some curious stuff

[eidde]

hello!

I have an old 2nd hand chinon dart that has done me well in shooting about 2 hours of footage.
Its beginning to pack in and Ive noticed a few things, thought Id share them here.

The light meter doesnt work on this camera, so I tend to use a different camera with a built in light meter to find my exposure, which is a pain.
Ive found that when shooting Kodachrome I just leave the f stop at around 2, for whatever Im doing.
Indoors with a single 500 Watt Halogen light,
or outdoors in very bright sunlight.
The only problem I had was when outdoors my actors began to dissapear against the bright sky- which Id expect with such an open f stop.

But I was suprised that the outdoor stuff wasnt just totally over exposed.

I had to take the camera apart to fix it and in doing so noticed the aperature mechanism. Its very weird. Two odd shaped plates(not round) with elongated holes in them. All very carefully worked out Im sure.

Anyway thats all I have to say. I think this is all due to the latitude of Kodachrome more than anything else.

But in future, if Im ever in doubt about an f stop, Ill put it wide open to 2, or if shooting against the sky maybe around 5.

Ive NEVER found Ive needed an f stop of 16 or near there. Perhaps this is my camera.
Also note Im not fussed about anything much but getting a half decent exposure.

thanks for reading

[Filmmaker58]

When i was....er...younger, I used to do sooo many reshoots because the light meter in my super8 camera was malfunctioning. A word of advise. Get a simple handheld light meter and learn how to use it. It's so simple that I really kicked myself for not learning earlier. Kodachrome is rated 25 ASA outdoors (with the 85 filter engaged), and 40asa indoors (without the filter, Your camera probably has an internal filter that is engaged as a default) The shutter speed at 24fps is a 50th of a second (an inexpensive light meter will probably only have a 60th, but that's close enough). Put in those settings and hold the light meter with the bulb facing towards the lens, and it will tell you your stop. An f2 outdoors sounds really overexplosed to me, and you'll probably get much better flesh tones and a blue sky if you shoot at a higher stop.