Tag Archives: night

cinematography, Technology, Venice

Day For Night With Infrared.

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Many of you may have already seen articles about how DP Hoyte Van Hoytema used a Panavision System 65 film camera paired with an Alexa 65 modified to be sensitive to infrared light to shoot day for night on the film “Nope”. https://www.cined.com/filming-night-scenes-thinking-outside-the-box-on-the-film-nope/

Can You Make It Work?

Well, I was recently asked if I could come up with a rig to do the same using Sony cameras for an upcoming blockbuster feature with an A-list director being shot by a top DP.  This kind of challenge is something I enjoy immensely, so how could I not accept the challenge! I had some insight into how Hoyte Van Hoytema did it but I had none of the fine details and often its the fine details that make all the difference. And this was no exception. I discovered many small things that need to be just right if this process is to work well. There are a lot of things that can trip you up badly.

So a frantic couple of weeks ensued as I tried to learn everything I could about infrared photography and video and how it could be used to improve traditional day for night shooting. I don’t claim any originality in the process, but there is a lot of information missing about how it was actually done in Nope. I have shot with infrared before, so it wasn’t all new, but I had never used it this way before.

As I did a lot of  3D work when 3D was really big around 15 years ago, including designing award winning 3D rigs, I knew how to combine two cameras on the same optical axis. Even better I still had a suitable 3D rig, so at least that part of the equation was going to be easy (or at least that’s what I thought).

Building a “Test Mule”.

The next challenge was to create a low cost “test mule” camera before even considering what adaptations might be needed for a full blown digital cinema camera. To start with this needed to be cheap, but it also needed to be full frame and capable of taking a wide range of cinema lenses and sensitive to both visible and infrared light. So, I took an old A7S that had been gathering dust for a while, dismantled it and removed the infrared filter from the sensor.

IMG_0078-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
A7S being modified for infrared (full spectrum).
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Panavised and Infrared sensitive A7S with Panavision Primo lens.

 

As the DP wanted to test the process with Panavision lenses the camera was fitted with a PV70 mount and then collimated in it’s now heavily modified state (collimation has some interesting challenges when working with the very different wavelength of infrared light compared to visible). Now I could start to experiment, pairing the now infrared sensitive A7S with a second camera on the 3D rig. We soon found issues with this setup, but it allowed me to take the testing to the next stage before committing to modifying a more expensive camera for infrared.

IMG_0087-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.



This testing was needed to determine exactly what range of infrared light would produce the best results. The range of infrared you use is determined by filters added to the camera to cut the visible light and only pass certain parts of the infrared spectrum. There are many options, different filters work in slightly different ways. And not only do you need to test the infrared filters but you also need to consider how different neutral density filters might behave if you need to reduce the IR and visible light. Once I narrowed down the range of filters I wanted to test the next challenge was find very high quality filters that could either be fitted inside the camera body behind the lens or that were big enough (120mm +) for the Panavision lenses that were being considered for the film.

Once I had some filters to play with (I had 15 different IR filters) the next step was to start test shooting. I cheated here a bit. For some of the initial testing I used a pair of zoom lenses as I was pairing the A7S with several different cameras for the visible spectrum. The scan areas of the different sensors in the A7S and the visible light cameras were typically very slightly different sizes. So, a zoom lens was used to provide the same field of view from both cameras so that both could be more easily optically aligned on the 3D rig. You can get away with this, but it makes more work for post production as the distortions in each lens will be different and need correcting. For the film I knew we would need identical scan sizes and matched lenses, but that could come later once we knew how much camera modification would be needed. To start with I just needed to find out what filtration would be needed.

At this point I shot around 100 different filter and exposure tests that I then started to compare in post production. When you get it all just right the sky in the infrared image becomes very dark, almost black and highlights become very “peaky”. If you use the luminance from the infrared camera with its black sky and peaky highlights and then add in a bit of colour and textural detail from the visible camera it can create a pretty convincing day for night look. Because you have a near normal visible light exposure you can fine tune the mix of infrared and visible in post production to alter the brightness and colour of the final composite shot giving you a wide range of control over the day for night look.

So – now I know how to do it, the next step was to take it from the test mule to a pair of matching cinema quality cameras and lenses for a full scale test shoot. When you have two cameras on a 3D rig the whole setup can get very heavy, very fast. Therefore the obvious camera to adapt was a Sony Venice 2 with the 8K sensor as this can be made very compact by using the Rialto unit to split the sensor from the camera body – In fact one of the very first uses of Rialto was for 3D shooting on Avatar – The Way of Water.

With a bit of help from Panavision we adapted a Panavised Venice 2, making it full spectrum and then adding a carefully picked (based on my testing) special infrared filter into the cameras optical path. This camera was configured using a Rialto housing to keep it compact and light so that when placed on the 3D rig with the visible light Venice the weight remained manageable. The lenses used were Panavision PV70 Primo’s (if you want to use these lenses for infrared – speak to me first, there are some things you need to know).

IMG_0097-2-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
3D rig with an Infrared capable Venice Rialto and normal Venice 2 with Panavision Primo lenses.



And then with the DP in attendance, with smoke and fog machines, lights and grip we tested. For the first few shot we had scattered clouds but soon the rain came and then it poured down for the rest of the day. Probably the worst possible weather conditions for a day for night shoot.  But that’s what we had and of course for the film itself there will be no guarantee of perfect weather.

IMG_0101-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
Testing the complete day for night IR rig.

 

IMG_0122-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.
Testing how smoke behaves in infrared. Different types of smoke and haze and different types of lights behave very differently in infrared.

 

The large scale tests gave us an opportunity to test things like how different types of smoke and haze behave in infrared and also to take a look at interactions with different types of light sources.  With the right lights you can do some very interesting things when you are capturing both visible light and infrared opening up a whole new world of possibilities for creating unique looks in camera.

From there the footage went to the production companies post production facilities to produce dailies for the DP to view before being presented to the studios post production people. Once they understood the process and were happy with it there was a screening for the director along with a number of other tests for lighting and lenses.

IMG_0114-Large-600x450 Day For Night With Infrared.

Along the way I have learnt an immense amount about this process and how it works. What filters to use and when, how to adapt different cameras, how different lenses behave in the infrared spectrum (not all lenses can be used). Collimating adapted cameras for infrared is interesting as many of the usual test rigs will produce misleading or confusing results. I’ve also identified several other ways that a dual camera setup can be used to enhance shooing night scenes, both day for night and as well as at night, especially for effects heavy projects.  

At the time of writing it looks like most of the night scenes in this film will be shot at night, they have the budget and time to do this. But the director and DP have indicated that there are some scenes where they do wish to use the process (or a variation of it), but they are still figuring out some other details that will affect that decision.

Whether it gets used for this film or not I am now developing a purpose designed rig for day for night with infrared as I believe it will become a popular way to shoot night scenes. My cameras of choice for this will be a pair of Venice cameras. But other cameras can be used provided one can be adapted for IR and both can be synchronised together. I will have a pair of Sony F55’s, one modified for IR available for lower budget productions and a kit to reversibly adapt a Sony Venice. If you need a rig for day for night and someone that knows exactly how to do it, do get in touch! 

I’m afraid I can’t show you the test results, that content is private and belongs to the production. The 3D rig is being modified as you don’t need the ability to shoot with the cameras optically separated, removing the moving parts will make the rig more stable and easier to calibrate. Plus a new type of beam splitter mirror with better infrared transmission properties is on the way. As soon as I get an opportunity to shoot a new batch of test content with the adapted rig I will share it here.

PXW-FS5, Shooting Tips

Using an FS5 to shoot in low light – what can I do?

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The PXW-FS5 is a pretty good camera overall. Compared to cameras from 6 or 7 years ago it’s actually pretty sensitive. The exposure rating of 800 ISO for the standard rec-709 picture profile tells us that it is a little more than twice as sensitive as most old school shoulder cams. But it also suggests that it is only around half as sensitive as the king of low light, the Sony A7S. The A7S is so sensitive because it’s sensor is 1.5x bigger than the sensor in the FS5 and as a result the pixels in the A7S are almost twice the size, so are able to capture more light.

So what can you do if shooting in low light? 

The most important thing to do is to make the optical system as efficient as possible. You want to capture as much of the available light as you can and squeeze it down onto the FS5’s sensor. If you take a fast full frame lens and use it in conjunction with a Speed Booster type adapter you will end up with similar performance to using the same lens, without the speed booster on an A7S.

This is because the lens has a fixed light gathering capability. Use it on an A7S and all of the captured light is passed to all of those big pixels on the sensor. The light is split evenly across 4K’s worth of pixels.

Use it on an FS5 with a speedbooster and the same thing happens, all of the light is compressed down, which makes it brighter and all of this now brighter light falls on 4K’s worth of pixels. The smaller pixels are about half as sensitive, but now the light is twice as bright, so the end result is similar.

metabones_mb_spom_m43_bm3_speed_booster_ultra_0_71x_1259766-1024x1024 Using an FS5 to shoot in low light - what can I do?
A speedbooster adapter such as the Metabones makes a huge difference in low light. But you MUST use a full frame lens.

The biggest performance gains are to be had from using a very fast lens and then making sure all the light from the lens is used, none wasted. Anything slower than f2.8 will be a waste. If you are thinking of using the Sony f4 lens for very low light… well frankly you may as well not bother. The lens is THE most important factor in low light. When I go up to Norway to shoot the Aurora I use f1.4 and f1.8 lenses.

What about Picture Profiles?

The standard picture profile isn’t a bad choice for low light but you might want to look at using cinegamma 3. Although with a low light, low contrast scene none of the picture profiles will be significantly different from the others with the exception of PP2, PP7, PP8 or PP9. None of the profiles make the camera more sensitive, the sensitivity is governed by the sensor itself and all the profiles do is alter the way gain is distributed across the image.

PP2 will crush your shadows giving less to work with in post. The log curves in PP7,8,9 will roll off the darkest parts of the image, again giving you less in post. So I would probably avoid these.

For color I suggest using the Pro colour matrix. This works well for most situations and it will help limit the noise levels as it keeps the saturation fairly low keeping the noisy blue channel in check.

Gain or ISO?

I recommend you set the camera to gain rather than ISO as the ISO’s for each each gamma curve are different, so it can be difficult to understand how much gain is being added, especially if you are switching between gamma curves. Use gain and you will have a good idea of the noise levels as every time you add +6dB the image becomes one stop brighter and you double the noise in the image, +12 dB is 2 stops brighter and 4x noisier than 0dB etc. ISO is an exposure rating, it is not a sensitivity measurement. But don’t use too much gain or too high an ISO as this will affect you ability to use some of the very good post production noise reduction tools that are available.

Noise and Noise Reduction.

If shooting in very low light then you are quite probably going to want to use some noise reduction tools in post production. “Neat Video” works very well at cleaning up a noisy image as do the various NR tools in the paid versions of DaVinci Resolve.  These post production  tools work best when the noise is clean. By that I mean well defined. When using any of the 709 or Cinegamma curves a bit of gain can be used, but I wouldn’t go above 12dB as above this the NR starts to introduce a lot of smear and this than makes it hard for any post production NR processes like Neat Video to do a decent job without the image turning into a blurry mess. So don’t go crazy with the gain or use very high ISO’s as the post production NR won’t work as well on footage that already has a lot of in camera NR applied.

And if you can add a little light-

If you are adding any light use a daylight balanced light where you can. Video cameras are least sensitive in the blue channel. If you use a tungsten light which is predominantly warm/red to get a good white balance you have to increase the gain of the cameras least sensitive and as a result most noisy blue channel. This will add more noise than if you use a daylight balance light as for daylight you need less gain in the noisy blue channel.

There is no miracle cure for shooting in very low light levels. But with the right lens and a speedbooster the FS5 can do a very good job. But just in case yo haven’t worked it out already, I’ll say it one more time: The lens is the most important bit! Beyond this your next step would be adding an image intensifier for that green night vision look.

cameras, cinematography, lenses, Lighting, shoots, Uncategorized

Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway – Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.

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I have just return from one of the most challenging shoots I have been involved in. The shoot took place over 5 days in and around Tromso in Norway. The aim was to gather footage to show off the capabilities of a new type of 4K TV from Phillips.

We shot the Northern Lights, we shot dog sledding , snow mobiles, shots of the city and sailing on the fjords. Each part of the shoot had many challenges and a lot of the shoot took place at night and at night the crew slept in cabins, tents and on the yachts. Shooting from the ice and snow covered deck of a yacht in temperatures well below zero is not something I enjoyed. And to top it all off the weather was pretty grim fro most of the shoot. Heavy snow showers, freezing temperatures and towards the end strong winds.

Because image quality is paramount for this project I choses to use the best lenses I could, but at the same time space and time constraints dictated that zoom lenses would be desirable. We were shooting 16 bit raw as well as XAVC class 480 on my PMW-F5 and some pick-up shots in UHD XAVC-L on a PXW-FS5. For the PMW-F5 the primary lens was the Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20, 20-120mm PL zoom and to ensure we had similar looking images from the FS5 I used the new Fujinon XF 18-55mm. I have to say that I’m quite in love with both of these lenses.

fujinon-xk6x20-20-120mm-t3-5-pl-mount-lens-cc1-e1490981959479 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20 PL mount cinema zoom. A beautiful lens!

The Cabrio 20-120 is a beautiful lens and it’s really nice to have a servo zoom that is truly parfocal. The 20-120 produces really nice images even in the most challenging of conditions and at T3.5 it’s reasonably fast throughout the entire zoom range. This was the lens that I used for the majority of the shoot, in particular for the many night scenes we shot. The E-Mount 18-55 on the FS5 produces images that matched really well with the bigger lens and camera. This is a combination I would love to use on more shoots where the budget will allow.

One particular scene that we had to shoot was particularly challenging. It was a set up shot of a night time arrival of a couple of snowmobiles at a Sami camp site. The Sami people are the indigenous people of Northern Norway and they have a particular style of tent know as a Laavu which is similar to a teepee or wigwam. The idea behind the shot was to have the snow scooters arriving with headlights blazing and for the drivers to then enter the tent lit only by the light of a campfire inside the tent. At the time of the shoot it was snowing heavily and was totally dark. Turn off the lights of the snowmobiles and you could not see a thing.

A007C001_170317I9snwscter-wide-1.-e1490980652498 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Wide shot of the snowmobiles arriving at the camp in the dark.

While modern cameras like the F5 are very sensitive, the light of a campfire inside a tent will not adequately light a scene like this on it’s own. I didn’t want a totally dark background, so I decided that I would subtly light the trees of the forest that we were in to add some drama and give some depth to the background and a sense of being in a forest.

In-tent-wide-e1490980747645 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A slightly closer shot of the tent with backlit trees behind it.

As we were travelling continuously on this shoot there was no space for a large or complex lighting kit and the remote location meant we needed battery powered lights. In addition I knew before we left that there was a chance of bad weather so I needed lights that would work whatever mother nature decided to throw at us.

snw-scter-start-e1490980892561 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A snow scooter comes into the shot. You can see just how heavily it was snowing in this shot.

I decided to take a set of 3 Light & Motion Stella battery powered LED lights. It’s just as well I had the Stella lamps as on top of all the other difficulties of the shoot the weather decided it was not going to play ball. We had to shoot the scene (and much of the shoot) in the middle of a snow storm. Fortunately the Stella lights are completely waterproof, so I didn’t need to worry about rain or snow protection. Just set them up turn them on and use the built in dimmer to set the light output.

To light the scene I set up a Stella Pro 5000 in the woods behind the Sami tent, aimed through the trees and pointed directly towards the camera. I chose to backlight the trees to provide a sense of there being trees rather than lighting them. I felt this would look less lit than throwing a ton of light into the forest from the front and I’m pleased with the result.

20170317_201335-e1490980965481 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A Light & Motion Stella Pro 5000 was used to back light the trees and tent. The heavy snow was no problem as the light is totally waterproof.

The Stella Pro 5000 is very bright for a compact battery operated light, it’s 5000 lumen 120 degree output that is pretty close to what you would get from a 200W HMI, it’s very bright. It has a very high CRI and gives out great quality daylight balanced light.  It was positioned so that the light itself was behind the tent on a small bank, about 20m back in the woods. You couldn’t see it in the shot, but the light coming through the trees created shafts of light in the snow and the trees appeared as silhouettes. It added depth and interest to what would have otherwise been a near totally black background.

20170317_203855-e1490981224538 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
Light & Motion Stella 2000 used to light the forground, again the lamp is waterproof so bad weather is no problem.

Then to provide a small amount of light so that we could see the riders of the snow scooters as they walked to the tent I used a Stella 2000. I didn’t really want the light from this lamp to be too obvious as this would really make the scene look “lit”. I didn’t need the full 2000 lumen output so I used the built in dimmer to reduce the output to around 70%.

The third light was a small Stella 1000 and this was placed inside the tent with a scrunched up orange gel. The Stella 1000 would typically be used as a camera top light, but it’s full dimmable and produces a very high light quality, making it suitable for many applications. The creases and folds in the orange gel helped break up the light a little creating a less lit look sympathetic to the fire inside the tent.

in-tent-mid-e1490981340247 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
A Stella 1000 with orange gel was used inside the tent to give the light from the fire a small boost.

It allowed me to increase the illumination in the tent, adding to the light from the fire without it being obvious that the tent interior was lit. For some of the shots I had an assistant sit in the tent, out of shot and slowly move the gel in front of the light to add a little movement to the light to mimic the firelight even better.

sihuette-e1490981444887 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
One particular shot on the storyboard was the silhouette of the drivers entering the tent. The Stella 1000 really helped punch trough the canvas sides of the tent.

At the moment I can’t show you the footage. That will have to wait until after the launch of the TV. But I’m really pleased with the way this scene came out. It’s challenging trying to shoot in the dark, in a blizzard, in temperatures well below freezing. Every aspect of getting this scene was hard. Opening a flight case to get out some kit meant getting snow on everything inside it. Just positioning the light up the woods was tough, the snow was up above my knees as I waded through it. Operating the camera is so much harder when it has a rain cover on it. The viewfinder was constantly misting up as snow fell on it non stop. Seeing the witness marks on the lens is difficult (although thankfully the marks on the Fujinon 20-120 are huge and easy to see).

20170317_205922-e1490981701785 Anatomy of a shot. Night Scene in Arctic Norway - Fujinon lenses, Stella Lights.
The Fujinon Cabrio XK6X20 lens all iced up at the end of the day. After shooting out in sub zero temperatures don’t take the camera inside until you are sure you have wrapped for the day!

But sometimes it’s challenges like these that make the job interesting. I know I was cursing and swearing at times trying to make these shots work, but seeing the scene come to life in the grade is all the more rewarding.

I’ll be writing more about the Fujinon 20-120 very soon, so why not subscribe to my blog using the subscribe bottom on the left.

cameras, Travel, Uncategorized

Night Flyers. Shot with PMW-F3 in Singapore

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I’m currently in Singapore staying at Clarke Quay. Most evenings a group of radio control kite flyers from a local store (goflykite.com) bring out their illuminated kites and fly them in the local park. It’s very pretty and seemed an interesting thing to try and shoot with my F3. As I’m travelling light, trying (and failing) to keep within a 20kg baggage allowance, I don’t have a tripod and I’ve only got a couple of lenses, my trusty 50mm Nikon f1.8 and my Tokina 28-70mm f2.6 zoom. Most of this was shot with the Nikon lens at +6db. I really wish I had a tripod and a longer lens! I did a little bit of grading work here and there to balance out the very orange street lights a little.