Night Shoot...outside
 

Looking for opinions on lighting an outside night shoot. In the middle of the woods, no power available. Need to light up an area about 15' across, but don't want to use a spotlight as it would blind the guys... Something like a diffused floodlight. Also, what's the best way to power it, gotta last several hours. Oh yea, I'll be walking in about a mile to this spot; creative battery packs!

Thanks,
E

You don't have too many options. Are you trying to light it like daylight or just light enough to tape? If you need daylight, you'll need a Honda generator. If you need just enough to tape get a couple of the outdoor spot lights sold in sporting goods stores (1,000,000 candle power). They run off 12 volt DC so carry in a couple of car batteries and your good to go for a couple of hours.

Jeff

lighting
 

Just enough to shoot without getting that Blair WItch Project look. Not sure about the generator, that's a long way to carry it! I tried the batt powered spotlight, but it's way too concentrated; blinds people. I need something more diffused.

Some have focusing beams, set them to widest setting and cover the front with a translucent material. That will also soften and diffuse the light. You can also back up to diffuse the light. You can also use small camera mounted lights. do a search and you'll find several threads on camera mounted lights. There were also some for sale recently in our classifieds at the bottom.

Jeff

I take a white sheet in and bungee cord it to trees, then light it from behind with a 50 or 100 watt halogen. Should be reasonably soft, not too bright and you can carry all that gear in on your back.

Well, except for the automobile battery. Seriously, a battery is carryable on a backpack frame. Use a gelcell car battery if the thought of the acid worry's you. Or just a bunch of small jell cells.

OR, if you can find a place to rent it, a 25 watt HMI will run for hours on a NRG battery belt. Probably 4 or 5 hours. That will give you about the equivalent of 100 watts of halogen light.

Consider using one or two of the battery-powered flourescent camping lanterns. They will last far longer than 2 hours on a battery (at least mine has run all night when I forgot about it). I think those units run at a high frequency and any flicker will not be visible in the video.

Can you have a bonfire on the other side of the sheet? Probably can color balance it sufficiently. I've never tried it though.

There is also a smaller high power output gel cell available.
I cant remember the name right now but will find out.
It has a high wattage output and is fast charging.
my friends run a small techno sound system off it for street performances and it works great so i would imagine you would get at least 2 hours of light out of it.
Not too sure will find out the specs and post back
it is way lighter than a car battery and supposedly puts out enough juice to turn a car over.
I think it weighs 5 kilos or so.
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Thanks for these tips to i needed a solution for my mx500 and i just found one. low light is not its favourite sport.
bb