Your suggest about 200T?

[lightfeat]

Hey there Bossjock, I'd be really interested in a share of your knowledge of zones in relation to K40 exposure compared to 200T.

Lucas

[Jerome Cain]

about zone system,... there are regular light for enter the nightclub and mild bright colors of the bar. on the front of side and the perceptive of road otherwise. Right on about little control of development. would like to see the book that I would to buy and learn more about it. I will hold the carts til i feel ready to send for the process. Thanks for your time and respond. Jerome

[Greg Crawford]

Hear is a web site I found through eBay,,,good in depth stuff on the zone system :http://www.geocities.com/dainisjg/zone.htmlThe zone system is broken down into to parts exposure (pre visualization) and development to achieve tones on the negative that will translate to the vision you had in your minds eye. It's based on the atage expose for the shadow details and develop for the highlights. Keeping that in mind let me give you a quick look at the zone system scale, and remember this is for Black White. And how I apply some of this knowledge to color and cinematography.Every reflective light meter, maybe the one built right in to your camera or a hand held reflective meter or a spot meter takes the the?brightness level you give it and turns it into a set of F stop and shutter speed numbers that would turn the target area into Zone V.THATS MIDDLE GRAY!

If you took a reading from snow, and exposed the film acordingly and the lab printed it normally you would have a boring picture of dull snow. Why...because snow should be on say Zone 7 or 8 and the spectral highlights on Zones 9 and maybe 10, If you took a meter reading of a black car, your overall negative would be very dense. If printed correctly your shot would be overexposed...get the idea. Each zone is one stop brighter or darker than the last. But this is generally not the way we meter shooting on motion picture film. Most of us use a incident meter, the one with the round white half dome. This meter averages the light for use to mid gray or zone V. It would be like taking a reflective meter aming it at a gray card at the subjects position. It would place the settings and the correct mid level. Incident meters do a better job at keeping skin tones consist ant from scene to scene. Something that Answel Adams did not have to worry about in his wonderful still...what a Master.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ February 22, 2003 08:02 PM: Message edited by: bossjock-dp ]</font>

[Greg Crawford]

So how and when do I apply this knowledge?

First thing is to recognize the fact that the eye can see a much longer gray scale than any film can record detail from. Negative film has the edge on having a long gray scale able to hold detail in deep shadows and bright highlights.

Butt your shooting Super 8 probably use KODACHROME! This film although with wonderful super fine grain and brightest snappy colors is after all very contrasty. That's one of the reasons that when shot correctly Super 8 KODACHROME can look alot like 16 mm. Tight grain and the added color and contrast make the picture look sharper. But it all comes for a price.

In controlled lighting situation about a 3 stop range it can look great. If you are lighting for a 4 stop range you might find something in the shot that's less than idea. Maybe it's items under a tree that are in the shade...or perhaps its the bright sunlight striking a persons face. The work around would include using reflectors to pump light into the dark area's or perhaps place your talent under silks or butterfly to soften the harsh direct sunlight.

By the way greens on KODACHROME to me always seem a little darker than reality.

Now how to use the zone system. First be aware that you are shooting with a contra sty film with a 3 to 4 stop range. and Add the fill to bring up the low values. Or stage your scene so that an actor does not have to walk from deep shadows into bright sunlight...if you don't have the lighting control equipment. If you were shooting a man walking out of a bar at dusk...shooting in the golden hour. What would you expose the scene at? If the man is face is in the shade and you expose for the shade the neon lights will probably be blown out. If you expose for the neon lights the whole body might be in silhouette.. That's fine if it's what you want. But assuming you could meter the face then see what exposure the neon lights would be correctly exposed at you could find a solution.

You might approach solving the problem several ways. Fill the face with reflected light. Maybe even use a spot light on the subject. opening up the shadows. I would probably gel the light with a 1/2 CTB so it would not look overly orange. or I might get everyone ready way early and stage the scene when both the neons and the face exposure would fit on the exposure scale. Maybe the face would be lit with light one stop under normal exposure ZONE IV and the NEON would read on zone VI or VII . That would probably work.

The same kind of exposure calculations could be used if you wee shooting at a location with tungsten light and window light coming streaming in. If you wanted detail out side keep in mine the light from the outside might be upwards of 4 stops above what you are shooting the film at. Making it wash out. Plus since you would be mixing TUNGSTEN and DAYLIGHT. Light hitting your subject from the window would turn that side of the face blue.

Possible solution: Assuming you can't move away from the window. Gel your lights BLUE FULL OR HALF CTB. problem you small lighting kit is even more underpowered.

Maybe you could turn off the house lights and just bounce daylight all over the place. Problem If you thing you had a contrast ratio problem before wait till you try to balance the light now!

Best solution Try using a Full CTO or even a full CTO with two stops OR three stops of ND built into to it. Comes in a large roll. Pretty pricey. Gel the whole window orange and shoot with your TUNGSTEN lighting kit. I did not even mention using (renting ) HMI's, way to expensive.

Oh the zone system Have the outside light no more than three stops above the main exposure Key Light. Inside fill at about I stop under that would look NICE.