D4N interiors: how much ND on the windows?

[frankbuyer]

Hey,

Prepping a short and we have to shoot night interiors in daylight. The location is a flat with three normal windows plus a frosted one in the bathroom. Living room gets sheers and heavier drapes, and in most setups the windows sit in the background — nobody is looking straight at them.

The interior runs almost entirely on practicals. Aputure B7c bulbs in the fixtures that are already there (table lamp, hallway, a ceiling fitting I can dim right down), plus one small unit off frame when a face needs shape. No big sources, nothing punching in through the windows. So my key sits low to start with, which is half of why I can’t work out where the window should land.

Plan A for the glass is one hit of ND 2.1. Plan B is stacking ND 1.2 and 0.9 so I can pull the 0.9 when clouds come in or the sun drops, and leave the practicals and camera settings alone all day. What I don’t know is whether two layers on the same pane just gives me reflections between them.

So: how far under your interior key do you actually take the windows? Three stops? Five? Most numbers I find assume the window is a feature in shot, and mine mostly isn’t.

The other thing is access. We’re two floors up with no balcony, so anything on the outside of the glass means leaning out of the window with tape, and swapping a layer mid-day means doing it again. That pushes me towards gelling from the inside, but I know reflections are worse that way. How much worse in practice, with sheers in front of the glass

Burano in Cine EI. Any tricks for daylight drift very welcome.

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