American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

A Reflection-type Meter For MAKING INCIDENT-LIGHT READINGS By KARL FREUND, A.S.C SPEAKING broadly, the modern photoelectric exposure-meter is undoubtedly one of the most valuable photographic accessories developed during recent years. But insofar as the studio cinematographer is concerned, it ' seems equally clear that these meters have not yet attained their greatest usefulness for the simple reason that no meter has yet been designed to meet the specific requirements of studio cinematography. It is well recognized among members of the camera profession — even if not by the meter designers — that the studio Hi rector of Photography does not require an exposure-meter in the ordinary sense of the term. Neither does he require, as so many of these designers alternatively think, a conventional footcandle meter to measure the total brightness of the illumination falling on a given subject. What he does require is a precision light-measuring instrument of great selectivity, by means of which he can measure the intensity of the light reaching his subject from a single light-source — the key light — to which he can thereafter balance the rest of his lighting visually. Obviously, for this purpose the conventional meter and meter-using technique of taking a reflected-light reading, either an overall reading of the scene as a whole, or a slightly more selective reading of the subject's face alone, i* valueless. Therefore the majority of us have developed individualized, but basically similar methods of using conventional meters for incident-light readings. In some studios, General Electric meters are used, with or without special hoods and reducing apertures to reduce the light received to a conveniently usable amount. In many other instances, individual cinematographers have made their own reducing apertures, which vary so greatly that in some cases the readings used by individual cinematographers in the same studio bear no fixed relation to 158 April, 1941 American Cinematograph™