Night scene lighting

[D@n]

Has anyone tried creating a moon light soft light before?

I've thought of using a white sheet and beaming a spot light on it. The other side should give enouph light if the subject is close enouph?

Any other suggestions before I go and try it out?

Tks.

D@n.

 

[D@n]

It appears not alot of people use night time scenes...

Well,
I tried it out.

I used a KLIEGL BROS 120 Volts / 1000 Watts from the studio and
spoted it on a 54" white sheet. (hung between two tripods)

I brought the spot about 40" from the sheet and brought in the barn doors to fit the frame.
I used a DSR 250 DV CAM on this one. They don't realy capture saturation all that well in low light.
Lowered the exposer enouph to bring the vector scope levels between 7.5 and 100 k.

Came out nice. Nice and soft on the other side. Depending on the scene, it helped to use a light blue gel to make it more "Moon light...Mid May" feel...."cold as heck" in short.

I found it helped to use Birch trees in the shoot. Evergreens were too dark and wouldn't get noticed enouph in the shot. I supose having lights
scatered in the distance on the ground would help accentuate the shadows of the trunks.

That shall be my next project.

PS, this is a war scene...I tried white balancing on yellow and with the blue gels, it came out almost grey. "Nice miserable feeling"

Any thoughts or suggestions on this?


D@n.

 

[BigBeaner]

Ya, there's usually huge soft cubes big movie productions used. There's also I believe the wexler moon, or some term like that which is basically a ton of lights inside a cube shaped diffusion that can light up a large area at once.

 

[Rogue Crew]

...I tried white balancing on yellow and with the blue gels, it came out almost grey. "Nice miserable feeling"

Hmmm. I can't tell from this post if you want to replicate moonlight, or if you are going for something else. But you can cherry pick from my thoughts.

• First of all, moonlight is NOT soft light, in fact, it's quite harsh. The only time that it would be soft is when there was an overcast. Moonlight is after all, only reflected sunlight and like sunlight, or any light come to that, it's the size of the source that determines hard or soft. If I was shooting in the woods at night, I would put my largest fixtures at a distance behind some trees, and I would use at least full CTB gels, and maybe add 1/4 or 1/2 CTB on top of that. I won't look like moonlight, but it will give the impression of moonlight, which is really what you're after. So, ditch the bed sheet, and go big open face or fresnels.

• Secondly, you should do your white balance in white light, for the CTB to have the desired effect. I suppose you could white balance on a CTO gel over a white card and not use CTBs at all, but that is a bit trickier and you may end up with varying results shot by shot.

• I have no idea why you would consider white balancing with blue gels, since that would take you in the direction of late-afternoon sunlight.

 

[D@n]

Tks Rogue Crew

Yeah, the idea with the sheets, that didn't go too far.
I had heard the idea and gave it a try. You're right...moon light is not soft at all.

I'll consider the advice.
I'm trying different things because I'm shooting with a DV CAM, sony dsr 250. I find the image too sharp. There is no fonction to retain the definition.

 

[vnguyen972]

Can it be done by a cheap work light?

Can it be done by a cheap work light?

What else should we consider when there's only access to this cheap work lights from Home Depot to create the same effect?