tips of night shooting with lots of background lights

[Matthew de Jongh]

thanks for all the tips so far, it has really helped guide me towards what to play with to learn how to make the camera give me the looks i want and to understand why i wasn't getting what i wanted...

so, last night i went out and did a bunch of shooting in a dimly lit parking lot.

it came out quite nicely, i did most of it with the shutter at 1/24 and the iris full open, then when some of the stores/signs were qutie bright i tried the iris at 3.4

the city streetlights had a reddish glow and lights in car dealer parking lots were bluish, i know that this is from the type of bulb/temp etc. but what is the best way to minimize that?

also, at night, what is the best white balance to use? i have a set of warm cards, would one of those be appropriate?

is there a setting that would minimize the halo around the lights?

i was shooting all of this in the F5 scene file with only the shutter and iris changed. all of it was in manual focus.

matthew

[Charles Papert]

Matthew:

Generally I shoot night exteriors at 3200K, but if there is a predominate light source such as a parking lot (sodium vapor) I might balance to that so that the skin tones are clean. To keep the Xmas tree lights looking nice at 2900K or so, 3200 should work. If you are using an onboard light, white balance to that and the use of a warm card would be pretty as well.

[Matthew de Jongh]

thanks for the info charles, i am not using an onboard light, i am VERY new to a camera with this many options, how can i set the white balance for the levels you spoke of?

i have been doing standard white balances and cheating with warmcards from warmcards.com

i know enough to know that the pink and blue colors are from the type of light, but not enough to hit the specific settings you spoke of.

matthew

[Stephen van Vuuren]

Check the section in the manual on the various white balance settings. Indoor is tungsten, generally 3200 degrees Kelvin or 3200k. Outdoor is 5600K, though these numbers vary with cams. film stocks, lights etc.

[Matthew de Jongh]

i know what the numbers mean, but i'm dense, how do i specifically set the white balance for those numbers?

i know the presets are 3200k and 5600k, but other than that, is there a way to specifically dial in a set number?

matthew

[Paul Leung]

I need to seek advice in shooting at night as well. I just got my DVX100A and was testing it day and night. I notice that there was much noise in the darker areas. A clip can be seen at

http://etilise.com/try.m2v (sorry for the size (34M), don't know how to make good quality and small mov file).

First I watched the clip on a 14" TV and it looked great. Later I watched it on a 25" and 34"... the quality was not very good at all on the big screen. I can see much noise in areas between the buildings and particularly in the sky. The neon light looked like bleeding as well.

All three shots were done with factory default F1 scene with fully opened iris and 1/60 shutter. 0db gain in the first two shots. The firework shot has 6db gain. I note that when the firework lit up the sky, much of the noise was gone. However, as it dimmed the noise came back again.

I notice that the noise can be found in day shots as well. Basically I cannot get low light and dark areas without noise. Please advise if there are settings and things that I may try. Thanks!!

[Matthew de Jongh]

well i already did the shoot, i was using the f5 presets, i did it with the shutter wide open and the iris wide open.

came out pretty good without having to use the gain settings at all.

matthew