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As a general rule, working fast on a film shoot, I'd rather work from a more contrasty monitor image and balance the lighting to that... knowing that I am recording even more dynamic range in RAW or Log. I can occasionally double-check the RAW or Log image on the monitor when I see clipping...

Yes, 800 ASA is a pain in bright sunlight... it's a problem with all the newer digital cameras, even the Genesis, you end up using ND1.2 filters just to get an f/8 sometimes. I just finished a movie in Texas shot on film and I've never used so much 50 ASA filmstock before in my career, it was...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_(electronic) Generally there is a certain noise floor to the signal, and it varies in the different color channels, often blue is the noisiest. So you can sort of think of it in two ways, one is the general or average noisiness of the image/system, sort of...

It's more common to light soundstages with tungsten because (1) they are much cheaper (though they draw more power), (2) they look nice and are more flexible, can be run through a dimmer board, come in wattages down to 100w and less, etc., (3) you often have night interior scenes anyway that use...

"White" light is what color temp you balance the system for as white... if you are using 3200K lights, then 3200K balanced film stock would see this as white (and 5600K daylight would look blue-ish in comparison). If you balance the system to see 5600K lights as "white" then 3200K lights look...

Perhaps you should be looking into fluorescents in order to light the length of a runway with soft light that doesn't generate as much heat or need as much power.

I tend to think of Videography as a subset of Cinematography, a specific form of cinematography using video equipment. But I also think the term is becoming archaic rather than think the term cinematography is -- "video" has associations with analog interlaced scan video, rightly or wrongly...

Remember that the notion of a 50mm as a "normal" lens is a holdover from 35mm still photography where the negative is 8-perf / Full Frame. On a 4-perf 35mm cine camera, it looks a bit more telephoto; you'd have to use a 35mm-ish lens to get the same view. That said, early motion pictures shot...

I'm sure highlights that are 3 to 4 stops over will definitely look hot. 5-stops over is generally white on film. I find though that to get that nuclear glow like in Robert Richardson's work, I just have to make the center of the spot as hot as I can, I don't really meter it, but it's probably...

You gain more highlight information by underexposing so basically a less noisy sensor allows you to underexpose more for highlight protection. So at 500 ASA, the highlights would be similar between the old and new sensors but the noise would be lower on the new M-X sensor. There is also some...

If you set the camera to 400 ASA and switch between RedColor and RawView, you find that the levels don't really change when looking at the signal on a waveform. This suggests that the M-X sensor is around 400 ASA if you want to expose an 11-step chart so that on the RAW file, the middle grey...

I usually use 216 on them. Remember to cut the sheet large enough that you can open the barndoors a bit and wrap the gel around the outside. Otherwise there isn't much point -- the softness of the light is dependent on the size of the source relative to the distance to the subject, and putting...

Haven't shot it yet, so I don't know what to say other than to test. Like with reversal b&w, you really have to meter the reflective values and decide what you want to bias the exposure for, information wise.

Bit too broad a topic / question to answer in one post -- you're basically asking me to describe a couple of decades worth of different styles. Plus I don't know how you want to combine them, which elements to keep and which to get rid of. A number of these genres / styles are b&w, are you...

Both of you should mention whether you are talking about an incident meter or a reflective (spot) meter. Jason is clearly talking about an incident meter and Grinner is talking about a spot meter. You point a spot meter at the object that you want to measure the reflectance of. It will assume...

Two stops under for shadows is fine, plenty of detail in most things, the only exception would be dark skin tones and other dark-toned objects. A lot depends on the mood you want to set in terms of exposing the woods. Also, if you are rating a stock slower, you are giving yourself a bit more...

It just depends, both on the look you want and how close the actor is to the real practical. If an actor's face is close to a lampshade, you can expose for the face and not have the shade be too overexposed. But if the actor is farther from the shade, they can either be too dark or the shade...

Those films from the 70's, often low in budget, have an odd mix of available light and artificial light, and the artificial light often was small tungsten lamps, left undiffused or barely diffused. Partly because they didn't have the output to be softened on a large scale, particularly if they...

Alan Gordon Enterprises always seemed to be the place to go when you wanted old lenses in old mounts: http://www.alangordon.com/r_lens.htm I think they used to have a contract to provide cameras to government institutions and the military, so they had all sorts of odd stuff in their inventory...

300w may or may not be too bright, it's hard to tell -- that's why you carry a small selection and why it doesn't hurt to run the line through a dimmer. But certainly you can always stop down a little. Same goes for practicals, I also generally start at 100w or so but it just depends on a lot...