Light Meter

[Delta4]

Still a beginner, but now have camera, editor, film and projector on their way. Basic storyline is worked out, and I am doing the sceen by sceen story board. My first film will star my wife and kids, and will be shot with Tri-X (indoors and out at out home).

I don't think I can rely upon the Nizo 2056 in-camera light meter because some scenes need to be darker (under-exposed) for the desired effect. I have a Gossen still camera meter that does ambient and incident light. but does not have frame rates for movie, and has shutter speeds at 1/30, 1/60 and 1/90.

So, what do you recommend, adapt with the in-camera meter, use my Gossen still camera meter, or get a cine meter. If a cine meter, what do you recommend on a budget. I assume ambient readings would be sufficient.

Thanks to all who respond.

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Dan
Fort Worth
Nizo 2056

[MovieStuff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Delta4:

So, what do you recommend, adapt with the in-camera meter, use my Gossen still camera meter, or get a cine meter. If a cine meter, what do you recommend on a budget. I assume ambient readings would be sufficient.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Read your other post and you are quite correct. You were ignored and I can only appologize for the oversite. I think you will find that everyone here is pretty sincere about helping other film makers and this was just an unusual occurance.

Regarding your light meter: You can generally use the reflective meter in your still camera with the shutter speed set to 1/60th (for 24fps) as a reference. It will generally be close enough but I would run some tests before shooting anything near and dear to your heart. No two light meters will give you the exact same reading, based on my experience. They are merely a point of reference that you can use to get consistant results. They are not scientific measuring tools. For shooting negative, you could grab one off the shelf and use it (assuming it worked properly) since negative has a tremendous amount of latitude to help with slight over or underexposure. However, reversal film has a much more narrow latitude and your exposure really needs to be dead on for best results. Even if you intend to over or underexpose your reversal for effect or to suit your own personal asthetics, you still need to know what "normal" is relative to your meter.

At this point, you could save yourself some dough and use your still camera's reflective meter and a grey card until you can get an ambient meter. Even then, you would need to do tests before shooting anything important.

Hope this helps and sorry for the delay in responding. Kick your other posts up to the top and we'll all try to pitch in with some useful information.

Roger

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Roger Evans
MovieStuff http://www.afterimagephoto.tv/moviestuff.html

[This message has been edited by MovieStuff (edited March 25, 2002).]

[Delta4]

Thank you Roger. I promise never to whine on the forum again.

I have been runing around the house metering at 1/30 and 1/60 with my Gossen trying to guestimate light levels. The Nizo has a 200 degree shutter and and f1.4 lens. I will shoot at 18fps. I think that's about 1/43 second shutter speed, but I'm not sure. (Don' t have the camera yet).

On lighting, I have found that my home's lighting is too low, even with Tri-X. I got a couple of 150w halogen bulbs from Home Depot and I'm screwing them in various fixtures around the house. Looks like I can make f2 or maybe f2.8 in most places. I'm hoping that'll work for filming. If not, I may need to add some floods on the ceiling to bring the light level up. But I got to say, making f5.6 indoors would be BRIGHT!

thanks again...



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Dan
Fort Worth
Nizo 2056

[S8 Booster]

Just thought this might be of some interest if you haven?t been there already for the spesific reference of the B/W film. I think it offers good data for the under/over exposure limits.

PXR 464 502 9087 PLUS-X REVERSAL 7276 50/40 50 feet SILENT http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...7276.shtml#H05 http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m.../bw/7276.shtml

TXR 464 502 9046 TRI-X REVERSAL 7278 200/160 50 feet SILENT http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...shtml#exposure http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m.../bw/7278.shtml

Just adding the link to the main page for all the neg movie stocks http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...ucts/negative/

Very informative too.



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Forrest Warrior

[#Pedro]

Hi Delta4!

my advise to a "beginner" is not to complicate simple things too much. Before starting a real "project", even when "only" performed with family members and using a S8 camera for the very first time, I would recommend to shoot at least one cardrige for your own tests.

Shoot outdoor and indoor under diferent light conditions, but going the easy way and using the internal TTL meter and see if you are happy with the results or how you?ll have to make corrections. Only then, knowing the status quo, I would go into corrections.

Shoot the following szenes:
1. landscape with back light
2. landscape with side light
3. landscape against light, but no sun directly in the lens.

each szene first with auto exp. than with 1 and 2 stops underexposured to see how you later can best simulate night shots. make notes, shoot the notes before every test szene for later refernce.

Then shoot some typical indoor szenes you wanna do, with existing light and/or lamps, depending on your light conditions.

Everytime, when the szene is more or less equally clear in the whole area of the viewfinder, the autoexp. will be reliable.
But if you shoot f.e. only a face of a person agains black background, you must do corrections for not fooling the exp. meter:
Zoom into the detail you wanna exposure correctly, memorize the auto exp. stop (fix it, note it down...), zoom back to your initial frame and shoot with this stop. The face will be exposured as it was bright sunlight.

Performing again test shots with 1 or 2 stops underexposure, you will afterwards have enough material to be shure of how to deal with the behaviour of your camera.
But that test roll is indispensable...

external exp. meter results depends a lot of the camera used (shutter angle) and of how the stops are marked. 180 degree shutter at 24 fps give you a theoretical exp. time of 1/48 second per frame. THen you must consider the loss of light for the viewfinder and camera meter, what is very individual from camera to camera. When you don?t have exact specs but you know that the camera meter is working o.k., you can compare the setting with an exteral meter, aiming the meter and the camera on a neutral colored area (house wall), setting the camera to 24 fps/auto exp. and the meter to 15 ASA, manipulating the exp. time until you have the same stop as displayed in your camera?s viewfinder. Then you?ll know, to what exposure time you must set your external meter when wanting to use it with your camera under more complicated light conditions.

Good luck

Pedro
Pedro

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[mcarter4121]

After all that, if you are still hot to learn about using a light meter, I have a Weston 715 light meter instruction book on line that will apply. There are more than one way to use a light meter. Those old booklets have great information in them.

http://www.16mmoviemaking.com/weston_715.htm




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