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.

I have a silly lighting question out of curiousity. Anyone feel free to answer. How did they come up with the different wattages for Tungsten/HMI lights. 1k v 1.2k, 5k v 6k, 20k v 18 k etc? Does it have to do with the mathematics of the electronics within the ballasts? Perhaps it was simply to keep them easily differentiated on set, to avoid: "Get me the 5k." "Tungsten or HMI?" Also, another question that a lot of beginners have is what is the difference between Panavision, Arri, Aaton and Moviecam. Is one better than the other, etc etc?

After reading this thread I decided to check out How the West was Won. Pretty cool film I'd have to say. I found some segments of the film fantastic, and other perhaps a bit slow. I loved the music, and I loved how the music tied it all together. As for the Cinerama, i think what I loved most about it was how they were able to capture such wide angle shots without the barreling distortion. They did a great job of composing many of the static shots so that perhaps at the beginning of the shot, there seemed to be some dead space, but by the end of the shot, the character(s) action(s) had filled up the space. The lines that seperrated the three frames were quite visible on my copy of the DVD, but I think it is an old one, I got it from the town library. With today's DI technology, it would be pretty cool to see something like this be tested again, just to be able to get those super wide shots, sans barrel distortion. Maybe not even for a whole film, but just for certain shots. I think my favorite shots were of the Indian horse charge, and the camera tracking alongside, and also of the train heist, with the oncoming train growing larger and larger getting close enough that the 27mm lenses distorted it alot, making it look extra menacing. Anywho, very cool to see this, before the thread, I had never heard of Cinerama, so thanks for posting about it.

Hey Matthew, I have some experience with Montana as I went to school there. There is a local crew, and it's quite good. There is one rental facility there with a full range of gear (obviously not quite as wide a range as the whole city of L.A. or NYC), but still good for one facility. There aren't a ton of crew members there, so if it is a large production, you'll may have to bring in additional people. If it is small, you can certainly get recent/finishing up film schoolers to fill roles such as company swings, 2nd ac's, loaders etc (that's how I got my first professional gig, company swing on an out of state feature). Obviously the locations vary tremendously and are all very impressive. Overall I am definitely biased, but I think shooting in MT is a great way to go about things. PM me if you'd like any contact info for the folks/rental facility there. Best of luck!

24 x 25 lb sand bags 8 x shot bags (or more) a light in the back of the truck for load ins/load outs at night?

I was very impressed with the rich visuals of Wall-E. They made a great story out of the visuals, there was very little dialogue after all. I agree about how much they nailed the look of anamorphic photography as well. I've read the AC article about bringing in Deakins and another cinematographer ( I forget who) to help them with their camera work. Very cool of them to do, and it worked, look at the finished product. To add my thoughts to the discussion about cinematography within CG animation: If you define cinematography as shooting images strictly on film, then no, it is not, it's rendered of course. However, if you define cinematography as a craft that creates images with which you tell a story, then by all means it is. I would ask that anyone here who has not undertaken the creation of CG animation themselves (including the cinematographic aspect of it) to leave off explaining in such a courteous fashion how much they apparently know about the subject. To all who have not seen the movie, I would highly recommend it.

Can anyone explain what the cinetape/panatape is? Thanks!

I enjoyed the way Andrew Lesnie shot the first scene that takes place in the dark with the mutants, where Smith chases his dog into the buildling where the deer went. I was impressed with how dark he let the scene go, and for a good part of it, the only illumination coming from Smith's flashlight. It brought a lot to the scene to make it more intense, and more confusing, just how one would feel in the given situation. I feel that many film makers would add some ambiant light to the scene to let the audience see the location, and I thought it was a nice move to let it play so dark. Bold, so to speak. I also liked what appeared to me a large portion of minature VFX work to depict the city, instead of just pure CG. I was disappointed in the story (could have been so much more) and the poor quality of the mutants.

Thanks for all the extra info. David, thanks for the picture reference, very helpful.

Walter, Do you remember what kind of stop you were getting with your Home Depot Sodium Vapor, and how you were using it? I like the idea of doing the real thing, and am definetly going to look into it. I was not aware they came in smaller units, I always assumed they were only for streetlamps and the such. Thanks, Steve

Thanks for the link (great picture reference) and the gel ideas. Much appreciated! I'll try to post stills once we shoot it. (early Nov)