I first thought to shoot at night to avoid the bright windows, but having second thoughts. Except for a couple of small lamps, the place is entirely lit from outside normally, so maybe I should keep it that way?

Good thing is my Diva lights have daylight tubes as well as tungsten, so I can balance for daylight. Now, I still have to deal with the backlighting. I am thinking of a roll of ND gel to put over the windows (if I can find one), but not sure if that will do. I think I can get Lee 299 1.2 ND which is about four f-stops. Is that overkill?

Not overkill AT ALL.

I always have a roll of that - Plus a roll of 3 stop plus CTO around the shop so that you can shoot in conditions like this with tungsten fill lights when required. (Tungsten fresnels and open faced lights "cut" better with barn doors than any big soft source and you can use small tungsten insturments to project patterns and break up otherwise ugly expanses of nothing with various cookies.

YMMV.

My concern is that the ND will cut out so much light that I would not be able to light the interior. I am thinking that if I left alone the windows not in the shot that there would be enough ambient light. That would be tough to do if the subject moves through the apartment.

Your thinking is backwards.

Let's say for argument, that you cut out ALL the light coming in from outside. Then you've essentially created a situation exactly like shooting in the room at night. Today's camcorders are typically so sensitive that you can shoot under candlelight. So you can expect to get a sensible exposure in almost any interior.

By knocking down the windows to the MAXIMUM degree practical, you'll find that you can open up your camera iris and see BOTH the interior and the exterior perfectly well.

And any typical light you add to the interior in order to pop up your subjects, will NOT greatly affect the exposure of your windows since the exterior light is so much stronger than any normal interior lights.

So don't worry. Trust me. Gel the windows. Put up whatever lighting you have for your interior shooting, and I bet you're a LOT happier with the results than you will be trying to expose anything with those windows untreated.

Good luck.

Thanks Bill. I am definitely going to gel the windows. I have been advised that .6 ND might be enough so as not to cut out too much light. If need be I can double up. As for shooting in low light, the Canon XHA1s is probably not the best performer, so I want to save whatever light I can. I lighting guy in town wants me to rent an HMI to light the interior, but at $200 a day, I just can't do it without cutting into my pay.

Alex,

The one part that I'm still failing to communicate properly is that you're thinking about that window light as providing general illumination for the room. And while it sorta does - the fact that it's sourced from BEHIND any people in the room means that it's not really FUNCTIONAL light from a camera's perspective. Yes, it lights up the room. Light from BEHIND a subject can ONLY function to outline it's shape. Period, that's it. In order to achieve an decent exposure on any surface NOT facing those windows, you need to either reflect that window light back onto your subjects. OR fill with additional light. And think about it. To ANY extent you dim the light coming in the windows, the FILL light will dim at the SAME ratio. You'll NEVER get additional fill light - you can ONLY lower overall light.

You'll ALWAYS be dealing with a lighting situation that makes your subjects look like they're in witness protection if your primary light is coming from behind them.

So by all means GEL the windows. Lower the overall light level AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Why? Because you want to make it EASIER to add the light you WANT from in FRONT of your subjects in order to make the subjects STANE OUT in the scene.

Hope I'm being clear here. Too little window treatment is WORSE than too much. In fact, you'll get a better shot by simply blocking the windows with blackout drapes or blinds and shooting under ALL front light - than by trying to gel the lights too little in a vain hope of having them illuminate the room.

THe light coming from the windows WILL NOT EVER be key light (unless you change the shot geometry and/or reflect the windows in a way that they become keys) And without KEY being stronger than FILL or RIM light - you will NOT bring your subjects into well-lit prominence.

Simple as that.

Good luck.

How much ND factor to knock down the window?

Iris down the camera and see how many stops it takes to get the window to the level you want. Then figure out what ND factor will give you that many stops.

Bill, I understood what you meant. The windows in the shot have to be gelled, period. The question is by how much? I still want it to appear to be daytime and the place has to look like it's being lit from out there.

Dean, I'm assuming you mean that I should light the interior so that it looks right except for the windows. Then find the proper stop down from there and add the appropriate gel.

To complicate things, the program is about interior decorating. I'm going to follow the woman through the tiny apartment as she points to various objects. It's a "before and after" kind of thing.

If I gel all the windows simultaneously, my lights may be enough to overcome the light loss. If that's not the case, I think I can break up the shoot into segments where I can gel or ungel various windows. I can use the windows that aren't in the shot for ambience and then use my lights for people.

I sure will be proud of myself if I can pull this off. My hat's off to anyone who can just eyeball this stuff.

Dean, I'm assuming you mean that I should light the interior so that it looks right except for the windows. Then find the proper stop down from there and add the appropriate gel.

Yep, that's correct! Different cameras have different dynamic ranges, so what might be acceptable for one might not be acceptable for another. This eliminates the guesswork.

A good topic. People always asking about various lighting instruments on this forum, when the sun is, especially for small/medium-budget day shoots, the 600 pound gorilla in the room. That makes ND rolls one of the most valuable lighting instruments around! (Just my 2 cents).

Alex, remember that windows face in different directions so the sun streams into them sometimes more and sometimes less directly, not only depending on the direction they are facing but also relative to what time of day it is. There's no one answer as to how 'dark' your ND will need to be.

Also keep your blocking and framing in mind. Turning the subject and if they are sitting, the subject's chair, a 1/4 to 3/4 turn one way or the other, could add or eliminate the window from the background. Put diffusion material in front of a window that's not directly in the shot and it could be a nice soft key/fill. I'm sure you probably realize this, but that's another reason why no one can give you a definitive answer.

Last but not least, if the apt. is on the ground floor and there is room to do so, you can go outside, put a tube of ND on the extension arm of a c-stand, unroll it and clamp the gel to another c-stand, again both just outside the window. It can save you measuring/cutting up a lot of ND and trying to stick it in the inside frame of the window.

The window is your key as well as your motivated light source, who has lights on during the day? I assume your shots will include the window or ND wouldn't be an issue. That will put all your shots on the outside 180 relative to the window which will keep your key light off camera which is mostly how it's done. You'll still have to ND them to keep them from blowing out but if people are looking out the window during a scene then you've already lost.

Good Luck

Charles, forgive me but I have no idea what you mean.

To be more clearerer the light from the window should be the direction that your key light originates regardless of whether you stop down the window down or not.

To remain consistent with the 180 rule 180 degree rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule) and since you've indicated the window will be in the shot , your coverage shots will all be with the key light off camera as opposed to center.

Anyone want to help me out here, I don't think this is revolutionary thinking?

If you are shooting over an extended period of one day and not shorter bursts at the same time over several days, with the exception maybe and just maybe for a northside window in the US, the changes in that outdoors light source are going to be your biggest enemy. Changes in the dominent light source will be beyond your limited resources to control.

It would be a less inspiring shot but my personal preference would be to not include the window in the shot and put the daylight source behind the camera. If the existence of an outdoors environment must be authenticated within the apartment, maybe re-position and wet'gell the wall mirror with a tidily cut ND and include that in a shot so that a balanced outdoors background can be seen. You'll need far less gel to do it. That building next door will give you a major continuity issue as it is too close and will show lighting changes, jumping of shadows etc..

Take notice of the better and brighter more competent people than I who contribute here.

I still don't know what you are saying. I know what the 180 rule is, but that is not the issue. The pictures at the beginning of this thread show that the small apartment is surrounded by windows - impossible to avoid no matter what angle I shoot from. I was just trying to figure out how best to deal with the windows in the shot (gel) and the windows not in the shot. As I move through the apartment, different windows will be in the shot, and the others (not in the shot) can become key/fill sources. I was thinking to gel in such a way that I can quickly take the gel down as soon as that window is no longer in the shot so that it can become a light source.

In a perfect world, i would keep all windows gelled and then have an HMI or two to light the interior. I would not need the light coming from the windows. Then I would light the people with my Diva lights. Due to lack of space and no HMIs, I have to use the windows for light sources.

The good thing is, the shoot has been cancelled for now.

LIghting discussions are often fascinating around here.

Unlike many other types of discussions, there's never any one right answer (there are sometimes wrong ones!) Everyone brings different levels of experience and their approaches to the table. Often the original poster disappears for pages of posts at a time--sometimes I think they get scared off by the seemingly divergent opinions presented!

What I always look for (and often don't see) in these kinds of queries is the most important information of all: what is the nature of the shoot itself? Given this exact same location, you could shoot a sit-down interview, b-roll, a narrative short (and is that a comedy or a drama? naturalistic or stylistic?). Alex, it was well into the discussion that you revealed that you were shooting a interior decorator walking around the location, which then rendered any discussions of 180-degree rules or motivated lighting pretty well irrelevant. If I were given that assignment, my plan would be to determine a scheme that would let us move quickly, fluidly and see as many directions as possible without a relight; making the light "natural" or "motivated" would take a back seat to speed and efficiency. This is especially the case if the talent is not a seasoned on-camera pro.

Gelling that many windows (especially arched ones) is a long and involved job to do cleanly, especially with no window treatments to help hide mistakes/seams. Seems like a lot to do for a shoot of this type, especially if you have a small crew. I would be unlikely to undertake that plan myself in this instance, choosing to shoot with the majority of windows out of frame when possible and bringing up the interior level. Your plan of peeling off the off-camera gel is fine but it would require meticulous planning and shot-listing to know where you are going to be seeing in every shot so that you don't end up turning around and shooting back to one of the open windows. Re-applying ND to windows during this kind of shoot--again and in my experience, it's a bad fit in terms of time and energy. It is however good to know where the sun will be at given time frames during your shoot so that you can a) recommend the best shooting window and b) plan your shooting order around this. If the talent needs to shoot in a specific order, once again that may have to take precedent but it's still most helpful to know when optimal times are for a given room so that you can plan accordingly. Having 4x4 floppys will be helpful in case raw sun pokes through a window and you need to block that particular source, assuming it is off-camera. In a situation where those are considered exotic gear, taping black plastic (available on the roll from any hardware store) over the window will do.

Since the shoot is cancelled and the discussion is now purely academic--let's have fun and pretend that this location was to be used for a dramatic scene. Arguably, the "right" way to light it is to indeed gel down the windows to the appropriate shooting stop and then rebuild the light level by lighting through the windows. It takes a lot of firepower to penetrate multi-stop ND, hence the general preference for 18K's for this sort of thing. Since that's out of the reach of most of our gentle readers, the next best thing is to light from the same general direction, i.e. mount the lights inside the room above the windows. The Diva's would work well for this purpose as they are fairly punchy and have a good spread, so they won't "give away" the cheated source as much. Anyone approaching the window will appear to be lit from the window; the light will fall off naturally as the subject moves further away. Obviously there are situations where this doesn't work as well (low window/tall actor) but often the audience won't notice.

Now I put "right" in quotes above to indicate that there is always the possibility of going with natural light, depending on the type of project. Cameras today are beginning to allow us to capture the real deal, and while we are still fighting limited latitude with the more affordable ones, I can tell you that I've had the opportunity to play in the "future", shooting day exteriors on the Alexa with full sun adjacent to full shade and the image holds beautifully--less contrasty than my own eyes!

I learned quite a lesson doing a corporate shoot with Vincent Laforet earlier this year. We decided to shoot some b-roll in the subjects bedroom of him dressing for the day; I looked at the two hot windows in the room and started bringing in three Litepanels to augment and wrap the light around the subject. Vincent stopped me and suggested "let's just try it with available light". The result was completely natural and it set the tone that told the story. While the virtually undecorated apartment with its white walls seemed like it would be a nightmare to shoot at first, when the subject was in near silhouette much of the time, it all seemed to work. Clip is watchable here (http://www.youtube.com/user/chupap1#p/c/8CD85F532B62526C/3/-ZzcWj8QdIA). I did light the actual interview--was actually a pretty elaborate setup--but all of the b-roll in the house was available light.

Moral of the story: few of us mere mortals master lighting, even the best cinematographers will admit to changing tastes and techniques as the years go by. And the only way to learn, really, is by trying everything once. You can pick up things from books, DVD's and yes even message boards--but rolling up your sleeves and experimenting has to accompany all of that.

Since I would have been a 1-man crew, I thank God the shoot is cancelled! It would have taken a whole day to prep the place. But I would have definitely earned bragging rights. Thanks to all for your input.