Shooting exterior during night

[huascar]

Hi everybody. after my tests I achieve a good control of exposure. Generally I shot RAW, 320 ISO and use FALSE COLOR to control areas. I always try to eliminate purple areas becuase they contain noise.

Ok, now I have to shoot a nighty scene, exterior. I have two person walking on a footstep. I'll use some lights (not more than 3kW) but it's sure I'll have some purple areas (mainly in background) HOW CAN I DO?

I want to achieve a nighty mood, so I want have some dark (black) zones, but to hide the noise, I have to play with post controls? Rising up shadows to hide noise in purple areas?

Please, some advices!???!!


Thanks

huascar

[Cail Young]

Yeah, night exteriors usually require some crushing in post because the camera does not place "black" at zero - it leaves the noise floor in so you can choose how much crushing you want to do.

[paulherrin]

yes. simply crush the blacks. or you could always shoot during the daytime and grade it to night.

[huascar]

Thanks for the replies!
My workflow is based on Apple Color for color correcting. Which controls I have to use to "crush the blacks"? Curves? Contrast?


Thanks a lot

huascar

[Jacob_Ross]

I would def just crush/tweak the black level in post as opposed to shooting day and then grading for night.... I've seen this done before and it always looks "fakey" too me

also. depending on the content/story line you can light for hard shadows and that will make the grading/crushing of the blacks a bit easier in post. You will have more hard lines to work with as opposed to smooth gradients of grey area.

and yes Apple's Color will give you a host of grading/crushing options... curves, contrast controls, all of it. Try googling "apple color tutorials" or even perhaps youtubing the same.

[Cail Young]

Thanks for the replies!
My workflow is based on Apple Color for color correcting. Which controls I have to use to "crush the blacks"? Curves? Contrast?

A combination of negative Lift and adding contrast should do it, or you can use the curves.