Tips for Outdoor Cinematography

Through the human eye, a New England autumn appears as a brilliant canopy of color, often displayed in 3D through natural stream refraction. Subtle adjustments for contrast, color, and light occur automatically, within a blink of an eye. But capturing these subtleties digitally requires the right combination of technological savvy, attention to detail, and creativity. Outdoor cinematography involves working with our planet’s primary light source, the sun. Understanding directionality and intensity of sunlight and working with both the environment and your camera settings will help you make the transition from human eye acuity to camera lens accuracy.

If you are recording outdoors without diffusers, flags, or reflectors, you can still expose your scene correctly for the camera by following these cinematography tips:

• Scout your location and find and test frame your potential shots. Be aware of the sun’s location and angle, movement, and intensity at different times of day. Are there any overly bright areas or harsh shadow casts in your potential shot?

• Use varying types of natural light to achieve the look you want for your scene. Record during the hour just before sunset or just after sunrise (the golden hour) to achieve a warmer look overall. For reflective water scenes, golden hour shots are preferable because natural light bounces off the water’s surface to create reflections. For transparent water scenes, use midday lighting comprised of direct, downward sunlight which penetrates deeper into the water.

• Set your camera to manual mode and custom set your camera’s white balance. Remember that sunlight changes in temperature over time; depending on the length of your scene recording, you may need to make several white balance adjustments.

• When framing your shots, always use the camera viewfinder. Place your eye to the viewfinder, use your hands to cup your peripheral vision, and adjust the diopter (knob or lever found near eyepiece) until you see a clear, focused image.

• Use the environment to your advantage. Overcast days provide the perfect cloud cover to diffuse sunlight and accentuate color. For scenes inset within a dense forest, record during mid morning when sunlight is angled 45 degrees into the forest, and use trees as natural diffusers to achieve a dappling effect on the scene.

• Toggle on the zebra stripes function of your camera (LCD menu) and step down your iris/exposure until the stripes disappear or are minimal. When activated, zebra stripes display diagonal lines across any part of the image that is approaching over-exposure. A lower threshold of 70-80% helps correctly expose skin tones, while a higher threshold (90-100%) helps ensure correct overall scene exposure.

• To achieve a properly exposed shallow depth of field, set a long focal length (move away from the subject/object and then zoom in) and open the aperture on your camera (f-stop or iris). To avoid over-exposing the scene, use a neutral density filter to reduce the amount of light entering your camera’s sensor. For shallow depth-of-field work, use a solid fluid head tripod to stabilize your camera.

One Final Tip: Check your portable battery packs and make sure they are fully charged before venturing outdoors. Remember that although lithium battery packs like to be stored in the cold, indoors and in a dry environment, they will drain more quickly in colder temperatures out on location.

For the outdoor cinematographer, obtaining properly exposed video depends on intuiting how to see a scene through the lens of a camera. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and in the position of the sun and settings of the camera lens)!

Written by Kate Lee
Senior Media Producer, Smith College

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