Stop that

I had an argument one day with a fellow class mate in collage.  I still remember the argument to this day because I believe he made a moronic statement by clamming having a light meter on set of a digital  production was not necessary and that one can see there results in camera.

I think I speak for most "profesional cinematographers" that the light meter is the most essential tool for lighting.  I have to admit it is possible to light without a light meter, but when lighting without a meter you are blind from ever knowing the balance of lights.  I believe that it is essential to light in stops especially in digital.


To the audience, bad lighting is noticeable and in digital the evidence of bad lighting is glaring. In digital the latitude is not there when shooting extreem lighting conditions.  If I am not mistaken Digital has a maximum latitude of 4 stops maximum maybe more or less in some cases.  I know this because I tested one of my DVCAMs under extreem lighting conditions.  DV vs HD is vastly different in how it processes Lights and darks.  Both have a tendency to clip out at a certain range.  Such as shooting the sun on the beach.  In the edit room there is a glaring problem when trying to adjust the color under extreem lighting conditions because of huge gaping holes of missing information.  When adjusting the color, especially in DV there is a tendency for that missing information to take on the same color as the corrected hue.

In the case of the sun shot if I where to change the color correction to say purple then there will be a huge purple blob on the screen like a 3 yo took a crayon and colored it in.   In film, having over or under exposure is allot more forgiving especially with the new stocks out today.  Its actually pretty crazy you can get like 7 or 8 stops of over and under exposure and it still looks good. and even if you shot the image wrong you can alway push or pull the stock to compensate for the over or under exposure.  There is just too many good things to say about film, but the glaring reality is the price to produce any level of production is just not realistic under tight budget constraints.  Of corse I miss shooting on film but the producer in me always knows that it is better to make a motion picture on HD then it is to wish about making a picture on film.

As for the meter situation I strongly believe that lighting a set and actors in stops is the way to go because for some reason each stop exactly is the most accurate way to balance the lighting as a whole and the audience can see that.  Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously they will.

I know the limitations of DV and HD and no matter how you work with it if it is not balanced it will show up in post one way or another.  So what ever you have to do to balance the light wether it means to gell the windows or put a screen behind the actors to cut out the light or whatever, the fact is digital is very picky on what it can and can not shoot.  In the post room digital will make it clear, like a big "I told you so."  You can't always rely on those zebras ether.  yes it can save your butt, but there is no better way to discover those holes then to use a light meter.

Even when shooting in dark situations for the effect you still want to light in stops.  and don't make the assumption that film handle latitude better.  If you are going to shoot in film or digital you have to adjust the lighting in strategic stops to balance it for post.  So when you have the image in post you can then adjust the brightness and shadows accordingly.  You can not adjust information that is not there.

Most digital cameras HD or DV will always have a tendency to act up in a night scene.  Typically there will be a lot of digital noise in extreem dark situations.  In film the same phenomenon will occur, but its not as drastic as HD or DV will produce.  Film has a natural fall off.  Digital will just simply clip the information.

It is important to understand the limitations on the medium you are shooting on because you can use the rules to your advantage on the set or just simply avoid the problem before it ever hits post.

One positive thing I will say about shooting digital is you can always manipulate the look in camera depending it's capabilities.  For example, I can fully manipulate my canon XH A1 color temperature, the saturation and even individual color matrixes.  By manipulating all these things in the digital camera you can over expose or under expose to your hearts content because all the color information was captured along with the image.  But don't rely on this technique unless you have a specific shot in mind.

So go out and make that big movie and don't be afraid to make mistakes or bend the rules.  Just know the limitations so you can better justify them when shooting.

By
Robert Sawin