The hard drives I’ve been scrubbing keep revealing all manner of forgotten gems. The latest is presented below – the standard over-under exposure test that I shot in 2024 for a project meant to take place on an LED volume. For such a simple exercise, a great deal of important information can be derived from the results; it’s always the first one I shoot in a long battery of pre-production tests. Execution is self-explanatory, so go get one of your cameras and try it for yourself!
A special thank you goes out to the world’s greatest focus-puller, Esther Woodworth, who also doubled as the lovely and talented model for the run of the proceedings!
Mr Crudo, here a huge fan of your work. I want to ask you what do you use for under or over expose?ND filters? or what? Thanks a lot!
Jair – Generally, I use a combination of ND’S, shutter angle and amount of light. I wrote about this test in more detail through posts dated May 6 and May 10, 2022; you can find them in the archive. But since you’ve asked a very good question, I’ll be posting the exact reference sheet I use to govern each exposure next Tuesday. Let me know what you think after you’ve had a look.
Thank you very much for your answer Mr Crudo. I had already seen the posts you mentioned dated My 6 and May 10, 2022. Generally, I think the best way is to use a combination of NDs and shutter angle as you said because I only have LED lights available for my test, and as you know if I dimmed it, the quality of the light is not the same. Also the NDs could change a little the work of the sensor, so I will wait patiently for your next post haha, and as soon as I can i will try to get a copy of the last edition of the American Cinematographer Manual. Best regards!