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Lighting with haze or smoke


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Hey guys

 

I love to shoot with haze. It helps me create depth and mystical images. And let's face it. It makes every window more interesting. Not to say it should be used everytime of course, but I use it quite often.

 

I do have two questions though. Sometimes all i need is haze in the background but we all know haze spreads and eventually fills the room and leaves through the doors (even when closed). So i have haze in front of the camera and the image starts to look blurry and hard to focus. Is this when you know you're using too much haze or am I doing something wrong? Everytime I use haze, I also have to use the sharpness slider in post, otherwise it looks like vhs crap.

 

And second question, how do you shoot with haze in a room, knowing the shot needs the door to be opened? The haze will be constantly moving out of the room and distracting the viewer.

 

Thanks!

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I was just a gaffer for a short film where the director is a haze fanatic, and we had a similar thing happening. I would definitely start the camera and set your shot before hazing, as most things, it'll look different and will affect the camera differently to how you see it. Haze a little then add more as you need it. We hazed into things in the background of our set to stop it from spreading everywhere.

 

I also found that my cine asked for a lot more lighting intensity after hazing so that he could get the focus on the actress, this may also be a factor in your blurry and hard to focus shots.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'd suspect you're using too much haze. You don't need much since it's only meant to make shafts of light visible and maybe soften backgrounds.

 

As for containing it, you DO need to have an environment where you can control air movement, which means turning off HVAC, closing windows and doors, etc. If you need to open a door in a scene, leave it open for haze, but close off the area outside the door you're using, then close the door for takes.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks guys. Just one more question. When you're using haze to create a mood interior scene, (not necessarily to create beams of light) do you also allow yourselves to use dimmers on your lights? I've read somewhere that using dimmers with haze, creates a green output on the light, but I've never tried it myself. Anyone?

 

Thanks

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if you're gonna dim a Tungsten or Incandescent (halogen) bulb- no worries; it'll warm up orange as normal.

LED, well it'll depend on the LED but I'd not be worried about using any of the "main" professional LEDs (Arri, LiteGear, Quasar, Digital Sputnik, or Kinoflo).

Generally i'm not a fan of dimming HMIs (though Of course I have when it's faster/easier on myself or the crew to get a few points off a 4K or what have you)

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