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well, i hope the editor can do something with the footage, maybe i am too negative, usualy im very picky with my images so maybe im over reacting, i will show you guys a quicktime version in a week or so when its finished.

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no i didnt shoot a grayscale before the shoot.

jim, ive got a digital SLR which i often use for previsualization, however this shoot was on such a tigh schedule that i simply didnt think of using it :/

 

If we talk about style technical control of shooting, i wish tell a few words about my style.

I shoot of test card on start of every roll and on every new scene or new lighters setting ( If need ).

This test card included Kodak grey scale,( for control of correct exposing ) Kodak color scale ( for

adjust of color with telecine ) and 3 squares : white, grey, black ( for telecine adjust).

 

If i cast doubt on aperture calculation, i take my digital photo camera ( Casio QV-4000) shoot of scene, read speed of shutter and aperture and read bar graph.

I know speed of sensor of Casio and can calculate correct aperture for cine shooting.

Yes, possible, this is not batter way, but, this work

If need, i use Photoshop and show bar graph of important parts of image.

I can send images for exaple.

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Yes afraid so , as said in earlier post , as the subject was mostly backlit should have exposed for the shadows , shouldnt worry about overexposure when shooting colour neg . In fact i always overexpose by about 1 stop . john holland.

 

(sorry, for post duplicating, soft fault)

 

The overexposure good idea, and i use this idea on shooting.

The batter, if the negative will have overexposure, when underexposure.

But, i think, overexposure of 1 stop can be too much.

If you told about this images, possible.

I choose volume of overexposure from a few sides.

This is film dynamic range. ( Kodak show film dynamic range for every film very good ).

7277 have -3 ..0 + 7 stops and show darkness scale very good.

The style of scene, many lights or many details on darkness.

Any case, the use of overxposure 1/2 stop normal for me. ( 250 ASA for 320 T film ).

 

I make a some test with scene like on first image.

I take two candlelights and set on 0.3 m near face, i had F1.4 with 2000ASA of film( 25 fps ).

But, not need forget about big highlight from left side of image.

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Guest Jim Murdoch
jim, ive got a digital SLR which i often use for previsualization, however this shoot was on such a tigh schedule that i simply didnt think of using it :/

You really need to use a film camera. With 24 shots available for only a few dollars you can easily experiment with several different exposures for each scene. The usual minilab autoexposed prints aren't all that useful, as they will probably all come out looking much the same, but they will indicate the maximum exposure that will still allow detail in highlight areas to be reproduced.

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You really need to use a film camera. With 24 shots available for only a few dollars you can easily experiment with several different exposures for each scene. The usual minilab autoexposed prints aren't all that useful, as they will probably all come out looking much the same, but they will indicate the maximum exposure that will still allow detail in highlight areas to be reproduced.

 

 

well i certainly learned an important lesson for my next shoot, thats for sure.

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well i certainly learned an important lesson for my next shoot, thats for sure.

 

Now you know why I automatically rate color negative stocks 2/3's of a stop slower... gives me a safety margin for underexposure for one thing, taking away some of the stress of shooting dark scenes knowing I have a little extra density to fall back on.

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Wouldn't be easier to give it a full stop more? I mean, just for the ease of setting the aperture. There isn't much difference between 2/3 stops and one stop, in fact it probably wouldn't even show in the print, or maybe these motion picture films work differently...

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Wouldn't be easier to give it a full stop more? I mean, just for the ease of setting the aperture. There isn't much difference between 2/3 stops and one stop, in fact it probably wouldn't even show in the print, or maybe these motion picture films work differently...

 

That doesn't make setting the lens iris any easier... because you set your light meter to an ASA rating that is 2/3's of a stop slower -- so you don't have to think about having to remember to open up the iris more after you read the meter. I just set my meter to 320 ASA for a 500 ASA stock and look at the meter reading.

 

Besides, rating a 500 ASA film at 250 ASA can be difficult from a practical standpoint --and I'd be tempted to switch to a 250 ASA stock instead (which of course I'd be tempted to overexpose, etc.) If you come from a still camera standpoint, it's not so hard to switch from 500 ASA to 250 ASA, but with a film camera running at 24 fps with a 1/48 shutter, your exposing options are more limited because you can't just use a longer shutter speed, requiring that you actually light to the level you want for the f-stop you want to shoot at.

 

At the other end, I think 1/3 of a stop overexposure is so slight (like 2 printer light points more density) that it is within a margin of exposing error -- you could easily underexpose more than 1/3 of a stop by accident, negating the advantage of a denser negative.

 

Hence why 2/3's of a stop overexposure tends to be the best compromise. Also, at one-stop overexposure, you can start to have problems at the other end, when you accidentally overexpose more, losing highlight details and perhaps even getting near the top limit of 50 on the printer light scale in one of the colors.

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Suppose you shot a test and determined that overexposing 1 stop yields the desired aesthetic. In that circumstance, would you overexpose 1 and 2/3 stops (1 for aesthetic and 2/3 for safety)? Or would you overexpose 1 stop over and then rely on the telecine/printing to bring it back in case missed exposure?

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Suppose you shot a test and determined that overexposing 1 stop yields the desired aesthetic. In that circumstance, would you overexpose 1 and 2/3 stops (1 for aesthetic and 2/3 for safety)? Or would you overexpose 1 stop over and then rely on the telecine/printing to bring it back in case missed exposure?

 

If I were overexposing by one-stop, I don't need to overexpose even more to prevent accidental underexposure -- I'm already covered by the one-stop overexposure.

 

Rating a stock at 2/3 of a stop over isn't ONLY as a protection against underexposure, it's also for the benefits of overexposure (grain tightening, better blacks in the print, etc.)

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Rating a stock at 2/3 of a stop over isn't ONLY as a protection against underexposure, it's also for the benefits of overexposure (grain tightening, better blacks in the print, etc.)

 

David,

 

If you were only doing a transfer to DigiBeta (no projection) with a Spirit 2K and Vision 2 stocks - 7201, 7212, 7217 - what would be the optimal over exposure (in general)?

 

Thanks for any information. :(

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It really depends on how you tend to expose, how you interpret your meter. One DP will tell you that he underexposes a certain stock by nearly a stop yet prints in the middle of the scale, which never seems to happen to me, so I guess he points the dome of his incident meter in some special way to get those readings, I don't know.

 

It also depends on the look you want -- some people don't like the snappier look of a denser negative, they prefer the "delicate" look of a thinner negative.

 

For telecine work, 1/3 of a stop more exposure is probably fine for close-to-normal density, just enough to hedge your bets against accidental underexposure, because if you're not printing, you don't necessarily need a dense negative to get good blacks, and the graininess might not be as critical for small-screen viewing.

 

But like I said, I feel more comfortable with a 2/3-stop overexposure, which is still not too extreme but definitely falls on the side of a denser negative.

 

But you really should test. Some DP's feel that a denser negative just gets them more noise in some scanners / telecines. I remember the article on "The Constant Gardner" where the DP said that tests for the D.I. showed him that he should just rate 250D stock at 250 ASA for the best results. But that may have been for a particular scanning method. What little D.I. work that I've done for my 35mm footage hasn't had any problems with the 2/3's of a stop overexposure I'm going for. And in general, I still find that even for D.I. work, generally you'll have more problems with underexposed footage than overexposed footage.

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Hi,

 

The speed printed on the can is a guide point to start testing from. How you meter a scene etc can make a big difference.

 

I prefer to think in terms of the range of exposure the film can handel. With a spot meter a grey scale reads about 4.5 stops from white to black. I know I can have highlights +3 to 4 stops and dark areas -3 stops from that. Then I decide what I want to expose for, is it day or night!

 

Stephen

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thank you for all the help and recommendations.

 

next time i certainly wanna do a test, but thats always a problem on those low budget shoots.

 

as a general rule of thumb i learnd to slightly overexpose film , and slightly underexpose video.

which i ve always done, i really dont know where i had my mind on that shoot :/

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no, i have to admit that i hardly use a spotmeter, mostly ambient, in this case too.

 

Hi,

 

Thats not a problem, the dark areas should be about 3 stops under, anything black will be lost but brighter objects will be seen. 2.5 stops under is a good starting point for day for night.

 

Stephen

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what im confused about:

 

david recommended to slightly overexpose by 2/3 of a stop, to have some "headroom", so this 2/3 over exposure should be on top of the highlights measurment right ?

 

lets say im measuring two sides of a face, the shadow side has 2,8 and the bright side has 5,6, so i would expose for slightly under F4 ?

Edited by Dmuench
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If you just set your light meter to the slower rating, you don't have to make any adjustments from your meter reading to overexpose the negative. You're just treating it as if it were a slower-speed stock, that's all, and then exposing how you normally would for the look you want. You don't want to have to think about overexposing the stock on every shot.

 

So you'd set your meter to 320 ASA, let's say, instead of 500 ASA (for a 500T stock) and take your meter readings and expose how you want to creatively. Just shoot a grey scale with the same ASA rating so that the timer / colorist knows that the extra density needs to be corrected to normal brightness.

 

Now with 320 ASA being your base ASA rating, you may of course overexpose a shot further for creative effect, to be left bright-looking.

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Jumping in late on this conversation---One technique that seems to have worked well for me when deciding how much to overexpose for a dense negative is to keep in mind how much of the negative's latitude my shot is actually using.

 

For example, if the scene is very flat (foreground and background in complete exterior shade with lots of mid-tones and no real bright highlights) then I might be more inclined to overexpose a full stop or so to get a nice tight negative. On the other hand, if I've got a spicy backlight at +2 stops and the background is looking out a window in daylight, etc, then I find myself more conservative in the overexposure, for fear of loosing detail in the highlights as I try for a denser negative.

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david: good idea thanks, its much more convenient that way, and i surely would forget to compensate the 2/3 on every shot now and then.

 

frank: i often used to think that, once i got my "main" exposure on the subject thats important, i dont have to worry about the rest so much and everythign will fall in place. but since the last few shoots i keep on balancing out different "light planes" to speak in ross lowells words :) but i guess i simply need much more practise with that.

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That approach (basing exposure on dynamic range of each subject / set-up, sort of like the Zone System) would work more for stills, or maybe a commercial / music video.

 

With narrative pieces, especially if they are going to be printed, it's more important that the printer lights for the whole scene are within the same range, so you don't want extreme corrections shot-by-shot - you want a consistent approach to the density of the scene, with dark shots in the sequence thinner and bright shots denser, but it all printing at the same lights so that you don't get variations in contrast, grain, and black levels. This is less of an issue if you are doing a telecine / D.I. but even then, if you are shooting a lot of footage, you don't want a lot of shot variations in density that each need to be corrected to match each other.

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With narrative pieces, especially if they are going to be printed, it's more important that the printer lights for the whole scene are within the same range, so you don't want extreme corrections shot-by-shot - you want a consistent approach to the density of the scene, with dark shots in the sequence thinner and bright shots denser, but it all printing at the same lights so that you don't get variations in contrast, grain, and black levels. This is less of an issue if you are doing a telecine / D.I. but even then, if you are shooting a lot of footage, you don't want a lot of shot variations in density that each need to be corrected to match each other.

 

 

is there by any chance a book about that topic, which you can recommend ?

 

i feel that i need to understand this issue about negativ density and printing... much more.

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Yes, most of what I've done so far (unfortunately) has been for telecine-- But good to know about consistency for print work. As a rule, I try to develop a general "over-exposure philosophy" for a scene, keeping in mind all the set-ups of that scene, and stick with it (if not, the producers would get upset about OT in the transfer suite.)--it is just that that philosophy changes sometimes from scene to scene.

Edited by FrankDiBugnara
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Yes, most of what I've done so far (unfortunately) has been for telecine-- But good to know about consistency for print work. As a rule, I try to develop a general "over-exposure philosophy" for a scene, keeping in mind all the set-ups of that scene, and stick with it (if not, the producers would get upset about OT in the transfer suite.)--it is just that that philosophy changes sometimes from scene to scene.

 

 

so far ive only done telecine work too, and have no experience whatsoever with printing :/

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