDs systems are a game changer, but the Fresnel will be on my trucks for a long time to come. I do like want Mole has done with the Tener LED, though I wish they made it bi-color.

I usual work with a base color temp setting of 4800K. The light source that is emulating Daylight (M90 in my example) will get a warming gel 1/4 or 1/2, or sometimes 3/4 CTO. Between 3500 to 4800K depending on the time of day I am trying to create The light source that is being bounced to emulate the skylight get a cool gel 1/2 or 3/4 CTB. This puts the skylight somewhere around 10,000K, again, this is to taste according to the time of day I am trying to create.

When I shoot night for day interiors I try and establish a sunny and shady side of the room/house depending on the blocking or mood of the scene. I also try and imagine what time of day and what the weather is like outside. This helps me determine contrast both in color and luminance. Although it tends to be harder to accomplish, I try not to entirely burn the window; retaining some sort of detail increases the believability of the image. Assuming I want to create a sunny day this is how I treat the sunny side windows. -As Mark suggested sheers are your best friend when shooting night of day. They are great to break up a plain window. -Each window gets a M90 with Lee 251 and some sort of warming gel (1/4, 1/2, CTO or CTS depending). I used to be an 18K guy, but as we need to move faster M90s with a little diffusion work and pack a nice punch. This represents the sun -Each window gets a M40 or M25 bounced into an 8x8ft ultra bounce that is above the window. The light is gelled with 1/2 or 3/4 CTB. This represents the Skylight. -Each window gets treated/skinned with a Hampshire or Lee 252 1/8 Diffusion. This allows the shaft of daylight to enter the room, but glows enough that it looks like day time outside. Depending on the angle you might need an additional layer. Also if you have some help from Art Dept you might have some details (tree branches, fire escape, flower box....) that you can feel. This gives a greater sense of depth. I hope this helps -Lastly make sure the grip dept separate all the shafts of light so that you only get one shadow.