Day for Night

Anyone with successful experience shooting day for night on the bmcc? WHat setup did you use in and out of the camera?

I tried shooting night scenes with iso 800 (won't do 1600) and wide open 50 f1.4 with questionable results. Thinking day for night could be a viable options in some cases.

Share your thoughts.

Thanks

Day for night is shooting in daylight and make it look as if it was night.
It is about stopping down aperture to underxpose, shooting backlight, avoiding the sky etc.

Peter

I would strongly disagree. I would rather overexposed by 2 stops as long as its not clipping, and then get the look in grade. By over exposing you would lift the shadows. Just because there is little light at night doesn't mean the shadows are significantly more files then the open areas (exception are the moon lit nights). In general never a good idea to underexposed the digital.

Best is to bring home as much info as possible then you can throw it around in Resolve.
To expose 1.4 seems a little bit over the top don't you agree?
I assumed there was a misunderstanding of the concept.
The method I mentioned have been used on film for 100 years but of course there are different ways now in the digital era. To show bright clouds is not a good idea in my book.

Peter

Thanks guys,

But what I meant is the actual setup.

Tiffen makes day for night filters that, combined with some underexposure and the correct angles (off course not showing the sky) make it look somewhat like it's shot at night.

My only reservation with this is everything seems bathed in a blueish, unnatural light that doesn't even remotely resemble moonlight.

For example: what if I try shooting on a 50mm f1.4 at f4, with tiffen filter on and THEN try to fix the blue hue in post? There's obviously nothing like shooting actual nighttime, but that's almost impossible with the bmcc. Just hoping I can get decent quality image by cheating d for n.

Actually, this is fairly easy to do in post with okay results.

The Blue isn't there to resemble moonlight. It's to keep the light in the blue cooler range

The Blue isn't there to resemble moonlight. It's to keep the light in the blue cooler range

Yep, In order to make "Hollywood night" it makes it cooler blue
As a basic strategy when grading the day for night One would want to
1: put the blacks at a comfortable healthy place, it's important not to crush them.
2: lower the mids
3: adjust whites so they are reflective of the mood ( is it a crisp moonlit or dull cloudy "night"?) high highlights might add to the feel of night as they will greatly contrast with the rest of a darkened image.
4: don't touch that saturation dial
5: use hue vs sat to gently lower reds and oranges and greens. Also blues but less so then the rest.
6: is it a "sodium vapor" night? Then destaurate and tint with pinkish yellowish orange, and then mix back some of the stuff from the previous step.
7: is the sky to bright? Darken it separately.

And so on etc.