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Shooting Fire - Which OLPF?

Zeb B

Zeb B

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I have a project that involves SloMo (60fps and higher) filming fire at night in low light like the below torch. Optimally I would like to have the dim background read above noise level while holding highlights and detail in the flame. Question is which OLPF, and settings, provides the best balance between low light detail (less noise) and highlight protection since the brightest parts of the torch will easily clip to white (like the sample below). Thoughts or specific experience is appreciated. Sending my Dragon in for the OLPF on Monday specifically for this project.

jn0amM.png
 
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Strongly suggest you take the time to test - typical bracketing on both OLPFs.

FWIW, if I had no time to test I'd use the STH rather than the LLO, especially if the fire puts off enough light to get me above T5.6. Many of the LLOs "issues" are more prominent stopped down, less so WFO. I'd also have a hot mirror handy as fire can generate a lot of IR, especially if you are close.

Cheers - #19
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Strongly suggest you take the time to test - typical bracketing on both OLPFs.

FWIW, if I had no time to test I'd use the STH rather than the LLO, especially if the fire puts off enough light to get me above T5.6. Many of the LLOs "issues" are more prominent stopped down, less so WFO. I'd also have a hot mirror handy as fire can generate a lot of IR, especially if you are close.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

BLAIR!!

Forgot to mention: Shooting SloMo so T5.6 is going to be a stretch. Probably going to be T2.8 at best.

Does the IR Hot mirror kill light? If so what brand and model has the highest light transmission

I don't have any experience in switching out the OLPF after the factory does their magic - is it a 5 minute or 1 hour process?
 
John Marchant said:
Plenty of fire shot on LLO here:


Mostly canon glass and stopped down only a touch
Click to expand...

Nice production and DP work! Did you grade this and if so were there clipped whites in the night scenes? The section from 1:30 to 1:41 looks like it. I want to hold detail in the brightest of the flame. Beyond Dragon DR perhaps?
 
Swapping olpfs isn't the problem it's redoing blackshades that takes longest. Pulling a lens and 4 screws isn't the problem

Ps LLO has reflection risks I got the pattern on sun set other day RPP 50
 
Hi Zeb!

Once you have an appropriate location and the camera i.and sidewinder and custom tool in hand, it's ten minutes to do the OLPF swap. Those screws are tiny, so be sure you have the appropriate location set ahead of time.

If I have time and I decide to incinerate my outdated kit items, I'll try some test shots for you...

Thank you very much

Fury
 
joshua csehak said:
Gorgeous! Really nicely done.

Are those the CN-Es, or stills glass?
Click to expand...


That was stills glass- mostly the 24mm L

We used foolcontrol and hotlink for camera control and focus pulling... we wanted as few crew in harm's way as possible.
We took a decision early on to let the fire highlights go in the plane exteriors, they were a couple of stops beyond the dragon's range - its a very hot gas fire on the simulator. Dragon rolls off nicely enough that I'm happy with how that looked.
The flames in the compartment fires are wood burning, so they were within the range the camera could handle.
Mostly we shot 50fps A camera and 75fps B camera. A few 100fps thrown in.

Predominantly this was posted at 1600ISO night and 400ISO day, all LLO
 
John Marchant said:
That was stills glass- mostly the 24mm L

We used foolcontrol and hotlink for camera control and focus pulling... we wanted as few crew in harm's way as possible.
We took a decision early on to let the fire highlights go in the plane exteriors, they were a couple of stops beyond the dragon's range - its a very hot gas fire on the simulator. Dragon rolls off nicely enough that I'm happy with how that looked.
The flames in the compartment fires are wood burning, so they were within the range the camera could handle.
Mostly we shot 50fps A camera and 75fps B camera. A few 100fps thrown in.

Predominantly this was posted at 1600ISO night and 400ISO day, all LLO
Click to expand...

@John Great info! No IR Hot Mirror or other filtration then?

@Sergio why would you use an ND? I'm always trying to feed Dragon more - not less light
 
Any recommendations on a high light transmission IR Hot Mirror? Probably using Canon stills glass with 82mm round filter size
 
John Marchant said:
That was stills glass- mostly the 24mm L

We used foolcontrol and hotlink for camera control and focus pulling... we wanted as few crew in harm's way as possible.
We took a decision early on to let the fire highlights go in the plane exteriors, they were a couple of stops beyond the dragon's range - its a very hot gas fire on the simulator. Dragon rolls off nicely enough that I'm happy with how that looked.
The flames in the compartment fires are wood burning, so they were within the range the camera could handle.
Mostly we shot 50fps A camera and 75fps B camera. A few 100fps thrown in.

Predominantly this was posted at 1600ISO night and 400ISO day, all LLO
Click to expand...

John did you use any FX or diff filtration at all?
 
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