Shooting 35mm designed for digital

[Danny Lachman]

I browsed through the forums but didn't find anything that summed or specifically hit on this question:

 

When Shooting on film to go to digital, Are there any rules of thumbs in regards to exposing the film for limitations in digital? My concern/ignorance is in the ability of digital scanners to read information on film negatives in regards to latitude range, and how to optimize the original exposure for digital.

 

Currently, my thought is that I would try to keep the lighting ratio very narrow so that the digital can pick it all up. I hope this was not a stupid question.

 

thanks

[David Mullen ASC]

Currently, my thought is that I would try to keep the lighting ratio very narrow so that the digital can pick it all up. I hope this was not a stupid question.

 

That's not really necessary anymore. A well-exposed negative with good shadow detail gives you more flexibility later in digital color-correction, that's all. But modern negative stocks are already pretty wide-latitude and lowish in contrast, so flat-lighting them isn't really necessary for scanning. Some people like to light slightly flatter and add the contrast in post, but nothing too far. You really should light it the way you want it to look.