John E Clark

I'm sort of in the mind of 'let the dead bury the dead'... I stopped watching TV in general after 'Star Trek: The Geriatric Generation' and the 'Smother's Brothers' were cancelled... and haven't paid much attention since... I'm in the 'cable never' category... ok there was a 6 month flirt... but fortunately the concept of 'video library' sprung up, and I immediately switched to Beta then VHS, etc. The few part 'nostalgia' films would be the Star Trek Reboot, and now the next installment in the Star Wars series. I think I'm more 'ok' with Star Trek Reboot than with Star Wars... the latter latest installment was 'light years' ahead of the Episodes I-III... but I thought the Leia character was underplayed, and wasn't too 'surprised' by Han's fate... and Sonny Boy is no Darth Vader... In any case, fortunately for Netflix I can watch a few of those 'oldies' and think 'how the hell did we think this was 'entertainment''... and look at some of the remakes and think... 'was the studio management on Mars when they thought this up'... And I'll be going to the new "Independence Day" on Saturday... at Matinee pricing... if the plan still holds by then...

This is not limited to motion picture projects. The Wife and I use to shoot about 1000 shots at weddings, formals and candids, in film... then we went digital for the candids... 2000-2500 digital candids... then the Wife complained that she couldn't get the 'proofs' out in a reasonable time because of the number of shots... trying to get her to limit the shots... uh... was... problematic...

It is claimed that one of the reasons why the NSDAP leadership did not use the nascent television system that the Third Reich had put into place to televise the 1936 Olympics, was due to the realization that they just didn't look good on 'live' TV. With film and news reels, the footage could be edited such that only their 'best side'... uh... would be seen. And here in the US, in the same time frame, the fact that FDR was in a wheel chair was almost 'hidden' from public view. He was able with braces to walk 'short distances', and that capability was used for publicity occasions.

One of the posters here, Stuart Allman has review of the meter: illuma.blogspot.com/2015/03/review-of-sekonic-c-700-spectrometer.html I've been meaning to use a contact to evaluate it my self, but alas... no time... With the plethora of light sources these days, the meter looks like it would be good for sorting out what is going on with the 'color'. I don't know though if the companies which make filters have created products to deal with certain types of 'spike' type spectra that some of the LED/Fluorescents have.

What is a 'flat scan', vs say a 'log' representation of some sort... or a 'telecine' scan... since I've never dealt with this, I am not that familiar with how motion picture scans are specified. For stills I did not have any real concern about this as the resulting TIFF files (typically) were spec at say 24 or 48 bits, of (8,8,8) or (16,16,16) RGB. Given how they 'cleaned' up, I don't thing the problem is due to processing/fogging, although perhaps could be slight over exposure. But the white book covers some have something other than 'white' so the over exposure, if that's what it is, isn't all that off to me.

Typical So. Cal bright sun day... The other day for a test of a lens (which has vignetting... an ebay oops... but I digress...) I was at f/16, @ ISO 800 @ 180 @ 24 fps, for my BMPCC, in the shade... my meter indicated f/22. So, sure ND 1.2 would have just worked.

A photographer need not know the basic science behind a technology... photographers in the past did not have to take physics or chemistry courses to shoot film and process it... (although perhaps basic chem lab safety was in order, if one processed one's own film...) But by the same token, the should test ever claim made by a manufacturer... ISO being a popular buzz marketing element. Resolution, and what it 'reallly' means for one's own work. Optics... being able to understand why lens X is $200 and lens Y is $50K... and that 'knowledge' may be limited to the $50K is far more precisely made... and 'I don't need that precision for my work'... And of course... there is what I call Camera Knobology... just how to access the functionality of the camera one has at hand. At the Wife's still photo seminars, I'd often spend many minutes getting people to know what their camera could be setup for... many I've never seen before till that moment, and fortunately the owners did have their manuals with (pre ubiquitous Internet access... now I just look up the manual online...).

The problem with using such terms as SNR, or even 'Saturation', in areas where there is a predominance of Film film based photographers, is those are terms they are totally unfamiliar with. Of course now, after digital cameras have become wide spread, some people may be more familiar. But even then, such terms not that well understood by many. It doesn't help went the standards body sells the standard for a (in my opinion...) unreasonable price which limits general knowledge of such standards... So, I've been tending to go for a process that doesn't use SNR or Saturation, but basically says where does 18% grey (disregarding whether it's 18% or the meter is calibrated to 18%...) fall in the resulting image in terms of the Waveform monitor in % IRE. While that sort of display was predominantly used by analog and digital TV camera people, and not used much by 'photographers', it allows for an easy description of 'scene' brightness to 'recorded value'... and thence to 'displayed value'. However, that's not the whole story, and that's where the 'dynamic range' comes in... another term not used by Film film photographers, but rather the term 'Latitude' was used in several different ways, but in general to indicate how much 'constrast' a scene code have, and still be recorded in some 'quality' way.

I don't use the term 'native' much, but how I interpret that is some what like the basic 'manufacturer's recommended ISO' of Film film. Kodak rated Tri-X still film at ASA/ISO 400... I shot it at 200 with appropriate development. At the time that I was worried about such things I also used densitometers on the negative, and printed any number of test strips to find my 'personal' ASA/ISO/EI value... which was determined to be 200... When confronted with any new camera I pretty much do the same... using digital tools these days. In the Film film days, one was somewhat required to use a 'fixed' ISO... within some limits... one could push or pull processing to get effective changes in the response of the negative to the exposure, but there were some side effects that had to be accepted... push... more grain... I tended not to pull on processing, since that often lead to processing not being uniform on the negative, given that I hand processed my still film... These days, with the variable ISO there is sort of a tendency to just make that adjustment on a per scene basis... but one can also say that the discipline of using a fixed ISO is better... and just light appropriately... On the other hand when shooting with more available lighting or 'low power' lighting, ISO adjustment may be required.

For linux there's essentially 2... well... maybe just one... Lightworks that has reasonable 'pro' capability. One can use Blender as a video editor... but for the open source community video editing is abysmal. I use Photoshop in Mac OS X vs GIMP on anything, when I need to get photo work done... likewise for Premiere+AfterEffects and now + Audition for live motion picture processing. I use linux exclusively for my day job... but I use my Mac as a multi-window terminal device for accessing my linux boxes to do software development. While I've ported the X11 graphics+windowing systems to some set of ancient hardware in the olden days... I've never been as impressed with the windowing environments on Linux vs Apple's windowing system on Macs. Microsoft Windows... for anything... you've got to be kidding me...

You have a 'split lighting' situation, and may impact the image you desire. If the talent is facing one side or the other... nice even light. If they are facing front or back you will get side light, but may be too dark in the middle of their face. I also agree that one should be careful with power and lighting. With the Wife's wedding business, shooting stills, we would occasionally overload a circuit with our studio strobes (yes the pack mule carried in a ton of stuff for the church formals...). And of course some of the 'romantic' reception venues were older houses...

Watts is the 'easiest' parameter to determine... when it comes to lumens there are conversion factors for various light production technologies, such as traditional tungsten and it yielding 1700 lm per 100 Watts. The problem then is what is the 'light beam' shape... for a free standing bulb the 'shape' is approximately omnidirectional, and so one would calculate the Lux/Footcandles by dividing 1700 lm by 4*pi*r^2. That is the surface area of the sphere surrounding the bulb at distance 'r'. With modifiers like reflectors or lenses, more of that 1700 lm may be directed to the subject... or at least the area of the subject, but alas, that takes even more math than the simple omnidirectional case... Better to either get the manufacturer's specs... or go to a rental house and meter various lamps and housing arrangements... That of course is also without regard for the spectrum of the light...

Sky, as in 'blue sky' is reflected light... so, pointing your 'reflectance' meter at the sky, avoiding the sun, would be a method. For my L-308DC the 180 dome is removable, which yields a 30 deg. option. Blue sky, without clouds, or heavy water vapor, is approximately 'middle grey' or 18% reflectance. Since I presume you are shooting color film, it may be that a polarizing filter may yield a 'deeper' blue. For B&W polarizing filter, or an orange, amber, or red filter can yield varying degrees of 'darkness' to the blue sky, and with clouds can yield dramatic looks.

I'm sure there were Big Lights outside dowsing the scene with illumination... but just on the off chance... a lot of the shots looked pretty close to available light or bounced available light. Shot On What lists the following for film stocks used. A Digital Intermediate was also used, so there could be some amount of post processing done. Kodak Vision 250D 5246/7246 Neg. Film Kodak Vision 500T 5279 Neg. Film As a note, the above film stock URLs go to a page that indicates how many films that were shot on that film in the site's data base.

I believe the current ISO Standard for digital cameras is ISO 12232:2006, and is listed as 88 CHF from the ISO site directly (My exchange calculator indicate's that's about $89...) so, I'm not going to be quoting directly from that document... But... the following excerpt is part of a review found here: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2838786 The 'bottom line' is manufacturers can pretty much give any number based on their 'evaluation' of image quality. There are more quantitative tests... but that may cause the ISO values for a camera to be less than desired for marketing purposes... This leads to pretty much a lazy faire for the buyer to beware... As noted in the text below, some of the standards relate only to JPEG encoding or sRGB representation, and do not include RAW or other types of processed (or nonprocessed) image data... I suspect that camera producers like ARRI, who are trying to make the transition from Film film to Digital film as 'easy as possible' will give Digital Exposure Indices which approximately match that of Film film. Since I'm not privy to the engineering of the various companies... this is just a conjecture... But I will say, when I was at NAB a few years ago, and asked at the Big Name Brand DSLR manufacturers, no one at the booth could answer the question of 'how is the ISO values of your camera determined' (most often I was shown how to 'set' an ISO value for a given camera). In several cases I was referred to Japan for such an engineering question. Then there was Black Magic, where I was able to talk to the lead of their sensor section... and we did have a good conversation about the difficulties of picking a number for exposure in the modern digital world. So for now, I use the following method to determine my personal EI for my cameras. 1) For 'log' type representation, such as the Black Magic Pocket in RAW mode, use the following Take a reading of a 18% grey card, and then evaluate the resulting image waveform display. Adjust the EI value to achieve a 38.4% IRE(Blackmagic specific other manufacturers products may vary...) reading. 2) For Rec. 709 or similar. Use 45-50% IRE for the 18% grey card. Use a step wedge chart to determine the number of stops above and below the middle grey value that can be distinguished, yielding the effective dynamic range of the camera at that EI setting. ---- The quoted material from the standard, as included in the above referenced forum post... The ISO 12232:2006 standard The ISO standard 12232:2006[15] gives digital still camera manufacturers a choice of five different techniques for determining the exposure index rating at each sensitivity setting provided by a particular camera model. Three of the techniques in ISO 12232:2006 are carried over from the 1998 version of the standard, while two new techniques allowing for measurement of JPEG output files are introduced from CIPA DC-004.[16] Depending on the technique selected, the exposure index rating can depend on the sensor sensitivity, the sensor noise, and the appearance of the resulting image. The standard specifies the measurement of light sensitivity of the entire digital camera system and not of individual components such as digital sensors, although Kodak has reported[17] using a variation to characterize the sensitivity of two of their sensors in 2001. The Recommended Exposure Index (REI) technique, new in the 2006 version of the standard, allows the manufacturer to specify a camera model’s EI choices arbitrarily . The choices are based solely on the manufacturer’s opinion of what EI values produce well-exposed sRGB images at the various sensor sensitivity settings. This is the only technique available under the standard for output formats that are not in the sRGB color space. This is also the only technique available under the standard when multi-zone metering (also called pattern metering) is used. The Standard Output Specification (SOS) technique , also new in the 2006 version of the standard, effectively specifies that the average level in the sRGB image must be 18% gray plus or minus 1/3 stop when exposed per the EI with no exposure compensation . Because the output level is measured in the sRGB output from the camera, it is only applicable to sRGB images—typically JPEG—and not to output files in raw image format. It is not applicable when multi-zone metering is used. The CIPA DC-004 standard requires that Japanese manufacturers of digital still cameras use either the REI or SOS techniques. Consequently, the three EI techniques carried over from ISO 12232:1998 are not widely used in recent camera models (approximately 2007 and later) . As those earlier techniques did not allow for measurement from images produced with lossy compression, they cannot be used at all on cameras that produce images only in JPEG format. The saturation-based technique is closely related to the SOS technique, with the sRGB output level being measured at 100% white rather than 18% gray. The saturation-based value is effectively 0.704 times the SOS value .[18] Because the output level is measured in the sRGB output from the camera, it is only applicable to sRGB images—typically TIFF—and not to output files in raw image format. It is not applicable when multi-zone metering is used. The two noise-based techniques have rarely been used for consumer digital still cameras. These techniques specify the highest EI that can be used while still providing either an “excellent” picture or a “usable” picture depending on the technique chosen. ---

One of the reasons why I hesitated on the GH-4, other than not having the money to spare... having bought the GH-1 early on, was because Panasonic went with '4K' rather than 10-12 bit and RAW capability from the manufacturer rather than via a hack. I never did do the various hacks on my GH-1...

I don't know why people say 'ignoring price'... price for most people is an essential element of the process... even if one could afford an ARRI... why not buy a cheaper camera body, and buy better lenses... or fancier frame/rig/gimble/whatever, if one is going to buy... and even if one is going to rent... why not rent more of a package for the same price just one high end camera body would go for... Then there's 'well I'ld buy a Maserati (or appropriate status car).... and then carry my plywood from Home Depot home on the roof'... right... For me, if 'under $2K' was the goal, I'd go with the Blackmagic cameras. I have the Pocket, and have been duly impressed with the price/performance for 'shorts shot indoors'.... or outdoors...

The Wife (D600) and I (D7300) shot the Daughter's wedding in San Francisco City Hall earlier this year. Fortunately we did shoot RAW+JPEG, and the JPEGs were pretty useless as the highlights were pretty blocked up. The RAW processed via Lightroom looks great...

This chart is from the ARRI site to depict the difference in ISO settings and the amount of 'detail' above and below the middle grey value. It is different for different manufacturers... but there are similar results.

I've rarely heard the term. But because I was an art major back in the olden days, I'm familiar with it... but in most non artschool circles you will just hear 'chiaroscuro', or even 'Rembrandt lighting', or something like that. The google'd reference lists such 16-17th Century Italian painters as Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi as examples. The italian word itself means 'dark'... so one could rightly think of 'noir'... a much more well known style in film. Here is a painting by Artemesia. One will note the dark background super contrasted with the foreground elements to create a dramatic image. There is detail in the background, but this particular online image doesn't really show it...

The problem is a bit more complex than asking 'what wattage'... the ARRI site mentioned will give information on ARRI lights, and these are usually expensive but are also usually part of a rental house's set of options. In any case, the 'wattage' of a light does play a part in determining how much light is delivered to the subject, but just wattage alone does not give the full story. The light 'housing/reflector/lens' shapes the output light and must be taken into account. Hence the use of the ARRI calculator... as it is a pain to calculate from general principles. If you can't afford ARRI or even renting them... what would be 'best' is if you can find a sympathetic peson at a rental house in your area, and with a light meter set up some 'cheaper' offerings, and determine the light delivered to the subject. There are Lowel light packages that are cheaper than ARRIs... but also may be less robust in usage... but may be good enough for your learning needs. Here's a web site that has a table listing a number of lighting manufacturer's products, ARRI, Mole-Richardson, Lowel, and others, and list their photometric data... that is how much light is delivered to the subject at a given distance (in the case of the table, all lights were measured at 20 ft (6 or so meters). http://wolfcrow.com/blog/a-comparison-of-light-fixture-output-and-photometrics-part-one-tungsten/

'bedsheets' come in all manner of 'white/offwhite', and one usually can find the warmer tones. Since you list the UK as your location... I don't know what is available at hardware or 'home building' supplies, but here in the US there is a popular dropcloth for painting that is a 'warm' white canvas available at such chain stores as Home Depot or Lowes. I'm sure the UK has some similar type of store... quick check seems to indicate Homebase is such a chain store... In the US there was a Homebase chain, perhaps unrelated, which went bankrupt years ago...

On the topic of 'what value' as read from the Waveform display... There are various values depending on whether one is dealing with say Rec 709 representation, vs the various 'log' formats of the camera being used. For Rec. 709 I have seen the values of say 45-50%... and for log representation, say 30-40%. For my Blackmagic Pocket, 38.4%... is what has been stated as the design goal. Most people can't read off better than +/- 2-3%... so it is not an absolutely precise value. In any case one also needs a step wedge to show how 'low values' and 'high values' are represented and will indicate how many stops of 'dynamic range' one may have. Exposure is a compromise, especially when shooting 'available light'. With additional lighting some conditions of the shot may be mitigated, such as fill light to lessen contrast, or accent various areas in the frame. But at some point there will be compromise.

I use the following (iPhone, some of them have Android versions): Artemis https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/artemis-directors-viewfinder/id324917457?mt=8 pCam https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pcam-film-+-digital-pro/id295456485?mt=8 Sun Surveyor https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sun-surveyor/id525176875?mt=8 ARRI App (Not that I use ARRI... but it tells me what I should be using...) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photometrics/id733009338?mt=8 ---- INRIX -- freeway and city street congestion indications... especially in LA... https://itunes.apple.com/app/inrix-xd-traffic-maps-routes/id324384027

There's the budget of the film which gives a level of 'excellence' that can't really be achieved by 'free labor'. But even if someone did make a professionally finished product on a shoestring... the reason a blockbuster is a blockbuster is because of the marketing... which can be fore international coverage many times the 'production' budget. The often forgotten 'lesson' the 'El Mariachi' story is that there was extensive reediting for release after being bought for distribution and sent to the various fests, and Rodriguez getting an agent and a good deal with Columbia/TriStar... in other words... a number of dominoes lined up before the 'hit' occurred... and even then it was not 'blockbuster' status... but was good to show that he could make more films... and has...