Chris Keth

Oh, one other thing. ND filters kind of have two ways of being numbered for sale. There is the ND.3, ND.6, etc where every .1 reduces light by one third of a stop. I've also seen them sold as ND 2, ND 4, ND 8, etc. Where the number is the denominator of a fraction of the light it lets through. So ND 2 lets 1/2 the light through (and is equivalent to ND.3). ND 4 lets 1/4 of the light through and is equal to a 2 stop reduction (ND.6). I'm not sure why there are two different ways but I've seen both used by manufacturers.

The polarizer cuts down on glare on nonmetallic surfaces. Shooting through a windshield of a car would be a situation where a polarizer would be common. The ND.9 is a neutral density filter. It cuts down on all wavelengths of light evenly so color will not change. The .9 part means it cuts down light by 9 third stops or 3 full stops. An ND.1 would cut it by a third of a stop, ND.2 cuts by 2/3 of a stop, etc. Shooting outside on a very bright day, but wanting shallow depth of field might require this type of filter so you could shoot at a fairly open aperture. Liek the post above says, there are a lot of books and website that can give you this sort of information. It's pretty easy to find, too.

I'm thinking seriously of getting a K-3 from ebay and they all come with the same lense. I've never seen any variation. I've heard both good and bad about that lense, as usual. What other lenses will work? I assume certain pentax will work since it's a pentax mount? Some nice primes would be wonderful.

You're probably going to have to time lapse real clouds coming in, unless you have a very talented 3D animator in your midst.

Very nice work. I see you're one of those happy, uplifting photographers :)

Good lord, I didn't realize that was an $80 book! That'll have to wait a while. Can anyone check out those links and give me a good rundown of how to read the curves in question?

I'm not sure, actually. I suspect not since I haven't heard of it.

I didn't find one post that explains it well so let's see if I got it all right. To satisfy your demands (:)) my name is Christopher Keth. I'm a film production student at the Rochester Institute of Technology sppecializing in cinematography. So I get that it's skipping the bleach bath entirely (hance the name) of color processing, right? It will have the effect of desaturating colors and increasing contrast in the image, right? Now, is it done on the negs or print?...or can it be done anytime in the process to different effect?

I keep seeing this mentioned. What is the process and what's it do to the image?

Any chance you could shoot that part with something other than DV? It's a great format but it's not good for compositing because of the relatively poor color information. Maybe you could get a hold of a betacam for that shot?

1/2 copper pipe would probably work better. It'd be about as heavy and be stiffer and, as a bonus, it'll fit in c-stand knuckles.

Nobody cares to divulge their methods at all?

Wow, useful stuff. Thanks. I'm surprised I've never heard anyone work in EVs.

How do you apply exposure values to metering and shooting on set? I've only heard people brush over the subject, is it defunct now or something?

Just clarifying a little more. Leaving someone keys isn't a bad idea, actually.:)

It was a very good first swing. A few things didn't really gel though. I got the feeling this was at night then you did the lighting through the blinds that didn't seem to fit. The cut from woman on the bed to a very similar shot didn't work so well. You have to cut to a somewhat different looking (I've heard 15, 20 and 30 degrees difference from different people) to make the cut look right. The style kind of implied tension soemtimes and the tension never came.

As sort of an addemdum to em asking about spotmeters: What process (method, system, etc) do you use to properly light a scene, check contrast make sure it falls into the lattitude of your film, etc? :blink: I haven't really figured out a good systematic way to do things yet (so I am very slow lighting scenes usually) so I'm open to trying it all kinds of ways. I look forward to hearing what some of the more experienced people around here have to say! Christopher Keth B)

I would like a spotmeter of my own. I've used them before and really like that way of metering and I'd love to not have to borrow them all the time. In reading up a little, I found Minolta Spotmeter F to be a good reputable model. Anyone here use them? Are they as accurate and reliable as the reviews found said they are? The MSRP is really high but they're often on ebay for far less so I'm thinking of tracking one down.

This is true but levels that are too low are a big problem, too. Then you have to amplify them so much in order to get intelligible dialogue that you get tons of noise. The idea is to get the loudest recorded sounds possible without clipping. This way the ratio of the sound you do want to the sound that you don't want is as high as possible. This normally means keeping digital levels around -12dB to -10dB. Analog equipment can go higher, closer to zero, because the distortion is gradual as you go above zero. In digital equipment it is unusuable as soon as you hit 0.

Alright. I've been wanting that book anyway :D

That's the only graph I actually mostly understand. How does log exposure translate to over/under exposure? Is 0 log exposure equal to normal exposure (averaging to middle grey)?

I don't have it anywhere. If I can find it and do a transfer (it's silent so easy transfer) I'll put it up somewhere. It almost seems like a story from the POV of a prey animal :blink: :D

I was looking around here: Kodak Plus-X Neg. Film and here: Kodak Vision 320T and I was trying to figure out the curves and don't know much about any of them. The only one I know anything about is an exposure characteristic curve (the one that will show you how much over and under middle grey you can expose before detail is lost, that may not be the correct name for it), which I don't even see there. Could someone explain how to read these curves or point me in a direction that could explain it well?

2 things, man. Mic placement and isolating the sound you want from the sound you don't want. That's all there is to it...unfortunately the second one is a pretty huge task. Lots can be done to bad sounds but it's better to do it well in the first place. You can't normally "fix it in post." You can only "hide it in post."

Oh, not knocking it. It could have an interesting effect. Interesting experiment, at any rate. I shot a short (that sucked, but we'll ignore that because it wasn't because of what I'm getting to) on 16mm and only used a 7mm lense. It was a kind of interesting approach that i'd consider trying sometime..