Tips for filming outdoors in low lighting - SE

Filming outdoors in the evening or at night is difficult due to the lack of natural light and the sparse splattering of bright interference. As we are aiming to film our piece late in the afternoon and continuing into the evening, I researched filming techniques that would produce a successful result when filming outdoors in a low lit area.

• Position the camera closer to objects you are trying to capture, this will assist in depth of field as well as image clarity in the patchy vision of night light.
• Avoid zooming in too much.
• Auto-focus will not be able to cope with sharp light spots that occur against a dark landscape, therefore it is better to manually focus on each image specifically.
• Focus needs to be adjusted carefully between each frame as although darkness appears to be one concrete element, in reality each outdoor night situation will be slightly different in terms of saturation and light.
• Try lighting small areas rather than trying to capture the entire region.
• Focusing the filming on smaller areas enables you to highlight the partial nature of the light.
• White balance in a correctly lit area where you will be filming - play with this to alter the colour of the night light by white balancing on slightly different coloured pieces of paper.
• Keep the image natural - night scenes contain mystery, do not allow you to see everything clearly and have certain amounts of distraction to them.