LOOKING FOR A DECENT LIGHT METER

Re: LOOKING FOR A DECENT LIGHT METER

???Hmm... maybe it's more than 5 because of some of the curves that it offers... Six would have been my second guess... however, 8 stops? That's almost equal to human vision and more than negative 35mm film (or movie camera film for that matter). Remember, a films contrast range is the USABLE (has some texture) range from light to dark.

I mentioned that American Cinematographer article on a message board a while ago and nobody really said anything other than they think it's less than that.

There's really no need to debate this. All it takes is a spotmeter, a DVX, and Vegas to determine it's contrast range.
 
Re: LOOKING FOR A DECENT LIGHT METER

We've got a conflict of facts. One of two things are possible:

a) Michael doesn't know how to measure contrast range

or

b) Michael is using different standards than are used in still photography and every book I've read on the subject... which is still doing it wrong.

The pictures he has posted on his website are meaningless (for this discussion) unless someone was there to measure the actual values of the subject.

Human vision is said to be about 10 stops and no film on earth has topped that yet. B&W negative film is 7 stops, color negative film is 6 stops, color slide film is 5 stops, digital SLR's about about 5 stops. There isn't a film stock out there that claims to produce a ratio of more than 500:1, which is 9 stops.

I really think I'm right on this and someone should write a note to Michael and let him know. Does anybody else know of something we're missing?
 
Re: LOOKING FOR A DECENT LIGHT METER

By the way, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm just trying to figure out what the truth is.
 
Re: LOOKING FOR A DECENT LIGHT METER

No, there's 11. There's usually an odd number of zones to allow for a middle. Two of them hold absolutely no information and the other nine are just theoretical zones that you can acheive in the darkroom if you know what you're doing... and that's with B&W film.
 
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