Tips For Shooting At Night? (Scarlet-W)

[Mario Gonsalves]

Hello,

I've recently just finished building up my SW kit. I've decided to purchase the 3 OLPF and have read quite a lot of the documents online.

With that said, I'm about to tour filming different festival and events, mostly EDM. And while I can handle the daylight scenarios or well lit ones quite well I still feel to struggle a bit for the dark/night-time ones.

I've went through some documents and read a lot here on reduser about people defining their sweetspot with the low light OLPF.
I'm also shooting with a 1.8 Lens.

So besides recommending the low light OLPF and a fast lens, are there any other tips you guys have for shooting club or festival shots during night time and still pull off nice images? (Or post tricks?)

Thank you

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

one trick, which is more of an exposure and focusing tip, is set one of your buttons on your monitor to log view, so you can toggle back and forth and see what your actually capturing

steve

 

[Mario Gonsalves]

Thanks Steve

 

[Tom Bostick]

Only if you have the budget, and inclination.

If it's really dark you may want to pickup a used sony a7 series camera like the a7s or a7r to compliment the red when filming really low light stuff.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I have heard it said - in the many posts I have read her in RU over the years - that the sensor will perform better in dark conditions if there is some light spots in the frame. So, maybe you can experiment with that approach; include a light from the stage or some such.

 

[Fabricio Morato]

I always tell to shoot at night with the lowest iso possible, so you won't end up starving the sensor. But if you can't control the lighting you can at least control the glass.. so I would say to have the fastest glass that you can get. Maybe get the Canon 50mm 1.2.. it's not a lens that I particularly like but it's a stop more light than 1.8.. and for some situation this one stop can give you a way better image.. Red likes light and the dragon can get quite noisy if underexposed.

 

[Stefan Kraus]

I would manually blackshade the Scarlet-W just to get the cleanest image possible, best do some tests before hand.
Get a something between 20-35mm (FF) and fast to get these epic wide crowd shots. (Sigmas art are good)
Also depending on the movement and the aesthetics you desire you can shoot with a 270degree shutter it introduces more motion blur obviously.
In the end a helium or a A7s with a atomos would be the ideal camera if you can't control lighting in a low light environment (Even though the Sony's don't handle stage lights that good).
Also shoot RAW if you can, all the out of gamut stage lights, skin tones etc. that way you stay flexible.
The Scarlet-W is a lot cleaner than the old DSCM1 bodies so even with dragon you should be good!

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

I have heard it said - in the many posts I have read her in RU over the years - that the sensor will perform better in dark conditions if there is some light spots in the frame. So, maybe you can experiment with that approach; include a light from the stage or some such.

THIS.

IMO the most important part of shooting low key imagery is making sure certain areas of the frame read hot, and then letting the rest of the frame naturally fall off to black. As long as your subject has the light it needs, why does it matter what's going on in the far off corner of the frame? You probably don't want your audience's eye going there anyways.

So, as long as you crush all the noise to black in the grade, this method gives you a clean, high contrast, look, while still directing the eye to a specific intended spot in the frame.

Basically, that breaks down to either having the stage in the background and your subject sillouheted in the foreground, or using the stage lights to front light your subject.

For a great example of this done right, check out the trailer for SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS: https://youtu.be/_FAUyrFWDvw

P.S. Pretty sure this was shot by a bunch of different top notch DP's including Reed Morano, and you can absolutely tell when you look at how gorgeous each of these frames are.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The technique of putting a small bright highlight in an underexposed frame is an old one, pre-digital -- it has nothing to do with improving noise or grain characteristics, it's mainly psychological.

One, having a bright highlight will make dark areas look darker in comparison so you might be able to get away with a little milkiness in the blacks (a problem in older movies when underexposing and push-processing for night work was common). William Fraker, ASC used this approach often, for example, in "Bullitt" (1968), he had a scene at an airport runway at night, large areas of black, and he was using 50 ASA film push-processed, so to create some contrast in the frame, he put a row of small lights (tweenies I think) in the far background. He also had a bright neon border added around the big projection screens in "WarGames" (1983) so that when the screens went dark, they looked darker to the eye by having a bright frame line around them.

Two, when a viewer sees a highlight, they assume that the large underexposed areas are intentionally dark because they have a reference of something normally exposed in the frame -- without it, a frame that is completely underexposed can seem like an exposure error. Nestor Almendros commented on this when he made "Goin' South" (1978) -- he had scenes in a mine shaft lit only by kerosene lanterns (with a light bulb inside the lantern), and in some shots of Jack Nicholson, he was quite underexposed but as long as one of the lanterns was in the frame somewhere, it looked like a correctly exposed shot.

And there is a third aspect, that from a graphic standpoint, a frame with a bright highlight and a black reference in it just feels richer because of the tonal range in it.

 

[Mario Gonsalves]

Thanks David and all of you who commented.

@David, good info! I see a lot of these are great things to think about regarding what you put in your frame and how the viewers interpret them! Do you have any technical suggestions for the RED Scarlet-W itself in terms of which ISO's to stay close to, and like a user above said about blackshading, should I blackshade again in the nighttime even though I'm still in range and the blackshade profile is basically still usable? Does this help?

The technique of putting a small bright highlight in an underexposed frame is an old one, pre-digital -- it has nothing to do with improving noise or grain characteristics, it's mainly psychological.

One, having a bright highlight will make dark areas look darker in comparison so you might be able to get away with a little milkiness in the blacks (a problem in older movies when underexposing and push-processing for night work was common). William Fraker, ASC used this approach often, for example, in "Bullitt" (1968), he had a scene at an airport runway at night, large areas of black, and he was using 50 ASA film push-processed, so to create some contrast in the frame, he put a row of small lights (tweenies I think) in the far background. He also had a bright neon border added around the big projection screens in "WarGames" (1983) so that when the screens went dark, they looked darker to the eye by having a bright frame line around them.

Two, when a viewer sees a highlight, they assume that the large underexposed areas are intentionally dark because they have a reference of something normally exposed in the frame -- without it, a frame that is completely underexposed can seem like an exposure error. Nestor Almendros commented on this when he made "Goin' South" (1978) -- he had scenes in a mine shaft lit only by kerosene lanterns (with a light bulb inside the lantern), and in some shots of Jack Nicholson, he was quite underexposed but as long as one of the lanterns was in the frame somewhere, it looked like a correctly exposed shot.

And there is a third aspect, that from a graphic standpoint, a frame with a bright highlight and a black reference in it just feels richer because of the tonal range in it.

 

[Nick Morrison]

The technique of putting a small bright highlight in an underexposed frame is an old one, pre-digital -- it has nothing to do with improving noise or grain characteristics, it's mainly psychological.

One, having a bright highlight will make dark areas look darker in comparison so you might be able to get away with a little milkiness in the blacks (a problem in older movies when underexposing and push-processing for night work was common). William Fraker, ASC used this approach often, for example, in "Bullitt" (1968), he had a scene at an airport runway at night, large areas of black, and he was using 50 ASA film push-processed, so to create some contrast in the frame, he put a row of small lights (tweenies I think) in the far background. He also had a bright neon border added around the big projection screens in "WarGames" (1983) so that when the screens went dark, they looked darker to the eye by having a bright frame line around them.

Two, when a viewer sees a highlight, they assume that the large underexposed areas are intentionally dark because they have a reference of something normally exposed in the frame -- without it, a frame that is completely underexposed can seem like an exposure error. Nestor Almendros commented on this when he made "Goin' South" (1978) -- he had scenes in a mine shaft lit only by kerosene lanterns (with a light bulb inside the lantern), and in some shots of Jack Nicholson, he was quite underexposed but as long as one of the lanterns was in the frame somewhere, it looked like a correctly exposed shot.

And there is a third aspect, that from a graphic standpoint, a frame with a bright highlight and a black reference in it just feels richer because of the tonal range in it.

So great. Thanks for sharing Mr. Mullen!

 

[Michael J Brennan]

If a subject is underlit consider shooting silhouettes.

Whilst it may seem counter intuitive, long lenses can zero in on closeups of a scene that are quite well lit by virtue of being close to a point source such as a bare bulb worklight or a flame from a stove.

Consider using a open face led on a boom pole or something else that mimics the artificial light in use.
A led torch can be effective to create a kicker.

Avoid high ISO if there is likely to be large areas of black in frame. Be a pessimist and work hard to give photosites some energy.

 

[Jaimy Soares]

Invest in neat video.

It helped me more than once. Sometimes especially in the aftermovie scene you go to locations that are just not wel lit. Or you need to make audience shots but the light design just thought ah well we just turn out all the light on the audience.

Davinci Resolve+Neat Video. It can save your hiney.

 

[Mario Gonsalves]

Invest in neat video.

It helped me more than once. Sometimes especially in the aftermovie scene you go to locations that are just not wel lit. Or you need to make audience shots but the light design just thought ah well we just turn out all the light on the audience.

Davinci Resolve+Neat Video. It can save your hiney.

Thanks Jaimy, do you add neat video on the first node? and add a bit of grain again on the last node? What's your typical process in applying this to night shots? Thanks for the help.

 

[Elsie N]

The technique of putting a small bright highlight in an underexposed frame is an old one, pre-digital -- it has nothing to do with improving noise or grain characteristics, it's mainly psychological.

One, having a bright highlight will make dark areas look darker in comparison so you might be able to get away with a little milkiness in the blacks (a problem in older movies when underexposing and push-processing for night work was common). William Fraker, ASC used this approach often, for example, in "Bullitt" (1968), he had a scene at an airport runway at night, large areas of black, and he was using 50 ASA film push-processed, so to create some contrast in the frame, he put a row of small lights (tweenies I think) in the far background. He also had a bright neon border added around the big projection screens in "WarGames" (1983) so that when the screens went dark, they looked darker to the eye by having a bright frame line around them.

Two, when a viewer sees a highlight, they assume that the large underexposed areas are intentionally dark because they have a reference of something normally exposed in the frame -- without it, a frame that is completely underexposed can seem like an exposure error. Nestor Almendros commented on this when he made "Goin' South" (1978) -- he had scenes in a mine shaft lit only by kerosene lanterns (with a light bulb inside the lantern), and in some shots of Jack Nicholson, he was quite underexposed but as long as one of the lanterns was in the frame somewhere, it looked like a correctly exposed shot.

And there is a third aspect, that from a graphic standpoint, a frame with a bright highlight and a black reference in it just feels richer because of the tonal range in it.

I remember a scene from the TV series "Castle."

Castle's daughter had been taken and he tracked down the place where she had been held. In the center of the dark room was one of those led square lamps and even though it was very bright, it didn't seem to overwhelm the scene.

I, however focused on the lamp because it is exactly like two I have and have long pictured using in a scene of a future project which will be outdoors at night, but in a contemporary setting.

Just hoping when I do I get the same scene embed from the audience that the Castle scene did for me.