500T vs. 200T

Joshua Makela · February 19, 2020

Hello to everyone! I’m looking to a music video for an artist on 16mm. This is our first venture together using this medium. I’ve shot stills with analog forever as well as super 8 so I do have film experience but I don’t have much hands on experience with motion / 16mm, only the countless hours of studying I’ve dedicated in preparing for the day I would beshooting 16mm.

I attached a few screen grabs of what the director is wanting to accomplish in terms of lighting / tone. The lenses we have to work with open up to a 2.3. I was looking to shoot with 200T, thinking if I rate it a 1/3 of a stop lower (compensating with my lighting as much as I‘m able to with the desired tone for the piece) to achieve tighter grain structure, is this foolish? Should I just be shooting with 500T and rate that at a 1/3 stop or even 1/2 stop lower to achieve the same effect? I’m just worried about what will happen to my blacks / shadows since there will be a lot of that with this set up.

My question is given the low key lighting would 200T or 500T and rating it lower be my best option?

Tyler Purcell · February 19, 2020

If you wish to loose the background entirely like the top image, you should probably shoot with 200T because 500T is so sensitive, it will pickup everything. If I want the blacks gone like that, I always have to do it in post because the modern stocks have such a high dynamic range, they will generally catch any falloff under 10 stops different than your key.

You can test all everything with a digital still camera, just set it to 500ISO and 1/48th of a second shutter speed.

In my testing 500T is about a stop and a half faster than 200T. But 200T has a different look than 500T, they are not the same stock.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Tyler Purcell

Joshua Makela · February 19, 2020

Thank you very much for all your information Tyler! This is all very helpful. Would you recommend me, to still rate either stock lower to give myself more latitude?

David Mullen ASC · February 19, 2020

Slight overexposure helps tighten grain structure (less of an issue with 200T over 500T) and improves contrast. It helps all negative stocks, it just helps the faster ones more. When I can, for example, I rate 500T at 320 ASA (2/3-stop over) and I rate 200T at 160 ASA (1/3-stop over).

The one issue to keep in mind is metering -- this is based on lighting the subject with close to white light, a heavily colored light shouldn't be overexposed, if anything, a face lit with a deep red or blue gel should be underexposed at least a stop to retain that color effect. So I'd shoot a person holding a grey scale with the ASA rating you've chosen (1/3 or 2/3-stop slower) under flat, frontal white light as a frame of reference.

Joshua Makela · February 20, 2020

Thank you very much David for your insight. I would have never come to the conclusion of the deeper red and blue lights being metered to be underexposed. So very helpful, thank you!

David Mullen ASC · February 20, 2020

You can tell they need to be under key exposure if you just take your reference frames there and turn them b&w and look at the tonality. If a Caucasian face is in Zone 6 or 7 in white light, under a deep color, it's more like Zone 4 or 5.

Stephen Perera · February 21, 2020

500T is an amazing stock.....so beautiful......it has great dynamic range......the grain is beautiful on it.....somehow you pump up the saturation n log scan dpx files and skin tones still look great......personal opinion

Joshua Makela · February 22, 2020

On 2/20/2020 at 11:27 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

You can tell they need to be under key exposure if you just take your reference frames there and turn them b&w and look at the tonality. If a Caucasian face is in Zone 6 or 7 in white light, under a deep color, it's more like Zone 4 or 5.

Ahhh okay, that helps me to see that more clearly. So keep my rating on the stock the same as mentioned above but just stop down into zone 4 or 5 on my lens?

Jarin Blaschke · March 8, 2020

On 2/22/2020 at 2:59 PM, Joshua Makela said:

Ahhh okay, that helps me to see that more clearly. So keep my rating on the stock the same as mentioned above but just stop down into zone 4 or 5 on my lens?

David is referring to zone system terms, if you are familiar with the technique made popular and widespread with Ansel Adams.

It depends on the black level, color saturation and grain you are after. Right now I am after a cleaner, richer look with the present film. I am preparing to light to 125 ISO at night so I can obtain a healthy negative with 5213. Tests have shown a real difference vs. ISO 320 with 5219.

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Joshua Makela · March 8, 2020

Thanks Jarin, yes I understood David’s response to the zone system! Appreciate all your help and insight into the stocks as well! That helps to hear the rating your deciding to do with that stock!

Joshua Makela · March 11, 2020

I finally did the only testing I could do right now with an Alexa Mini and getting as close as I could if I was shooting with film (wish I could have done it on film this round, but budget dictated that being a no go)

With the quality of light we liked on our faces, my readings were falling around a stop to almost 2 stops below key. This was with the hope of shooting with 200T at 1/3 of a stop over. I know I have some room in my shadows to stretch my exposure out, but to be safe should I be aiming to shoot with 5219 at a 2/3 compensation? I know that Tyler mentioned that if I am trying to achieve deep blacks I should avoid this since this stock will catch a lot in the shadows. I would prefer to shoot with 200T but don't know if I am on the edge of not having a healthy negative with my ratios after this test.

Stephen Perera · March 11, 2020

I would focus on getting coloured light correctly as per the advice David gives.....spot meter a grey card......I would not worry about the blacks as that can be taken down in post.....500T sees into the dark superbly I second what Tyler says.....in my experience with it.....it's so so good.....Portra 800 on still photography is just as fantastic....

Joshua Makela · March 11, 2020

Thank you Stephen for your response! I appreciate your advice. I will definitely keep David's advice on the colored light, very helpful but I am also using tungsten lights.So that is what I was worried about in under exposing the face when using these lights.

Stephen Perera · March 12, 2020

I'm obviously not (let me try an American analogy as a European) even in the country where the ballpark is that big league players Jarin Blaschke and David Mullen are playing in hahaha - and very generous they are with their time in here of course - but you just have to apply everything you know with shooting stills photography to moving images cos film is film.....Portra is similar to Vision3.....that kind of thing...don't change the mindset when thinking of exposure.....literally think of things as if you are shooting stills...it really is like that...I reiterate THE ZONE SYSTEM is the key to being calm.....E.g. of when I had to calm down.......I had to shoot the inside of a glassmaking furnace in my first ever film shoot.....my lens went to f22 max....they were going to open up the furnace door for a few seconds......its over 1000 degrees centigrade in there........I said open it up for me to metre it a sec.......it spot-metred at f64 average for the Vision3 500T I was shooting.....so I thought hang on, the Sekonic is trying to darken the scene (make it mid grey) by about 3 stops so if I open up from f64 to f45 to f32 to f22 I will be fine....so I said open it up and I shot at f22 with no ND filter......the result was great.....thank you Zone System!