K40 INDOORS LIGHTING

[mattias]

i've put all the information you need under the caps lock key on your keyboard. sorry if i jammed it in the process...

/matt

[JUAN]

Thank you vary much mattias it was really nice of you. thanks for the help


juan

------------------

[mattias]

you're welcome. ;-)

now that you've fixed your keyboard, can you repeat the question, with a bit more detail so that we might understand what you're looking for?

/matt

[mcflytrap]

DID SOMEONE SAY CAPS LOCK CAUSE I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMEONE SAY CAPS LOCK DID YOU SAY CAPS LOCK???

------------------

[MovieStuff]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Courier, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mcflytrap:
DID SOMEONE SAY CAPS LOCK CAUSE I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMEONE SAY CAPS LOCK DID YOU SAY CAPS LOCK???
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, no. That's "CAP SLOCK".

Sheesh. Amateurs.

Roger


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

[Scott Spears]

You're going to need a lot of lights. At an ASA of 40, it's not all that light sensitive, but that's what keeps the grain down. I'd say you need some 2000 watt lights or a lot of 1000 watt lights. I just shot a commerical with the 100T negative and rated it at 50 ASA to get 1 stop of over exposure to reduce grain and I needed a 2K, 2 1Ks and several other lights.

As for the best F-Stop, I'd got for 2 stops over the minimum which I believe on the R10 is a bit over 2.8. This might be a bit hard to get with K40, so you may have to settle on 2.05 or so. Just avoid shooting wide open. It'll keep the resolution up.

Scott

------------------

[Matt Pacini]

Scott, I realize you're very experienced, but you forgot the golden rule:

Neg stock = OVERexpose
Reversal stock = UNDERexpose.

I've shot tons of K-40, and it looks hideous overexposed even 1/2 stop to one stop, so you definitely don't want to do that. (If you don't believe me, I'll send you my sample of underexposed, and overexposed K-40 footage I shot in Lost Tribes. Huge difference. The overexposed stock loses almost all it's saturation, and looks very home movie-ish. Yeeech!)

Anyway, reversal stock looks best underexposed about 1/2 - one full stop, effectively rating it at around ASA 60-80.

However, the sharpest your lens will operate (regardless of all other issues like film stock, etc.) is about 2 stops over wide open, up to the middle of it's range. ((On the R-10, I found f4.5-f8 to be amazingly sharp, but you're probably not going to be able to get that much light going on indoors, without giving everyone tans!)
If you can get up to even f2, you're going to be lucky.
You're lucky enough to have gotten a killer Super 8 camera as a newbie.
That's what I shot over 250 rolls of Super 8 with, for my feature Lost Tribes. Nice lens. Noisy as hell, though. That's the only reason I got rid of mine... I still miss it though...

Anyway, regardless of the good news that you can underexpose on K-40, it's still pretty damn slow stock, so you want as much light as possible just to get an exposure, and even more to attempt to get close to the optimum sharpness of the lens.

That having been said though, I've gotten amazingly sharp, nice images shooting even slightly into the red using K-40 and the Nikon R-10.
I'll send you a sample frame if you want to see what I'm talking about.

I'd say try to dig up 1K to 2K worth of lights, if you can, and if you're shooting during the day, get some foamcore and mylar stuff, spray glue the mylar to the foamcore and use these for reflecting daylight from outside, through your windows. If you have whispy curtains, all the better. (Nice diffused light) Don't worry about the difference in color temperature, strangely, when I did this, it didn't look weird at all, even with the cameras 85 filter out of place. (It does look weird though, if you have no tungsten light at all going on, especially in the skintones).

If you don't know how, or where to get that many lights, or are on an extreme budget, ask, & I'll tell you how to get really cheap lights that work pretty well, and are bright as hell!

Matt Pacini

------------------

[JUAN]

I'M NEW TO SUPER 8MM. I NEED HELP FROM SOME OF YOU I WANT TO KNOW WHATS THE RIGHT LIGHTING FOR K40 INDOORS WHATS THE BEST F-STOP THAT I HAVE TO SET MY CAMERA. I HAVE NIKON R10.

THANK YOU FOR YOU HELP

JUAN

[JUAN]

thank you for you info matt and i will like see those frames that you talking about if can send them to me. i'm shooting in a room with 3 big windows in one of the walls can you let me know where to get some lights.

thank you matt

juan

you can email me at [email protected]



------------------

[Scott Spears]

Matt,

I wasn't saying overexpose K40. Sorry if that was confusing. I can see where my statements could be taken that way. Negative likes over exposure. Reversal likes right on or under.

What I was really trying to say was that you shouldn't shoot wide open with Super-8 or in that case any stock, even 35mm because you're working the lens too hard and it will cost you resolution. In general, camera lens don't like to work at the wide open or all the way closed down. As you said, F. 4 through F. 8 are ideal in my opinion.

Scott

------------------