Studying contrast ratios light metering, dynamic range, the sekonic l-758 cine and hollywood pin up portraits

I have been studying contrast or lighting ratios a lot lately to figure out the best lighting conditions for my film one of the things I've observed was that film noir, films use a high contrast ratio. So I would say I'm still learning how to achieve it but I believe I understand it in its simplest form. So from my understanding it works as such. If for example the key (main) light is equal to the the fill light (the filling light) the ratio would be 1:1 to do this I would read the light from the key light with the fill light off and get the aperture measurement and then do the same for the fill light. A 1:1 would give a very flat look which is something i don't want. The way to change this is to diffuse or move the fill light back. Using an example from things I've studied if the initial readings were both f8.0 then to achieve a 1:2 ratio the fill light would have to be f5.6 which is a full stop open from f8.0 and therefore the key light is double the fill light (with every stop up or down the amount of light is either double or half) meaning the ratio is 1:2. Then if the fill light was to be moved down another stop because the light has been moved back or diffused more then the fill light would have to be at f4.0 this means the key light is 4 times stronger then the fill light (or double the amount if shooting at 1:2 contrast ratio. So applying that to attain a 1:8 contrast ratio we would move the fill light so the aperture we have to set is f2.8 as this is one full stop down from f4.0. However in modern cameras we have 1/3 of a stop aperture settings which makes the calculations harder and something I haven't figured out yet. The next thing I have learnt from studying this is that we would use an incident reading taking into consideration all the light hitting the subject. The issue is then what can the cameras dynamic range capture this is the difference between under and overexposed that the camera can capture without losing detail. This has been near impossible  to find for my camera. and this is important is I am metering for incident reading which takes into consideration all the light but could result in areas being lost if shooting a contrast ratio of 1:8 that I would want. I would prefer to use a spot meter reading to meter for the area I want to be properly exposed and allow the dark areas to be dark and the light areas to be light to achieve the look I want. Which I think will fit better with the silent movie and hollywood pin up look of the era I want to try and replicate. This is something I will look into more and also find a way of spot metering without the sekonic l-758 cine light meter that I would love but can't afford
I have added some pics of looks I would like to replicate and also of the sekonic l-758 cine light meter

Friday week 3 the raven

Friday we spent the day reviewing the footage i am happy with some of the shots but viewing it on the big HD tv has shown some irregularities between the footage it seemed i was getting on the camera and what we viewed on the TV this was really frustrating as had i know some of the footage would look the way it did i would have made changes during the shoot. As an example i lit the shelves so they were red and on camera the red looked good and lit nicely just covering the shelf and was a lot more subtle than it appeared when watching it on the TV which was an ugly and very saturated looking red which was odd as i had turned the saturation down on the camera. So this was very frustrating but i think and hope this can be changed in the edit with colour correction and grading. However i have learned lessons from this and will hopefully be buying an external monitor for future projects to check against the footage i am getting on camera

Thursday week 3 the raven

Thursday we tidied the set up all went rather quick but was sad to see it all come down after all the work it took putting up

Wednesday week 3 the raven

Wednesday we shot at the cemetery and I think being able to expose an image with natural lighting from the sun meant that I could use my light meter and we got some very accurate exposures and some nice shots I also got the chance to use my shoulder rig and I liked how it felt. Although I wish I had lenses which worked with my follow focus more. I also wish I had my matt box attached when we got back in the studio as we did get some flare which we had to find a way of dealing with. The end became a bit of a rush and I gave the camera to Zac as it was taking too long for me to check and organise the lighting and getting the shot planned right. This was more enjoyable as I felt that I was missing things by being behind the camera all the time. Stepping away from the camera meant that I could look at the light more which I wasn’t able to do before as we was having to rush to get the shots a little. I think the lighting I started to produce when stepping away from the camera was far better and I enjoyed getting really creative with the red lighting for when I was meant to be losing it and adding more red the more angry he got. I enjoyed doing things like just lighting little strips of red and lighting his eye, just the shelves and then lighting across wall near his table so half of his body was lit I really enjoyed this and I think I got some great looking shots from doing this. I think knowing all this now I would want more time to light and plan shots so we could just place the camera in a planned position and at a planned exposure meaning I could look more at the light without having to worry about the camera as much. I would also like to be able to work away from the camera because trying to instruct Rich my assistant cinematographer as to where to place the reflector while also trying to set up the camera and having to look through the camera makes it hard to see the light and means I was bouncing between trying to explain to Rich talking to Zac and seeing the light. This is very hard to see the light as too much of my focus was on setting up the camera and not enough checking the light. But as mentioned earlier getting to step away from the camera when giving it Zac made the speed of the shoot increase and also allowed me to see the light more. It did become a real rush toward the end as we knew we would be kicked out of the studio at a set time and needed to get the important trashing of the room scene. This was essential to get right as we couldn’t take it again so having to rush this wasn’t good but giving the camera to Zac meant that I could concentrate on the lighting and Zac could get the shot set up meaning everything sped up and we really got the important shots right at the end which was key. I think we got good shots today and although it was hectic I think everybody did a great job and I am quite happy of what we got considering the issues I have mentioned.

Tuesday week 3 the raven

Tuesday we had to really rush to finish the last bits of lighting and it pushed it really far meaning we started shooting later than anticipated it literally got to a point in which we had to just start shooting this has really frustrated me as I have gone from having a good idea of the look I wanted, to just having to settle for a look. However the shoot went well I think we have got some really good shots and Zac allowed me to take shots I wanted according to what I think as well as what he had planned which was really nice to do. Getting to shoot the third man style dutch angles like I wanted was great and I enjoyed the flexibility Zac gave me. My frustration was that I couldn’t get the long shadows in the way I wanted. However I am pleased with what we got despite this. And the fact that the camera had set itself back to auto white balance while I was thinking I was shooting with custom balances.

Monday week 3 the raven

Monday has relieved some of my fears and we have got a lot of lighting and plans done but there is still work to be done like having the board up behind the door which needs lighting, this means this will need to be done on the day of shooting which could put the full shoot behind. It’s nobody’s fault other then it took longer than anticipated to get the studio up but it has meant that I feel I have not been able to do my job to the best of my ability which has disappointed me as I don’t think I have been able to work to my best ability as I really wanted this project to show what I can do. Another issue is to get good exposure I have to over-light the studio which means flooding the candles out or underexposing the image. This was because it took so long to get the candles in and I couldn’t tell whether or not they would give enough light until they was up and lighting the set it turned out they didn’t give enough light off like I imagined so I chose to get more light that looks like candle light by bouncing light from a reflector it is not ideal as I wanted it to look like all the light was coming from candles and through the window that looked like the moon. I will use the reflector to light parts of the room that are too dark but my frustration was that I only wanted this for lighting dark parts of the room and now I am having to use it as a main light if I had more time I could have created another way of getting more light in but feel like we have to settle for this as I have run out of time. I discussed this with Zac and told him that the look I was showing him was underexposed and then showed him the correctly exposed image and he said he preferred the underexposed image. I explained the issues faced with underexposing it and that I would personally like to expose it properly and allow somebody to add the effects later on but he said he wanted to have the underexposed image.

friday week 2 the raven

Friday we got most of the work done still no shelves up and there is still work to be done but we finally got props in and I feel for the space I have to work with, I didn’t get the time I wanted to light the set meaning I literally got 40 minutes to try and rig lights before we was kicked out. This means that we will have to do finish the lighting off on Monday and also plan the shots which is going to be a real rush and gives me very little time to figure things out. It’s really frustrating the amount of time I have spent preparing the set yet been given so little time to achieve the lighting I want and testing it out my fear is that I will just have to settle for something that works rather than planning all the lighting points and what I have started to look at is hanging lights on from above the set and bouncing light back into the spaces we need to light more rather than being able to get goof consistent lighting throughout the set. Only time will tell on Monday and we still need to finish bits off for the set I hoped that nearly everything would be done by now and Monday could be just for some run through’s just to make sure we have everything prepared but now it’s a case of still trying to figure lighting out and shot positions which means that I imagine a lot of it will have to be done on the fly when filming this is something I really didn’t want to do I wanted to have everything set and ready and know what shot we was taking from what angle, on what lens and with what exposure to ensure we get a really nice set up. I also rigged my hand made reflectors above the studio to bounce some light back and it gave the scene a nice speckled look on the walls which I liked.

Thursday week 2 the raven

Thursday was productive but we still have a lot of work to do and I am getting worried about the time we will get to light it and plan for shots. The studio is coming together and I can’t questioned Lauren or Penny’s dedication or work but the time it has taken to get things finished is a little disappointing and left me little time to light hopefully we will get done early Friday and give most of the day to light and plan.