Metering for certain 16 stocks

[jijhh]

If I am shooting outdoors with a daylight balanced 16mm negative stock, but I also plan on using artificial tungsten light, do I need to change the setting of my film speed on my light meter? Will the tungsten change the metering? How about shooting tungsten balanced film indoors with window daylight?

 

Thanks

 

Andrew

[Joseph White]

you don't necessarily need to change your meter settings to work in this scenario. what you are talking about is mixing color temperatures, which while an important aspect of cinematography, is not necessarily a part of the exposure chain. if you use filters to compensate for mixed lighting conditions (say, using daylight film indoors under tungsten lighting or using tungsten film outside in sunlight) then yes, you'll need to adjust the ISO setting in your meter according to how much light is cut by that particular filter.

 

what will happen is that the tungsten lights will read as warm if using daylight film and daylight will read as cool if using tungsten film. there's no right or wrong with any of this - figure out the look you want and then go from there. but it won't effect your exposure.

 

hope this helps!

[David Mullen ASC]

You don't have to change your metering unless you add color-correction filters to the camera.

 

If you are using daylight-balanced film outdoors in daylight and you turn on a big tungsten lamp, it will appear orange in comparison to the daylight, as if you had gelled an HMI light with Full Orange gel. But your film rating doesn't change. Now if you lit a scene entirely with tungsten light and were using a daylight-balanced film, then technically you'd put the 80A (blue) filter on the camera to correct the tungsten light to daylight -- and that filter loses almost two stops of light. So in that case, a 500 ASA film would be rated at 125 ASA to compensate for the filter light loss. It's still a 500 ASA film stock, you've only changed the rating on your meter so that you don't have to remember to open up the iris by two stops to compensate for the filter.

 

If you are using a tungsten-balanced film indoors and turn on a daylight-balanced light like an HMI, it will appear blue in comparison to any tungsten light. If you entirely light the scene with daylight using a tungsten-balanced stock -- or just go out and shoot in real daylight with that stock -- then technically you'd put the 85B (orange) filter on the camera to correct daylight to tungsten. That filter loses 2/3's of a stop (which is why you are more likely to use a tungsten stock in daylight with a correction filter than use daylight film indoors under tungsten light with a correction filter: daylight levels tend to be higher anyway and the 85B correction filter only loses 2/3's of a stop, whereas tungsten levels tend to be lower and the 80A correction filter loses two stops of light.)