stephen lamb

Hello, This is quite a late reply but I thought I'd chip in my 2 cents. I believe what you saw in your shadows was noise caused by viewing a deep shadow area in log format with your camera rated to 2000EI. Once brought down to proper levels in grading the noise should be substantially less. Rating the camera at 800 or 1000 EI will dramatically improve the amount of shadow area noise. The extra stop of light reaching the sensor does wonders for noise. I've also found that while you do lose some highlight information by doing so, you won't usually notice it unless you are pixel peeping. I only rate my camera at 2000 in bright scenes with lots of highlights or extreme emergencies where there is just no way to get enough light to the camera otherwise (lack of lighting equip, slow lenses, etc). A little backwards to be using higher EI ratings in brighter scenes but alas, this is the time in which we live! Happy 2016 folks! Stephen Lamb Camera and lighting CT and NY

I'll second the vote for Eastern Effects. Great house with good staff.

I do it for the above reasons, especially to draw the eye to the subject. Also though, I find that if you start cutting your light a bit, it stops feeling like there is a light pointed at your subject. Makes it feel much less "lit."

If you want to go for the "soften the source" approach, AND your shot is rather tight, you may be able to get away with your one crew member walking a 4x4 (that is feet, so I guess 1.3x1.3 in meters?) open frame skinned with diffusion over the talent? I've done it before with success, though, like I said, it has to be a pretty tight shot to work. A larger frame of course covers more area, but needs more manpower to set up, and becomes increasingly difficult (though not impossible by any means) to track along with the actors. If all else fails, any chance you can select a part of the location that will be shaded naturally via tree or building or what not? :)

Hey Kyle, I know this is now a little later on this topic....but if you have yet to shoot then I can offer some input on gear/crew in CT. I'm an electrician/gaffer in CT and can highly recommend Barndoor Lighting and KJfilms. I'm not familiar with their prices though as I get calls from them, and don't rent my own projects from there. In addition there are several other great gaffers/gear owners with good lighting equipment. If you need crew recommendations PM me. Best of luck!

Hey Jim, Thanks for the diagram, that's what I suspected, and seeing it on paper makes good sense. Thanks!

Hey Guys thanks for the responses. As for needing a voltmeter...that would have of course been useful, but my little multi-meter broke, and only works for continuity. Also, along the same lines, using the continuity meter, I couldn't find any reason that the casing of the lamp would even BE energized, as there was no continuity between the casing and neither the hot nor neutral. This seems to indicate no problems with the lamp, or am I misguided here? Jeff, that was my understanding as well, at least in terms of the globe itself, in that it will function (turn on) regardless of the direction of the flow of power. However from what I had read, it was my understanding that the trouble occurs with a hot/neutral reverse because of how the unit as a whole is wired. The unit itself is grounded in a particular way that the reverse will cause a voltage to appear on the unit. Maybe I am over thinking this? For the gloves, that is a helpful tip, and one that seems obvious in retrospect...duh! ha ha. Any recommendations for safer gloves that can handle the heat? Thanks, Best

Hey all, Have what I feel might be a silly question coming from an electrician. But I've sort of moved into this role recently-ish after being an AC, so forgive me if it's a little basic. anyways, here goes: The other day I was lighting a small scene on location in a house. I had a 750w source four Leko on a steel combo stand outside on the grass. It was plugged into (via one stick of edison stinger) a three-prong receptacle. Once the lamp was up and running, I stood on the stand and grabbed the back end of the lamp to make an adjustment. I felt a buzz in my hand that quickly grew sharper and more intense. I jumped off the stand, and put my gloves on to unplug the unit! I checked the lamp housing/lamp cable for continuity between the ground and the housing, and it seemed fine. Also checked for continuity between the hot and housing, and the neutral and housing, again, seemed fine (no continuity). I then checked the house receptacle with one of those little sperry three-light testers, and got a "hot/neutral" reverse. After doing some research, I found that by having the hot/neutral reversed, you wind up sending your load through the grounded line, which can build a voltage potential on the surface of the housing. It seems that this is what happened? I had a potential build-up on the lamp housing and when i touched and was also touching the steel stand...well...seems like I was lucky. Can anyone here back up my speculation with more in depth detailed explanations? Or could I be off of the mark entirely? :) Thanks, Best!

Hey Thomas, I do gaffing and grip work ( I know, two different jobs, but hey, why not) in NYC and I could help you out with arranging equipment and working the shoot. Feel free to PM me.

Hey, I'm interested in getting a meter that will display in F/C's. I have a sekonic 558, and it's great on set, no problem there. This is more out of my curiosity to learn more about the relationship between Footcandles and F/stops hands on. I've looked at the old: Sekonic Studio Deluxe III CAT L-398A as well as several newer "all in one" meters. However, I don't need a new all in one meter. I already have that. Any thoughts on the old Sekonic, or any other old F/C meters out there would be great and most appreciated. Thanks!

I've never used the Ex-1 but avoid the HVX if you can, it is such a noisy camera!! (the image is noisy, not as in actual sound produced by it)

I agree about the RED at least....I had trouble pulling focus on it. It didn't feel like 35mm dof, it seemed that if I was off my mark even a bit, it was way off. Didn't have a chance to do any measured tests, but that's what it felt like.

Hey, I'm prepping for a short film on the HVX and I was running some gel color tests the other day. My goal for the test was just to compare some different gels at different exposure levels to see how they reacted. Test shot with a PS tecknik and Zeiss SS 25mm. Shot at default 3.2K and tungsten lamp. A side benefit of this was that I wound up with a wide array of low, proper, and overexposed shots to test noise issues with. I took one shot, which was exposed normal, and "printed" it down in color correction to roughly match the waveform of the underexposed shot. The correction involved bringing down the mids, a small amount of bringing down the highlights, and then removing some of the saturation. The difference in noise is quite amazing. I've attached some slightly scaled down .jpgs screen grabs. This is the properly exposed shot "printed" down. This is the under exposed shot. I guess it goes to show that for this camera if you need a low light shot, to do your best to get a solid exposure and then bring it down to where you need. PS sorry about the bad pixel aspect ratio.

Hey, Well I think the title says it all. If I am shooting a gray card with an HD camera and have a monitor attached with it's waveform on, what percentage of exposure would be correct for the card? I've heard that 30% on a waveform correlates to correctly exposed gray card, any truth there? Thanks!

Just to chime in, if that's the same David George Ellis who is based in NYC then I'll give him my recommendation as well, worked with him as an AC on a few shoots and he was a real pleasure.