Gerald Hirschfeld, ASC (1921-2017) was not just a talented cinematographer – Fail Safe (1964; Sidney Lumet), Young Frankenstein (1974; Mel Brooks) and My Favorite Year (1982; Richard Benjamin) are among his titles – he was also generous in sharing his knowledge. Long before authoring The Hand Exposure Meter Book (1999) and Image Control: Motion Picture and Video Camera Filters and Lab Techniques (1993), he published the following article in the June 1965 edition of American Cinematographer.
For all the claims he made about Gamma Scientific’s A-500 Luminance Analyzer, it was essentially an overly-sophisticated light meter. I’d never seen nor heard of it until now, so it apparently never caught on with the greater community. And that’s probably just as well. Considering that a hundred years ago cinematographers calculated exposure by eye and experience, we’ve done nothing but complicate the task ever since…
Richard, I love reading your blog posts.
Thank you, Chris! That’s very kind…and certainly not unusual of you!