Daylight + Lighting Kit = Frustration?
 

I shot a commercial this past weekend at a location that had flourescent ceiling lighting and also a big wall of windows in the front. I also had my own lighting kit.

If you want to view the spot, here's the link:

http://www.dreambigproductions.com/c.../downloads.htm

If you want to make comments on the spot itself, there is a thread in the DV For The Masses area here.


My questions are these:

#1
Are all three light sources different color temperatures (daylight, flourescent, and my Britek lighting kit)?

#2
How do you handle a situation with 3 different lighting sources that are all different temperatures?


Specifically, I have some shots where the subject is light on one side by the large bay of windows, lit from above and all around by the flourescent ceiling lights, and then from the other side by lights from my lighting kit to compensate for the large amount of light coming from the windows.

Any thoughts?

gels
 

You could turn off the flourescents. Add CTB (www.rosco.com) to your lights to balance to daylight. Add minus green to the flourescents, lots of options.

You could put a color temperature gel on the outside of the windows, to match the color temp inside, maybe eliminate one of the powered light sources, and bounce the existing light.

I thought about stringing sheets over the windows to diffuse the light, but that wouldn't change it's color temperature would it?

I guess gels on my lights with the flourescents off might have been the best option since this was a low-budget shoot. Thanks for the ideas!

Here's a quick read http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/light/.

Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the article as they list some great books that would certainly help you in learning lighting.

Tim

Tim,

Thanks. That was a good read. Once I figured out that my 3 lightings sources were all different color temperatures I felt a little less frustrated in my color correction efforts.

Yeah, normal flourescents are the worst source in the world to deal with. That slightly greenish cast in some of your shots will be due to the green spike in the florescent tube's color spectrum. Most of the time, I try to go with them turned off.

Another option to stuff into your bag-o-tricks is to replace the flourescent tubes with properly balanced tubes from someone like KinoFlo. You can get them in both daylight and tungsten color temperatures so you can match the color of either the window light or the light from your kit. You can usually rent them from a Grip and Electric for a few bucks a day each. It's something of a chore, of course, but I find it looks better than gelling the florescents if the fixture will be in frame.

That's a good tip that wouldn't have worked for me in this case. I was on a pretty tight budget, so buying a bunch of new bulbs wouldn't have worked. Also, in Boise we don't have a Grip and Electric or similar rental house, so I couldn't rent them either. Because of the initial wide shots, I also couldn't go without the fluorescents, because the window light source by itself wouldn't have produce appealing lighting.

Still, good ideas for future consideration with larger budgets. I also now realize that for my tighter shots I could have gone with the fluorescents off, and just used reflectors from the window light and maybe the effect would have been better. It sure is hard to catch this stuff while you're shooting and looking into a little viewfinder. d:-)

Travis,

You might check on local production companies too. Especially in smaller markets, many of them rent equipment even if they don't advertise as "grip and electric" houses. A few phone calls might give you info for the next time you face this problem. Oh, and if the state has a film commission, you could check with them to see if they have a services directory. Sometimes you will find companies that will service an area as if it were local even if they aren't located there.

I sure do understand the difficulty in trying to catch things while peering through a veiwfinder. It's always easier to sort these things out when you aren't in the midst of production where you have to worry about a zillion other things.

Good advice. And yeah, once you've done the writing, scouting, setup, directing, filming AND editing on a project, you realize why larger productions have such specialize roles. I can only imagine how nice it would be to have someone running the camera and someone running the lights and someone directing the "actors" while I just watched the monitor to make sure I was getting what I wanted. d:-)

Travis, your biggest problems with this spot can be fixed with some color correction. The clip "Increase your energy" (guy in red shirt) is too green and "Improve your cholesterol" is too blue. They don't mix with the clips that preceed and follow. "Cholesterol" with the older gentleman lit by a low color temperature light could be difficult since it will make him look more orange if you lower the blue.

Marcus,

You couldn't be more right. Those two clips are the two that stand out from the rest the most, and you diagnosed the color problems perfectly. The problem is that both clips present issues when I correct them any more than they are now. It's been bugging me enough that I'm going back in as I type this to try again.

Both of those clips had pretty harsh lighting from the bay of windows, as they were both shot closer to where the windows were. I compensated by splashing a lot more light from my lighting kit on the opposite side. The result is the problem you now see. Two completely different color temperatures hitting the same subject from opposite sides. Adjusting for one tends to exaggerate the other. It's like a catch-22.

I have an idea to split the clip and adjust it separately but I doubt that will actually look good. We'll see.

There's always the option of converting it to black and white...

Black and white: Not for this client and this spot.

However, I started playing with correction filters again and got the idea to isolate the reds in each clip via the 3-Way-Color-Corrector (3WCC) options in FCP. So, with that in place, I dropped the green in the first problem clip and the blue in the 2nd problem clip. This left my magenta and red way to hot in both clips, but since I had the problem red/magenta areas isolated in a 2nd 3WCC, I was able to dial back the saturation independently of the color in the rest of the image. The result was worth the extra trial and error.

Both clips now have 2 different 3WCC filters applied. The first for overall white balance and levels and saturation. The second for adjusting just the reds and magentas. Each clip also has several additional levels filters applied to adjust for the extra green from the fluorescent lights and the extra blue from the daylight source.

I'll repost the clip within the next hour for anyone who wants to see the results.

There's a company in Boise called Barbizon Lighting that was highly recommended to my by a rental co. here in Portland. They're a pro retailer, as far as I know. Don't know if they do rentals, but they might be able to refer you to someone in B. who does.

Hmm . . I looked them up in the white pages and they aren't even listed. Was this a while ago that you got their info?

In other news, the new clip is now online. You can download it via this link:

http://www.dreambigproductions.com/c.../downloads.htm

1,000% improvement! Good thinking.

How does the color corrector just remove the magenta from your talent? I didn't quite get how that is accomplished. I think this is a technique that ALL videographers should learn. The difference is almost hard to believe. Those lighting conditions were about the worst combinations possible and you pulled it off. I suppose if you had some candle light that needed to be matched in there, that would be the ultimate! :) Maybe a warm glow from a refinery coming in a side window?

I almost hate to say it, but the speed-pan transition going into the "improve your cholesterol" still looks green. It's just in the .5 seconds of the pan.

BTW, if you have too many fluorescents that are too green, you can try gelling your lights with plusgreen (1/8th?) and at least have even light to get your white balance. Many office fluorescents are 4100K, so they are easier to blend with daylight. If you have more shoots like this, try to get some daylight balanced lights since it is easier to gel down the color temperature than to gel up. Tungsten just doesn't put out much blue and putting full CTB on them really kills your brightness.

Thanks. I really appreciate all of the comments.

In the color corrector I used an eye-dropper tool that I can select a specific color with. Once I select a color, any adjustments I make to black levels, mids, whites and saturation will only affect that color.

To really make this work, though, I had to click with the dropper in a couple of different, but key, places. Like highlights, mids and shadows that were heavy in red or magenta in faces and shirts. Then, after I've got a rough selection of colors, I expanded the hue range that was to be affected, as well as expanded the saturation range and the luminance range. The end result which can be previewed in black/white viewer shows a selection of mostly the individual's red face and red shirt. Some background elements were also partially selected, but not enough to make much difference.

Once the selection is done, I just backed off the saturation until it looked about right. The original color corrector that I used for white balance and adjusting blacks, mids, whites and saturation is still affecting the clip. I just added another color corrector and made it's effect color specific.

I won't lie. It was tedious and hard on the eyes after a while, but worth the work overall I think.

And yeah, you're right that the speed-pan into "improve your cholesterol" isn't colored right. The way I had to create those transitions required making a 1-frame clip of the actual pan movement. I missed applying a corrective color correcting filter to that single frame, so it now affects the entire 20-frame transition. It's actually a yellow tint, but still, good catch. If nothing else, by pointing it out you made me smile because I knew you were really watching closely. I appreciate that.

Thanks for the tips on gelling. I've never done that, but I expect to be doing it soon. I'm sure I'll have questions, and I know right where I'll ask them. d:-)

I just realized that this video, and it's outcome, are a good textbook case for color correction and lighting. I can't think of a more perfect scenario for color correction. Mixed lighting sources and skin types in several shots all in the same room makes this a great learning tool. If there could be a corresponding lighting tutorial with on-location fixes to the issues using gels and lights, this would be equivalent to Lighting and Color Correction 301 that could still be understood by beginners. If you could narrate a video with before-and-after examples, you would propel people's understanding of color correction ahead from beginner to advanced in 5 minutes of video. I know I learned something and I have an actor that I really want to look good that has a lot of magenta tones in his face. This post was good timing for me!

I'm glad to hear my ordeal helped someone else out too! I certainly learned a lot about lighting and color correction with this project. As far as putting a video together, I don't think I have the time. I work like a dog as it is, although I do try to help out on here whenever I can. I'll think about it, but don't hold your breath . . . d:-)

mixed lighting...
 

Just thought I would add my 2 cents worth... Marcus nailed it, you were presented with the worst lighting scenario you could come across... tungsten, florescent and daylight all mixed together. Whenever you're faced with mixed lighting, and want to have a balanced look, you have to pick one of the source's temperature and adjust the other's to that.

The decision of which temperature to go with comes down to what you can manage. Replacing the bulbs or adding gels to the florescent lights wasn't in the budget. But neither was putting color correction gels on all the windows (which is what a bigger budget probably would have done). So now you have to keep working the problem. I'd first determine if I need the florescent lights as a source, or can you turn them off? If you can turn them off, CTB the light kit and leave the windows as is. If you can't turn off the lights, then can you block the windows? I was in a similar situation and since people were working, the lights had to stay on, but it turned out all the windows had blinds, so we just lowered those.

If that won't work, you're kind of stuck. No matter how you slice it, the camera can only be white balanced to one temperature at a time, so you would have an imbalance. As a last ditch effort, you could try to divide and conquer. Use color correcting gels to correct your light kit to the stronger of the two sources, and then try to overpower the weaker light source, thereby minimizing its influence. Tough situation though.

I've been through exactly this lighting / CC nightmare. Best way to avoid it, use only daylight balanced light sources. If you end up with some inkie praticals in the shot it still looks OK, the eye copes nicely with warm light sources. Get daylight in a shot balanced for tungsten and it looks really bad.

I managed to CC my problem shoot to some extent using several beziers but still I was left with shadows of mixed CT. Thankfully it was one very long static shot.

Yeah, my problem is that I didn't recognize the problem. I completely forgot about the fluorescent lighting. I should have turned them off to see how it looked. Oh well, a good lesson learned.

i just had this problem, cheap fix,,
 

shooting inside with window during daylight.
two 2-bulb flourescents on ceiling.

i replaced the tubes with daylight tubes from HomeDepot ($4/a pop)
used clamp reflectors with 100w daylight bulbs. they sell these in regular style bulbs and daylight compact flourescents. i used the regular style.

got it balanced enough where panning with the crane 270 degrees around garage the exposure stayed in center of meter. added a little nd gel over one of the clamp lights that i shined straight at the side of the drummer and it also traveled to the profile of the singer on a barstool closeby.

i am an amateur just getting into this and i must say, it was remarkable in the end for such little $$$ and time spent. (clamp lights up on mic stand booms)

these bulbs come in spots too now, even a huge 100w compact flourescent daylight version.

Daylight + Lighting Kit = Frustration?
 

I haven't seen the video yet, (it's still downloading) but I have solved this problem in the past by putting large sheets of CTO (color temperature orange) which is mixed with ND (neutral density) which looks a dark orange to the eye.

You put that over the windows, which changes it to tungsten color and knocks down the levels appreciably, so that you can also light with tungsten indoors and have about the right levels for video, which isn't that forgiving of high-contrast situations.

If you can't afford enough CTO/ND to cover all the windows, just close some of the blinds and cover with what you were able to afford, but the stuff is very cheap and you don't need to cut it up, really, just thumb-tack it to the windows outside and let the extra overlap, then roll it up and save it for the next shoot.