How to: Light inside a car at night

Recently I was challenged with lighting a guy who was sitting in a parked car at night.  He basically just turned on the overhead dome light and began drawing in his sketch book.  The camera (XL2 w/ Letus 35mm DOF adapter) I used, as with many prosumer cameras, does not handle low light very well, so I had to bring in lots of light without the budget for real lights.  Below was my solution that I think worked fairly well for only taking 20 minutes to set up.

First I provided moonlight with a 1K Halogen that was on a 12 ft stand about 12 ft from the subject.  The light had a 1/2 blue gel on it.

Luckily, the vehicle had a moonroof, which we opened and simply placed a 25W fluorescent tube over the opening.  When the subject reached up and turned on the dome light, a PA simply plugged in the tube simultaneously.  Below are images.

Here are some shots taken from the raw footage:

This was from the project, “The Butterflies” - shot in early August 2008 in Oxford, MS.

Please leave questions or comments if interested.

One Response to “How to: Light inside a car at night”

1. Gonzalo Lowery Says:
   November 13th, 2008 at 1:19 am

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