shooting 16mm, without a meter.

R

RC23

Member
So i'm home for the break from school, I need to shoot some 16mm film.
but i've got no meter. :\
however, I do have the meters built into my dvc30, canon digi rebel xt, and my old minolta SRT101 film camera.

Bolex's shutter is set at 1/50 all the way open.

what can I do?


Im planning on shooting some Fuji ISO 500
and some Kodak Daylight ISO 250
 
meter rental is super cheap....

Those in camera meters arnt going to be adjustable to your film speed and your bolex shutter.... those are spot meters just for those cameras they wont give you the reading your looking for.

I hope this helps, and post your footage when its back from the lab!
 
You can certainly use the DigiRebel of FilmMinolta. Get a grey card, place it on the set and take the reading from that. Adjust the camera sensitivity (ISO) to film speed and shutter speed to 1/50 if possible. If not, set speed to 1/60 and iso to 320 or 640 resp. Having a bit faster shutter speed and faster ISO cancel each other out.

Possibly just pointing the camera to the set would give accurate enough results depending on the lighting contrasts and general darkness/lightness of the set.

After all a light meter is a light meter. If shooting negative you need to get the exposure about +2 -1 f-stops to get usable results, with positive film you have to be more carefull, +- 1/3 stop is the max xposure latitude for good results.
 
ill give that a shot.
I'll also see what kind of rentel places there are in the San Diego area.
 
Petrus' advice is quite right.

If you can't find a 18% gray card, you can also use your hand as reference, adjusting the ASA a little bit to a higher value.

But that might be difficult to actually do: holding the camera, pointing at your hand, moving the F stop ring, etc.
 
One more thing, remember to use the T-stops for the exposure on the lens if there are those. In some multilens film lenses the light transmission is less than the F-stops indicate. F-stop for DOF, T-stop for exposure.
 
Petrus said:
One more thing, remember to use the T-stops for the exposure on the lens if there are those. In some multilens film lenses the light transmission is less than the F-stops indicate. F-stop for DOF, T-stop for exposure.
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That will not happen in the Bolex though. It has only F stops.
 
Hi,
If your Bolex is reflex model, it is better to measure the exposure using shutterspeed 1/80 or 1/100 when the shutter is wide open and camera is running 24 fr/sec.
Bolex's shutter is not 180 degrees and the viewfinder takes some light aswell from the final exposure that negative gets. You can find more info about this matter, if you search from google forexample "bolex shutter". Happy shootings !
 
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Carlos_E._Martinez said:
That will not happen in the Bolex though. It has only F stops.
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It sounds like you probably have prime lenses on your camera rather than a zoom, which is good. The difference between f-stops and T-stops is not very significant with prime lenses.
 
Mark A. Beal said:
It sounds like you probably have prime lenses on your camera rather than a zoom, which is good. The difference between f-stops and T-stops is not very significant with prime lenses.
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I am not the one with the Bolex. What I said was generic: no Bolex/Switar lens or zoom ever brought T markings, only F.

But I shot with them in my film school years, shooting in B&W stock, and the differences were very slight.
 
If you are guessing, err on the side of over exposure, and plan on a supervised or at least best light telecine...
 
Carlos_E._Martinez said:
... no Bolex/Switar lens or zoom ever brought T markings, only F.

But I shot with them in my film school years, shooting in B&W stock, and the differences were very slight.
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Switars show f-stops, but the Angenieux zooms are marked with T-stops. I didn't realize the Vario Switars only showed f-stops. But in any case, if you're shooting negative, any variation would fall within the latitude of the film.
 
Mark A. Beal said:
Switars show f-stops, but the Angenieux zooms are marked with T-stops. I didn't realize the Vario Switars only showed f-stops. But in any case, if you're shooting negative, any variation would fall within the latitude of the film.
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Yes, a negative certainly would hold variations, particularly modern negs.

If I remember well, Angenieux zooms only started bringing T stops in later types. The old working horse, the 12/120, was F stopped. In 35mm, the old-faithful 25/250 was also F. Only their shorter and better 35mm film zoom started coming in Ts.

Cooke and Zeiss zooms did come with T stops.
 
well, heres what I did to meter some B+W Reversal ISO200

I got out my digital rebel Xt... I pointed it at the same focal length/shot as my film shot.. set its shutter to 90, and saw what it gave as a Fstop... and then compensated it a little bit for the fact that all the way open the shutter is 1/80 on a bolex.

think that would work?
 
RC23 said:
well, heres what I did to meter some B+W Reversal ISO200

I got out my digital rebel Xt... I pointed it at the same focal length/shot as my film shot.. set its shutter to 90, and saw what it gave as a Fstop... and then compensated it a little bit for the fact that all the way open the shutter is 1/80 on a bolex.

think that would work?
Click to expand...

Just had a look at the Bolex H16 reflex data on the American Cinematographer Manual. It specifies a 1/65 speed at 24fps, corresponding to a 130 degree shutter. These numbers should be trusted.

Set the digital rebel xt speed to 1/65 (1/60) and load the film speed. I don't think you should worry about the digital rebel xt being at the same focal length as the lens you are using.

What you need is consistency from one measurement to another. Use a 18% grey card positioned at your character's place and get the F stop reading. Then do some other measurements on the darkest and lightest places in your frame, using same grey card. They should be 4 stops up or four stops down from the first reading. If not they will have no detail on them.

IMO those are the speeds you should use.
 
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thanks for the input, im actually doing mostly landscape stuff, not so much character stuff, my teacher told me the bolex h16 is at 1/80.. but I think she is thinking of a different bolex.
 
RC23 said:
thanks for the input, im actually doing mostly landscape stuff, not so much character stuff, my teacher told me the bolex h16 is at 1/80.. but I think she is thinking of a different bolex.
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Then it's easy. Hold the grey card at your shooting position, at a 45 degrees angle to the sky and do your first reading. Then at 45 degrees to the ground and do your second reading. That should give you your contrast ratio.

If I were you I'd average those two values and make that my final F stop. Keep that stop for all the shots you make from that position or close to it, except if light varies because of clouds covering the sun.

When I mentioned the American Cinematographer Manual was because they are usually very reliable. In any case there's less than 1/3 stop from 1/60 to 1/80, which is very easy to correct in the lab.

Remember you can use colored gels behind the lens to improve your contrast in B&W.
 
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