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Shooting in the Dark

A

AlexJones

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Hey everyone.

I'm shooting a nature documentary on grunion fish that come up on the shore at night. Planning on shooting with my Epic but trying to figure out my lighting solution. I need to light the subjects so the viewer can see the fish but at the same time, I don't want it to look like shit and spotty. I was thinking of renting some battery powered LED's. but are these strong enough output to give me a good exposure at 320 iso and an f4 glass? I also can't get a generator since we will be shooting gorilla style. Blows! but gotta deal with what you get. Suggestions?

I'll also be moving my shutter to 1/100 for slow mo. I might even shoot 3k full slow mo too. I don't think 2k at night would be an adequate picture. But because Im dealing with high shutter and slower glass, I know I need a ton of light but what?
 
At night, you're going to have difficulty getting proper exposure in slow motion, at ISO 320, at f4 with justing using a couple of LED's. You'd have to have the LED's right on top of the fish, which I'm guessing, is not possible.

My suggestion would be to shoot at IS800, f4, and if you must have slow motion, that's fine, but remember, you'll probably need some tungsten sources to help attain proper exposure. You can get a really small, lightweight generator that would power 2-3 smaller/pepper sized tungsten sources, or 1 larger one, which have a much farther throw than LED's. You can even gel the tungsten lights with CTB gels in order to keep your white balance in the realm of where the Epic like to be (5k). Remember to blackshade at your current FPS/Exposure so you can the optimal noise pattern.
 
Hi Alex,

In this situation with the constraints you have outlined, the first thing you should think about hiring is faster lenses. If you can get superspeeds you've gained three stops right there.

You'll be so desperate for light I'd also probably go straight to a '360 degree' shutter, sod the motion blur - just get an exposure.

Monitoring at ISO800 as Chris suggests is probably a good idea, if you're struggling to get exposure at 800 you're in the shit, noise-wise.

Anything cheap and easy you could do with car headlights or similar, in a pinch?

Good luck,

Chris
 
Hi Chris, I actually will be hiring faster lenses. Was thinking of getting the canon 100 macro 2.8 and the tokina 11-16 2.8. I don't want to use primes just because I want little lens changes out on the sand and wind. It's also faster for wildlife. See, I was told that if you shoot in the dark then shoot a low iso with more light to reduce noise. If you shoot in light shoot at 800 so you can protect highlights.
 
RED EPIC. Wouldn't be feasible to rent a c300 when I have the epic.
 
What do you guys think about work lights or LED work lights from home depot? I want it to look pretty but would these lights get a nice look too? they have built in generators... I could put china balls on them...
 
Rent a Sigma 18-35 f1.8?

Lower ISO is a good idea in this situation with the Epic, I'm just not sure it's the camera for the job.

I am not familiar with Home Depot but I assume you are talking about cheap Chinese made LED's. colour accuracy will already be a problem with levels this low and with compression for slow-mo will only be compounded by these lights.

Doable certainly but is it possible to do a down and dirty test beforehand?
 
Why not rent a few T/1.5 or faster lenses? You could rent some Canon f/1.2 L-Series primes if you want to stick with stills glass, or you could even buy some T/1.5 Rokinon Cine Primes. The EPIC is so much cleaner if you feed it proper light, and in these low light conditions you're going to want every bit of light hitting the sensor that you can get. Also, no real need to rate your camera at iso 320 if you give it enough light. In some cases you can shoot up to iso 1600 and still get decent results.

Also, keep those compression ratios as low as possible - that will help immensely in keeping any noise look more filmic than digital.

If you do choose slow motion in low light, you'll probably be happiest with keeping it at 5K resolution. I'd be amazed if you can properly expose for anything slower than 96fps in low light like that anyway, and the resolution bump will help keep your image cleaner and DOF shallower.

Also, I'd look for some 1x1 anton bauer or V-lock battery powered LED Panels. If you get a set of 3 or 4 of them, you should be able to create enough punch with fast lenses to get the shots you want.

Sounds like if everything goes to plan, you will end up with some great footage!
 
Lol. I love Fenix. I own a few myself for night exploring. I'll take a look at this. Don't you think, it'd create a really hot light in the middle even with a diffuser? Hows the color temp on them? I've used my fenix for shoots in caves but these were more gorilla style shows not blue-chip like the grunion run episode.
 
Yea, I was thinking of renting the canon 24-70 MK ii. Thanks for all the tips on the compression. If I keep it at 3:1, I'm going to need more cards! It's only a 2 hour spawn and duming 4 64 gigs would be a horrible workflow while this is happening. As far as the LED panels go, I heard those won't give me nearly enough light but we'll see. I may have to rent some kit today or tomorrow to do some tests.

Can't wait to film this epic scene.
 
Might it be easier/appropriate to shoot with night vision attachments? Light may adversely effect the subject anyways. What is the ambient light situation without adding any? If it's total darkness or close too it, you might have to light a lot. I would also check with your science people about how the animals behave with added light. Other suggestions are also spot on, faster lenses are a must if not using night vision.
 
Get a Joker 200 HMI. Runs off batteries. You are right to worry about lens changes on the beach. Keep 'em minimal and get yourself some reach with what you bring. Maybe get something like the sigma 120-300 2.8. A lot of critters feed on those grunion eggs, so you don't want to be right on top of them with a wide lens the whole night.

Be careful w cheaper LEDs and flicker as you shoot higher frame rates.
 
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