night filming

[bobduck2000]

hey, i am new to super 8 filming so i was hoping someone on here could help me out. I have a bolex 155 camera, and i want to film something at night. There will be some light, (christmas lights), but not a lot because it will be outside. would this work, or will i just get a bunch of black? does anyone have any suggestions on techniques or types of film that would help me with this? thanks so much!

-casey

[BolexPlusx]

Wow!,

It's been a long time without activity here!

Super-8 has a lot of strengths, but night filming has never been a big one. The small frame really likes small grain, which usually means slow film which wants a lot of light.

What you want to do is possible, with a few cautions. There are modern Kodak films of 200 and 500 ASA which are tolerant of low light filming and feature small grain too, but they are negative stocks. This means telecine and color correction or having a negative struck if you want to project the film. You could also shoot the reversal stocks and have them pushed a couple of stops, but this brings up the grain.

This camera is only meant to go up to 160 ASA in auto exposure mode, so if you are taking it higher than that you'll need to go manual and use an external meter.

Still the same, there are times when you can actually get away with a lot filming at night. Let's say you have a scene where you are riding along the road and all there really is to see is the lights on the cars and the streetlights. The camera will be running aperture wide open and telling you that you are massively underexposed, but those points of light often wind up looking great. On the other hand if you have objects and people you want in the scene that are illuminated only by ambient light, they'll pretty much be silhouettes at best.

I shot a timelapse one time of a sunrise over Moscow. I thought at the time it would be all black until the sun showed up, but the seconds before that were lights in windows and in the streets and it was very nice.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 10, 2008 01:19 PM: Message edited by: BolexPlusx ]</font>