Better Color/Film Looks by Under-Exposing

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Originally Posted by Michael H. Stevens

Alex: Great if you are in a studio, but me and a lot of the Ex1 crew, because it is a light camera, are in the field with natural light and nothing else.

Well this is a bit late, sorry about that.

Its the nothing else I object to.

The EX-1 is a light unit well suited to run'n'gun work.

That doesn't mean graduated ND filters shouldn't be in your field kit. In fact you should be carrying a set of filters. UV, graduated NDs, a polarizer and a softening filter (like a pro mist).

It doesn't mean you should forgo a light meter. I like to carry a combination incident and spot meter. I am upgrading to a Sekonics L-758 Cine.

That stuff goes pretty much anywhere I take the camera. Just like the extra batteries and blank tape or memory cards.

It doesn't mean you should carry no lighting at all. A little something- battery powered even - but something. This stays in the car/truck mostly... but I have it at hand.

It doesn't mean you shouldn't have a photoflex 5-n-1 reflector, or the like, on hand. And yeah... you should probably carry some diffusion & negative fill too. Some C-47s and a backdrop kit too. And yeah mostly that stays in the car too.

The thing is just because you are shooting run'n'gun doesn't mean you have to forgo all the tools and techniques of quality photography. None of this stuff will overburden you, and it will all still work just as effectively in X-teen years when you have a terapixel zillion frame per second camera shooting an uncompressed CIE 1931 colorspace codec in 5-D.

To restate: You should be carrying some or all of this sort of light duty photography gear everywhere you are shooting.