@Gabel I hear you, most of my issues is how far will i stretch the image, since my style is most of the times that i would like to light less, doing it in the zone is important and working hard on that since my last shortfilm, where everything was "flooded" for equal soft exposures in 1 scene, the problem i find with exposuing in the zone is that it tends to get flat as in 2D space, trying to get it more like 3D space i find myself crushing the blacks or things that i don't find relevant for the picture, camera wise it's always a dilemma ofcourse, but lighting is imho the most important thing of Cinematography, and learning it, and mastering it takes a while a guess.

For example i find daylight interiors much harder to light then night scenes (interiors) The problem i find is that there is simply too much light, and always having in mind that it has to be realistic is something i find myself questioning, does it need to look realistic, there are windows camera left, so do i place my rimlight camera left? or can i simply 3 point light it with a nice rim and maybe some atmosphere by a smoke machine, these things are questions i ask myself all the time, and most of the times you hear DP's or directors complaining that it aint realistic or put a Fill Camera left because there are windows there.

Any thoughts about the 2nd line?

I have to mention that the windows in the above conversation are not visible on camera.

@sicovdplas I'm hoping to remedy that with CGFS. We're still in the beginner stages, but eventually the master class will cover far more complex techniques.

Ok no problem, problem is there is not much about advanched lighting things on the nets, atleast i did never found it.

Also a thing i would like to discuss, a good gaffer, with perfect lighting and prefilterage and minimum grading in post, or equal exposures with some kicks here and there more headroom in post for grading?

• Your opinion? keep in mind DP has a style to maintain and a Editor is mearly a puppet which can ruin your footage, or make it more perfect, also depends on the Colorist/Editor in my opinion, which flow you preffer?

You have any examples?

Thanks for all the info, i myself am also heading into the depths of perfect exposures, and feel and moods.

My minolta and my eyes are my best pall, and the histogram.

My biggest issue with lighting scenes, is creating noire-ish shots, with max 1 or 2 sources, for example night interiors, using 1 keylight and shape this to a perfect source, as a rim and fillkey, and also keep enough headroom for a little grade and not overcrushing the blacks.

I am also struggeling with creating crisp rims around a subject, any ideas for that?

@dbp Yes. Smooth -2 across the board.

@Gabel The light map will be a part of the tutorial, it was a pretty basic setup. A reflector outside the window for the key, a 250w photoflood practical accent light, a diffused 650 hair light, and a diffused 1K fill.

Nice! You wouldn't happen to have a drawing (or could make one) of your lighting setup? Would be nice to see what you used.

@stonebat its a nice coincidence.

F-stops relate to the diameter of the aperture. To get the amount of light that passes through, you have to square them to get the area of the "hole" (1.4->2, 2->4, 2.8->8, 4->16,...). Thats where you get the "every stop doubles/halfes the amount of light" comes from.

If placing a (point) lightsource in 3D-space (and its hard not to do so;-) you get the inverse square law of light fall off.

Two physically totally different things, but both can be discribed with a square law and so the same "shortcuts" can be applied.

I found this interesting. The familiar f-stops can be mapped into light loss in distance scale. f/2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 are mapped into 2 meters, 2.8 meters, and so on.

e.g. Two light sources emitting same amount of light. One source is 4 meters away from a subject. To make one stop difference in incident light meter readings, place the other light source 2.8 meters (a stop gain) or 5.6 meters (a stop loss) away.

I wonder if that's how analog camera flash technique worked.

@Imaginate it really depends on whether or not you have a 1 degree spot capability on your meter. BUT I'm shooting a new tutorial next week that might answer your question.

For those toying with the Ansel Adams Zone system, I'll give you these to help you. I'll be using this color chart a lot in the zone system tutorials, and a little bit in the 2nd part of the Intensity and falloff tutorial.

ColorChart shot in daylight at 200ISO Smooth (-2 all) with perfect exposure (2/3 over on gray card)

IRE cheat sheet for where in the WFM these colors fall when properly exposed. (I added contrast to make it more look more like the chart looks to the eye)

Full Chart

@AdR Unfortunately due to the nature of the forum I can't take it back. (You can't delete pics once you upload them) You happened to catch me on a day when I was dealing with some true morons (in real life), and I took it out on you. I apologize, as you were only trying to help. I did acknowledge the mistake, and It was something I caught after posting the video (by counting on my fingers, and then face palming myself), but didn't want to go back and confuse the issue further as most beginners use the in-cam meter and also do not count zero as a stop.

To explain. When metering, and reading contrast you only pay attention to the difference in stops, you don't spend a lot of time on set making sure all the integers are counted. (I always did suck at math.) Nobody says, "This light is at f4 that one is is at f2 - let's knock it down 3 stops to even it up. (Which is technically a 3 stop range) but only a 2 stop difference. I'm sure there is somebody reading this right now who's math is as dodgy as mine that is wondering how the hell f4 to f2 is 3 stops. (It's because it's f4, f2.8, and f2 - 3 actual stops, but a difference of 2 stops)

As I said, I'm trying to keep things simple, and when people come along and confuse the issue in various threads, I spend so much time trying to cut through the confusion and make things simple again that it makes me a little crazy. I'm all about simplicity... That is, until such time that one is abe to start thinking in this head space, and then explaining the full picture is merely a tiny bump in the road. I hope that makes sense.

@Imaginate Something about your WFM bothered me, and I just realized that this is an incorrect gray card reading. To properly use an 18% gray card; you must angle it between your light source (in this case the sun) and the lens and "bounce" or reflect that source into the lens. You'll notice a marked difference in luminance when this is done. It should instruct you to do this on the instructions that came with the card. This card is aimed almost dead front. If it were correctly angled, you wouldn't see long shadows from the child's fingers, and the gray card would read near the skin tone in terms of exposure, or if his skin is on the lighter side of the scale it should come in around 60-65IRE.

(I thought I made the gray card technique clear in the FS tutorial, please let me know if it wasn't clear.)

But that being said, you did manage to get a fairly balanced almost [bracketed] exposure sans grading, I can see into the shadows, and the highlights are not completely useless, but they are in that area where they become very hard to work with especially on his shirt.

This is why golden hour is so favorable, as it is a more manageable lighting environment than broad daylight, as this shot could be lit with simple reflectors or white bounce cards.

In the next tutorial, I am going to take a scene (similar to the Zacuto scene in that it will be shot out a window from inside) shot at noon with a 10 stop range 15EV-6EV naturally (see the above explanation), and compress it into the 5 stop zone. but first I'm going to "scout the location", plan the shoot, figure out which lights I need to bring, and then light the scene and shoot it. But I will also shoot the scene unlit, and then lit in a way that spreads the image across the full DR. Then I'll bring it all into AE and grade it. I'll do a light grade, and a heavy grade, so you can see all of your options and decide which technique works best for you.

@shian re the 5-stop range:

Please don't take this the wrong way, imagine it as a friendly word from a mate over a couple of pints at the local:

If you're going to hold yourself out as an educator, and charge money for a film school that you created, please get the facts straight.

I know it can sting to get caught in a mistake, especially when you're trying to build up your cred as an expert. Next time, please just acknowledge your oversight and correct it. A wee mistake like this doesn't have to turn into drama and "why do I bother?" Who wants to work with that guy? Or learn from him?

It really matters when you teach students something inaccurate. Teaching them that a 4-stop range has a 16:1 ratio could really confuse them if they try to learn more about photography. Don't you owe it to them to teach it to them correctly?

Keep up the good work, and lighten up a bit. Everybody makes mistakes. It's how you come back from them that shows who you are.

Cheers.