tiffen cool day for night filter infos

davide sorasio · July 19, 2015

Hello fellow Cinematographers. I can't find a solution to a problem related to a shoot I'll DP next week.

I'll have to shoot a scene in the woods that in the story is supposed to be at night/dusk but I'll have no chance to shoot it during the actual night. I went to the location for a scout and tried to do some tests with an 80A filter (I know is not the right filter to use but it was the only option I had during the scout) to see if shooting at a certain time of the day avoiding direct sunlight would have got close to what I'm looking for. I've combined the 80A with a ultracon and the effect is not that bad, the only problem is that the green of the woods comes back a lot in certain portions of the frame and I don't want the frame to be completely washed in blue, making the actors's faces look unnatural.

I've made some research and I saw that Tiffen has a cool day for nightfilter. Any experience with that? do you have any rough idea of how many stops is gonna cut (I know I have to underexpose for the day for night and I don't wanna end up loosing too many details and increase the noise ) ? and do you think is gonna wash everything too much in blue? Does using some kinos or other units help me bring back some color on the skintones? I was also thinking of using some ND grad and a hazer combined with the filter, but this is my first time shooting day for night and I'm really confused. I really wanna avoid a the cheap day for night look.

Thank you so much!

David Mullen ASC · July 19, 2015

You can control the amount of overall blue by using the white balance of the camera, assuming you are shooting digitally -- for example, setting the camera to 5600K and putting an 80A filter on is pretty blue (more or less the same as setting the camera to 3200K and using no blue filter since an 80A is supposed to correct 3200K to 5600K) so setting it to 4300K, for example, would take half the blue out of the 80A filter. Or you can use a less strong blue filter, or you can use the lower Kelvin settings on the camera and no blue filter.

The Tiffen Cool Day for Night basically combines a blue filter (looks close to an 80A) with a LowCon filter.

If you want blue in the backgrounds and backlight but less on the faces, you'd have to fill the faces with warmer light than the daylight, either with gelled tungsten or HMI's, or with warm bounce cards. I wouldn't go as extreme as uncorrected tungsten but something halfway between daylight and tungsten would be enough to get some color back into the faces. The other thing would be to use windows and keys in digital color-correction to make the faces less blue than the backgrounds.

In terms of underexposure, just use enough to hold the brightest details down, you can always darken it more in color-correction later.

Also use enough ND so that you aren't stopped down because most night photography is shot at wider apertures.

Satsuki Murashige · July 19, 2015

If you're shooting digitally, then you don't really need to use a glass filter to change the color balance. You can also easily dial down certain colors like green foliage in post color correction.

Since you have a week to figure it out, I would keep shooting tests. Lots of ND for a shallow depth of field is a very good idea. Also using edge lighting on the actors and low soft bounce for key lights is a good start. Maybe try Double Fog or Smoque filters and a hazer.

AJ Young · July 19, 2015

Another common trick with day-for-night in post is de-saturating the image and then adding a little blue to the now gray image. Like David said, power windows can be your best friend as well.

I recommend shooting a test and playing around with that footage so you know what to expect when on set and in the color session.

Mark Kenfield · July 20, 2015

I just experimenting recently with pushing in tungsten on some day for night work, and was very pleased with the result. Set the camera for 3200k, underexpose faces by two stops, and try to key with a little added tungsten (to normalise colour on faces a little) and the result is pretty effective.