Advice on daylight lighting for Kodchrome

Post by **dantheman** » Mon May 14, 2007 5:44 pm

Hello All,

I am shooting some footage on Kodachrome K40 tunsten balanced stock (so I think it is 25asa with the daylight filter on) and the weather forcast is showing it will be cloudy.

Can anyone advise me on cheap 'household' battery powered lighting solution? I am not looking to illuminate a large area - just to make sure the actors are properly exposed.

Many thanks
Daniel

Post by **mattias** » Mon May 14, 2007 6:45 pm

overcast is not a problem as long as your lens opens up to at least f/2 or so. much less than trying to find a battery powered light that will provide enough output, which unless you want to rent hmi's will be pretty much impossible (if you do want to rent i can recommend jokerbugs). if you need to create more contrast on the subject i'd suggest negative fill instead. hang a big piece of black cloth on the side you want darker, and use a shiny board to create a bit of eyelight. good luck.

here's something we did recently to simulate sunlight on an overcast day. one 1.2k hmi and a frame of diffusion became the sun (left), and a flag brought down the other side of the face about a stop. ambient light for backlight. shot on imx, but the same principle applies to film.

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Mon May 14, 2007 9:25 pm

What camera did you use for that?

Post by **mattias** » Mon May 14, 2007 10:10 pm

i'm not sure. it looks like a sony digibeta but it records imx, on tape unlike the newer xdcam that i'm familiar with as a dp. i'm not very familiar with video gear in general and i wasn't working camera crew in this case. are you asking because you think it looks good or the opposite? ;-)

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Mon May 14, 2007 11:00 pm

Well aside from the overt compression which is probably the fault of the JPG encoding, I think it looks fantastic. Nice neutral color, good skin reproduction, decent lattitude etc. Can't tell how clear the picture is though.

Post by **mattias** » Mon May 14, 2007 11:18 pm

i recorded composite video out fromt he camera onto my archos 404 for review and script supervising purposes, hence the compression artifacts.

the imx cameras do indeed produce very neutral images, better than digibeta and in many ways better than hdcam too, even though they are all sonys and all look the same. i guess they are tailor made for tv drama production, which seems to be what they're mostly used for, while digibeta is more for eng and hdcam more for documentary and "film" work.

did you see this? i shot it on xdcam imx with pro-35 and zeiss primes. lighting was similar, a 1.2k and a few kinos, both for interiors and exteriors. some shots are crappy due to scheduling problems, but i'm very pleased with most of it.

http://www.mattias.nu/stuff/lalaland.mp4

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Tue May 15, 2007 1:49 am

Yeah, some of the shots look great, the car interior shots were probably the worst. A guy I know in town here just did a shoot on 16mm that had some driving shots. He put ND filters on all the windows the camera would se and lit the interior with reflected sunlight. Worked beautifully. As for that still frame posted above, I was going to comment it looked like bumped up Beta or something but the composite interface would explain that. Anyways, thanks for sharing.

Post by **mattias** » Tue May 15, 2007 1:58 am

you think? technically the car shots are awful but i like them, i think they fit the story. they were indeed shot in a hurry though and normally i would have used nd and bounce for sure. i think the classroom in the beginning and the "incest" interiors are by far the worst. i begged the director to cut them out but obviously they were needed. ;-)

i don't think it's the composite interface as much as the archos, which records low res / low bitrate mpeg-4. it's a great little tool for any filmmaker but the image quality is not where it shines. i'll try to post an original imx frame later if you're interested.

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Tue May 15, 2007 2:43 am

Yeah, that'd be cool. I agree with the incest shots, not the greatest. Some of the outdoor shots were rather over blown also but hey, I know how hard it is to shoot outdoors especially on video.

Post by **mattias** » Tue May 15, 2007 12:18 pm

wado1942 wrote:Some of the outdoor shots were rather over blown also but hey, I know how hard it is to shoot outdoors especially on video.

i think you're referring to the mother being drunk in the garden. those were deliberately blown and diffused in post to make her glow a bit. in fact the imx camera has the most latitude of any camera i've ever used, and it was never a problem since i had the hmi for fill and could protect my highlights without losing in the shadows.

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Tue May 15, 2007 4:25 pm

cool.

Post by **dantheman** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:53 am

I shot the film, but it was overcast and the exposure needle was firmly glued to F1.4 the whole time. Is there anything I can put in the notes to the laboratory (Dwayne's) that might help get the best out of the footage?

All the best
Daniel

Post by **mattias** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:21 pm

you can ask them to push it a stop, but at f/1.4 you should have gotten plenty of exposure even under overcast skies. or were you shooting in heavy shade as well, like indoors or in the woods? the only time i've ever had a problem exposing k40 outdoors is when i've started to lose the light at dusk.

/matt

Post by **christoph** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:28 pm

dantheman wrote:I shot the film, but it was overcast and the exposure needle was firmly glued to F1.4 the whole time.

are you sure your camera meter is working properly?
try putting in a K40 film and pint the camera towards a very bright light (sky, sun, strong lamp etc..) does it move?
if not, your footage is likely overexposed.

best is to send in one film and see the results and then you can optimise the others. if the footage is very valuable, you might consider shooting a new test roll under similair conditions and use that for a first impression.
++ christoph ++