Newbie Q's & Hello!

Trevor Greenfield · February 14, 2005

Hi, great, great forum. Been lurking here for awhile, read every post in 16mm and Lighting forum, but still some questions linger.

Some info quickly about me. I am new to motion picture film, but I've been a still SLR photog for 8 or so years, so all of the components to compose for film are understood pretty well by me. But Motion pictures is a little different, and I want to get it right. Moving from DV where I shot a couple of short things, edited commercially two feature length projects, and have done camera work for another feature which will be coming out next year. Made "The Soup Party" a 15 minute short on DV last year, as kind of a good test to get a good grip on the skills it takes to make some films, and it won its first film festival, a local small one, in its first 10 minute cut version! So now, onto the questions.

1) I now own a K-3. I understand the shutter speed should be set on a light meter for 24fps to 1/60th. However, I am intrigued by the scientific output of footcandle readings for incident readings. Incident readings are new to me too, but after reading how they work it seems like this is totally an ideal reading compared to reflective for controlled lighting situations. I feel footcandles should give a much more exact definition of what my settings should be and if I want a higher output I can simply adjust or add lighting based on my expected FC increase. So I am seriously considering buying a Weston Master III or similar for the readings. My only problem is, the Kodak guides that layout the FC to Fstop readings for their film is based on the premise of 1/48th (actually they say ~1/50th). How do I make the conversion to 1/60th for the chart?

2) I asked on another board but didn't get much in the way of expert advice. Experts: I love the hard look I have seen for controlled light situations and for daylight on 100ASA. I know that in situations/scenes where you have low lux you need higher speed film, which I am willing to intercut as needed. But really 100ASA seems like the ultimate choice for most situations where there is enough light. Especially considering that most situations I'll be able to pump at least some light and I really do favor the hard/fast falloff look. Am I right? What have you found with shooting 100T(64D)?

3) Actually I do have one more question. I am planning to do 4 test reels. I have 500T, 250D, and am about to buy a couple of rolls of 100T. My game plan is to have like ~5 various lighting situations, testing each stock. I'll take my readings to determing where I *should* be, then shoot 1sec of footage. Then, I'll go up 1 stop, and do the same, then 1 more. Then go back to where I should be and go 1 stop the other direction, then 1 more. At the end of each reel, I want to test my method for sound synch. I am going to blimp the heck out of the K-3 and run a boom to the video camera. The video camera will be realtime adjusted as well, to the actual look of the shot, in other words exposure set to what my eye sees. This way when I get my stuff back thats been Telecine'd I'll be able to see exactly what I've got with the different stocks, what the difference is between the stops (maybe the lens is a little off in its F-stop so I can check this), and I can compare it to what the scene really looked like compared to the video camera output. I can then try to change the fps of the audio from the video camera and synch it with the telecine'd footage.

Sound good for a thorogh film camera test? Never had to do one before.

Thanks for all of your advice/suggestions/comments in advance! :)

John Ealer · February 15, 2005

In response to your questions:

1. Whether incident or reflective readings are more accurate depends on how well you take them; which is more useful depends on what you're shooting and how you're shooting it. On some shoots my spotmeter rarely leaves its case, other times I'm always using it. I think I'd look into something more sophisticated than the Weston III...and if you have a Palm Pilot, check out David Eubanks pCine software which has exposure calculation fuctions built it. In any case 1/60 second is about 1/3 of a stop less light than 1/50th of second, so just open up by 1/3 of a stop and you'll be fine.

2. The lighting itself, coupled with he contrast characteristics of a filmstock, will affect the "fast falloff" look you describe more than the ASA will. If you like it contrasty and saturated, try the Kodak's EXR 5245 50D. But keep in mind that the amazing latitude of the Vision2 stocks is designed to give you maximum flexibility in post, where in telecine (or when printing to Vision print stock), you can reintroduce contrast.

3. You should run your tests for more than 1 second. 10 seconds or so will make your examination of the test results alot less of a hassle. I wouldn't use a video camera for a baseline to compare your telecine, either. Personally, I think it would be more useful to take a digital still of your setup and carefully note your light readings so you know how different exposures, contrast ratios, etc. and rendered on different stocks. It's usually a good idea to have a grayscale at key in your test frames that can be a reference for the colorist. If you can't supervise the transfer, make sure your instructions to the colorist are explicit, or they may just time out the exposure variations you were trying to explore.

J

Trevor Greenfield · February 15, 2005

Thank you very much for the advice, John.

Unfortunately I left my palm pilot at my other house which I'm not going to for awhile but that looks like a great program, Ill keep it bookmarked. You say something more sophisticated than a Weston III. Anything specific I should look for? Looks like most here recommend Sekonic (Like a 398M), but those are about $100-$500 on ebay. I'm not opposed to spending that much I just need to justify it. And for spot meters, no way thats in my budget, not right now anyway. I just need a simple light meter for incident and ambient.

You bring up a very good point on the 100TASA. I do want that higher-than-normal contrast and saturated circa 1950 type look, but I plan on doing a HD telecine from Vision2 stocks... so I was thinking I would slightly underexpose and introduce this in post.

Finally, can you recommend an inexpensive place to buy a greyscale or grey card or can I possibly print one?

Thanks again.

Trevor

Edited February 15, 2005 by Trevor Greenfield

John Ealer · February 15, 2005

Trevor -

Check out some of the other light meter threads with discussions about light meter choices.

As for gray cards and color charts, if your local photo store doesn't have them, you can always go to the Filmtools or BHPhotoVideo websites and order them.

J

Trevor Greenfield · February 18, 2005

Once again, thank you.

I bought a SEKONIC LIGHT METER- Model L-VI off ebay in good working condition. It seems to be pretty good, although it gives fstop readout, not footcandles (which is not bad but as I said, I think footcandles would be more scientific). It seems like it can do everything.

I am pretty far out of a major city so I don't even know that there is a camera store around here. I'll probably order one from B&H, I've got $100 in an 80a, 85, ND3 and a new battery for the light meter coming, so do I need to get the Kodak grey card pack? Or wil the 3.95 Delta do the job? Technically they're all 18% grey right?