Hello,
I am going to shoot in an overcast/cloudy outdoor location with abandoned buildings around and there is no way to get electricity there, maybe only sunguns. A generator is not an option.

Is it possible to do it only with reflectors, let's say DIY white foam boards with metal foil on one side? The scene can and should be a bit gloomy (hence the need for a cloud cover), but I want to avoid a grainy picture.

What are the physical limitations of using reflectors, what is your experience?

Many thanks!

I love using hard reflectors when the conditions are right, but without direct sunlight reflectors are useless, there's nothing there to reflect.

You might be better off renting a cheap generator from a tool rental company and go with lights.

If possible take your camera out there ahead of time & shoot some test footage.

You might be surprised how much light there really is even on an overcast day. When there is cloud cover, we percieve the world as dark, but actually much of the light is still getting through, after bouncing around in the clouds.

It depends how sensetive your camera is, but lots of cameras these days are sensetive enough to shoot on cloudy days without using light amplification, which is what will cause the grainyness you fear.

Thank you for your replies, I'll try to do a test footage,
and I have Canon XH A1.

Renting a generator is not an option because we don't want to get noticed by making loud noises, so we'll hike to the location.

If there won't be enough light, I'm considering pointing sunguns to reflectors. :)

The sun is extremely powerful (even through clouds)... you will have enough light unless you are shooting close to sunrise/sunset. That is unless you are shooting inside the building.

2- If the day is overcast, the overall lighting will be very flat and reflectors won't do much. If the sun is poking through the clouds then they will do something... but then you run into the situation where lighting fluctuates depending on whether the clouds are blocking the sun or not.

You could try doing negative fill... there's a picture of that at efplighting.com
http://efplighting.com/?Lighting_interviews:Quick_Interviews

But whatever you use to block light has to be very big, proportional to the framing of the shot.

3- The problem with sunguns is that their color temperature is around 3200k, which will be very warm compared to sunlight. You can gel your light but then that cuts the light output and the light is not powerful enough.

4- Try going out and seeing how the natural light works for you... if you have diffused light coming through a window that can be a beautiful look (depending on what you're going for). Place the subjects in interesting light.

you could also use rechargable HID daylight lamps... I have 4 that make great daylight fills... last about 70 mins on a charge and will run off 12v source as well.... cost about $65-95 usd.

Sam's club sells ( $65 ) a power on board HID rechargable spot ( 22 million candle power ) that is 6000k and a cri above 85.... I have 4 of them right now and they are very narrow beam but make great little hmi daylight spots. They last about 70 mins on a charge, but will run off a 12V source for longer. here's a link to a video I shot useing 1 of the HID spots from behind.... http://www.witzke-studio.com/hd/dyingindiana.html

and here's a review by someone into lights....
http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/eighth/powhid.htm

Hello,
I am going to shoot in an overcast/cloudy outdoor location with abandoned buildings around and there is no way to get electricity there, maybe only sunguns. A generator is not an option.
Many thanks!


Sveiks Tautas Bralis !

Gints

Christopher, the site with the review of those lights has a graph that shows a significant green spike and their pictures all have a green cast compared to sunlight in the same shot. Actually, it looks like they have both a blue and green spike but no red to balance things out. I noticed in your music video that the beams of light have a bluish corona which I initially thought was a result of daylight spots being used along with tungsten key lights. Now, I'm not so sure it is just a color temperature issue. How do things look to you with these lights and daylight combined?

They do start up a bit green....but need a few mins to get up to full brightness, and level color.... but intercutting with daylight they look good.

with the music video... the key lights were tungsten floods... so the spot looks blue.... but the added color helped adds to the stage look it think.

here's some clips of the light in use....
http://www.witzke-studio.com/hd/hidfoot.mov

the raw coffe beans in the bag are just 1 hid bounced off a white foamcore.

the roasting dudes is a combo of HID and 6 bank daylight flo.

the espresso pour is a combo of HID and daylight window....

to be honest.... I really have not had any problems with the color or CRI rating of these HID spots..... no special grading needed.... ad add a little nattress bleach bypass to my footage sometimes... but just for a more contrasty look ( which I like )

oh... and one thing I do like about them, is that if you slow down the footage, you don't get the flicker problem that you get with flo. ( so I've noticed )

Nice work Christopher. Hey anybody can have an opinion, even if they have never had any experience, your lighting is subtle and transparent and yet makes the scene pop. By the way I have one of thoses $65 hid lights too. They make quite a stream of daylight coming in a window. . . wow.
Gary

yep... they work for me.... and the fact that you can do a scene in the woods at dusk/dawn miles from a wall tap makes me giddy.

I've been tempted to dismantle a few and put them in a china ball... battery and all.... now if only I could get them to float without using stands...hehe

To be honest... I don't know why the link about the light shows pics so green... I've used the lights with my Canon 5D at daylight setting and it fills great.. no noticeable color shift.....

Someone said that the sungun is only 3200K. Not true. There are several HMI sunguns for daylight use. Frezzi makes one for instance.

http://www.adorama.com/FZ92809.html

There are others too. A sungun is really nothing more than a par that can operate off batteries. No reason to mystify it. A par can be HMI or halogen technology. Open face or with a very clear safety lens. A flashlight is a par configuration by the way ;-). So is a car headlight. And a par is just an abbreviated spotlight without the fancy plano-convex lens and long focusing mechanism. Both pars and spotlights have the same ellipsoidal reflector with a bulb peaking through the middle type configuration. Just like a flashlight or car headlight.

You can see here in this website, they have a Joker 200 and then a "Sungun 200" by K5600. Really the same fixture...

http://www.birnsandsawyer.com/cgibin/BIRstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=Lighting%20Rentals%3BLighting%20Equipment%3BHMI%20Lighting&start=10

The main difference is battery operation. There's another HMI sungun there by LTM too.

I've gotta say though, this is one useful little find Christopher. You can't beat the price for sure. Everyone ought to have this little light in their kit. I think the best name for this device is not "spotlight" though as it really doesn't qualify as that since it doesn't have the fancy lens. It really is a metal halide, daylight sungun or battery powered par for our purposes.

yep... they work for me.... and the fact that you can do a scene in the woods at dusk/dawn miles from a wall tap makes me giddy.

I've been tempted to dismantle a few and put them in a china ball... battery and all.... now if only I could get them to float without using stands...hehe

To be honest... I don't know why the link about the light shows pics so green... I've used the lights with my Canon 5D at daylight setting and it fills great.. no noticeable color shift.....

The link shows the pic's green because the photographer didn't understand how to use his white balance. If you're going to use them in a China ball, why not use a more powerful version like a 70w or 150w. It's not so much harder to put one of those together. Then you have a poor man's spacelight. If you had a makeshift green screen stage, I can't think of a more even lighting over the entire area than a few china balls with 150w metal halide's in them. 13000 lumens (or so) each is roughly the equivalent of a bunch of 650w bulbs which would otherwise require a pretty beefy china ball.

"The link shows the pic's green because the photographer didn't understand how to use his white balance."

Note that I said, "their pictures all have a green cast compared to sunlight in the same shot".

The lights look green compared to the sun and no amount of white balancing can deal with two different colors. I suspect that what Christopher said about them needing time to warm up may be the issue. It is clear that the colors look fine in his videos. I agree that the blue corona in the music video makes the spotlights more interesting. I figured it was due to the key being tungsten. Regardless of any color issues, these lights look rather handy. Someone just needs to figure out how to put a 5/8" socket on the yoke. :)

HID bulbs need about 1 to 5 minutes to be stable for sure. The ones I've been using actually stabilize in a minute or so. HID really can make the best sungun when you consider the lumens per watt and necessity to keep battery draw to a minimum to increase watt hour life. They've got such great throw too.

At some point I hope to revisit this subject with a Cool Lights 70 or 150w sungun as I really am impressed with the price performance ratio of those bulbs. I'm learning a bit about batteries right now too as I've been working on an LED project in my extra time. Looks like Lithium Polymers / Lithium Ion are the techology to use for these kinds of things to keep them small and lightweight. Pair a small 70 or 150w par fixture with a high watt hour battery and recharger and you've really got something to put an LED panel to shame.

I'm starting to think a par HID would be ideal for my upcoming shoot. With the latitude I'm getting out of my combination of V1U, Brevis, and filters, I just need some daylight fill for some stuff I plan on shooting in the forest here. I might have to get by with reflectors, but I know how nice it is to have a daylight fixture for where reflectors don't work. A small kit with light and battery would be the only thing practical for taking into the woods.

I hear you loud and clear! Lots of people going out into the sticks and they need light. I think 70 to 150w is doable. Above that the battery requirements start to get ridiculous. But 13000 lumens of long throw light running off a battery should light a pretty good area.

Someone said that the sungun is only 3200K.
Sorry, I think I abused the terminology there. Anyways, 3200K lights can have the problem of not being powerful enough after you gel them.

Thank you all for the helpful info,
I'll try to get my hands on that HID gun, thanks :)

So where can I get this portable lights?
Did I overlook the link?
Thanks!

I buy mine at samsclub..... down to $65 now....

samsclub.com shows them by searching HID... at only $47!

I think I'll order a few more today as well!

Well, since I can't find any shop selling thse lights in Europe (ordering from the US doubles the price), I'll try looking for something similar in our local shops, so question: Is there a way to tell the colour temperature of a light when testing it in shop?
What specs could indicate the temperature?

Thanks

Most 200W HMI's can be powered with 12V Anton/Bauer Batteries, or other types of camera batteries.

Reflectors can work pretty well on overcast days, unless it's really dark. As someone said, negative fill also works, using Duvetyne, or anything black to block/eat light.

You can get Beadboard reflectors, or make your own.

Buy, or rent larger frames. 4'x4', 6'x6', 8'x8', 12'x 12', 20'x20' are standard sizes. You can gets nets, silk, or grid cloth for diffusion, solids for neg fill, various materials are available for bounce too.

Mirrors can also work well, especially if you need to relay light from outside, into a building.

You'll need lots of grip gear to hold all this and probably a person at each reflector to aim them.

Smaller Honda 2Kw silent generators work pretty well and can wired parallel, so you have 4Kw of power. Just be sure that it's way the hell away from set and bring things to create a sound blimp. Be sure that the intake and exhaust aren't blocked.

Well, since I can't find any shop selling thse lights in Europe (ordering from the US doubles the price), I'll try looking for something similar in our local shops, so question: Is there a way to tell the colour temperature of a light when testing it in shop?
What specs could indicate the temperature?

Thanks

Not really. You could use a Gossen Color Meter 3F but they're really expensive at around $1400 unless you can pick one up cheaper off Ebay where you see them from time to time. Most of these HID type 35w bulbs will be in the range of 4200K to 6500K so you can pretty much guess it'll be in that area.

Sam`s Club says they are only available "in club" - I guess that means local outlets, no mailorder...?
Any other US distributers of that light that take online orders?
Thanks!

I did a quick check and couldn't find a similar model anywhere for a reasonable price.

What would really be cool would be a pistol grip version of this thing with a stand mount at the end of the grip. Now that would be a sungun.

For closeups on overcast days, you can often get a substantial "air bounce" with a 4x4 piece of beadboard held next to or under the subject's face--more than a few feet away the effect will disappear, hence the ability to do this only with closeups! The larger the bounce, the more the effect, but at this level you are unlikely to be working with griffs and ultrabounces on large frames. The nice thing about the under-the-face bounce for overcast day work is that it will restore some value to the underside of the face, reducing the top-heavy look of overcast skies, and because it is so soft it will look quite natural. And to echo what has already been said several times, neg fill is a powerful weapon also.

One issue with a small battery powered light is that it will more often than not produce a "lit" effect. Adding diffusion at the light will not improve things much--you would really want to use a larger frame of diffusion closer to the subject to help things out. What is good for the evening news is not good for narrative filmmaking (unless it's supposed to look like the news!)

here's another company selling them besides sams...

http://boatandrvaccessories.com/SLH100P

looks like there made by vector

Even better price on that one too. $49 is a bargain.

But unfortunately out of stock...