Using digital camera to set up film shots

[Sirius Glass]

I use an old small film camera instead of a digital camera. the results are great and work for me. i then have a camera to shoot 35mm tri-x with alongside my pentax 67 non-metered prism camera i just bought. I can now use it as a spare to use alongside my other metered pentax 67. I can also use the metered 67 to meter the non-metered 67. now i can shoot velvia 50 and tmax 100 at 50 and use the meter reading from one to use on the other. works for me but maybe not for you. to each his own.

whatever works for you and makes you happy is all that matters, as long as you get the results you like

I have used a Nikon F100 with Tri-X as a light meter or spot meter for my Hasselblad 903 SWC, Pacemaker Speed Graphic or Graflex Model D.

 

[Kimi wa Kasa o Sashi]

Welcome to the forum. I hope we see many posts from you if for nothing else than your inventive screen name. I have no idea if it means anything but it's quite lyrical trying to pronounce it.

Thank you!
I never thought anyone would pay this much attention to this user name...

I'm quite sure "kimi wa" is japanese for "you are" and if we go that road "kasa" is an umbrella "o sashi" stays mysterious. Like, insering ? (Google translate)
Anyway, yes ISO ratings are a little loose and it has been proved but don't we have the same problem with films ? Just remembering landscape god Ansel Adams writing a page on film speed test in "the negative".
Just compare your camera to a proper lightmeter and than you'll know how off (or not) it will be.
As for checking your exposure with a digital camera, it can get pretty ridiculous (thanks for the demonstration gzhuang) but i personally think it's not such a bad idea when you're a beginner or unsure (i guess i am not going to haven either !?) :
- pre-visualisation is easy
---> you waste less film
- you don't need to note your exposures all the time anymore
---> saving our precious amazonian forest
But try to get out of this system fast as it can get tedious after a while !

Good job figuring that out!

I'm still on that first roll of film, that's 26 shots since November. I hope the Amazonian rain forest approves of my behavior.
I now realize that it's quite a gamble, shooting my first roll of film on an untested SLR and approaching every shot as if it'll go straight into an art gallery. If these photos don't come out, I'll be sad.

My DSLR consistently 'needs' one stop less light, so I've set the film speed to 800 instead of 400. The meter now makes more sense, and is more or less according to the Sunny-16 rule. We'll see how it goes.

Kasa-o-sashi actually means using an umbrella.
Sashi is a form of sasu. Sasu could mean to insert, impale, or when used with umbrella, simply "use"

Kimi wa kasa o sashi is actually a fragment, not a sentence - which translates to you are using an umbrella. But in Japanese, something ought to follow that part.

Yup, welcome to APUG!

Okay, you win!
I was going for 'kimi wa kasa o sashiteita', but that was too long.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

This thread sounds like something on you may find on DPUG. But it just shows that digital is an enhancement to photography in general and not an either/or.

We are both going to burn in hell for heretical beliefs like that! A nice vat of glacial acetic acid, perhaps.

Know what film can and can't do, know what digital can and can't do. Do whatever helps you understand "light writing" and makes better pictures.

My now ancient Konica-Minolta A2 has an optional histogram in the screen. At the least, fun. At the most, sometimes useful to understand a scene before I put it to film.

As an aside, the A2 also has multiple contrast settings, I think five higher and five lower from default. When shooting out of doors with wide SBR's, I lower the boom on contrast. Then back in my PC, everything is there and I can re-up the contrast w/o losing a thing.

 

[Chan Tran]

My now ancient Konica-Minolta A2 has an optional histogram in the screen. At the least, fun. At the most, sometimes useful to understand a scene before I put it to film.
.

Funny you call it ancient. The A2 is newer most film cameras.

 

[weasel]

I dont do enough strobe shooting to be really good at it, and find a digital camera ideal for getting my lights set before I shoot on film. I see it as a modern polaroid back.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I find they are useable for lighting ratios, provided that you are not relying on the LCD on the back of the camera. LCDs on camera bodies don't have the dynamic range or the resolution to adequately judge exposure.

Many digital cameras don't go below ISO 100, whereas there are some very popular films that are ISO 50 or even ISO 25. Also, ISO 100 on your digital camera isn't necessarily what your hand-held meter sees as ISO 100. The margin of error also varies from brand of camera to brand of camera - I found when taking a studio lighting class that my Canon 5D was off by about 1/2 stop under, but the student next to me with a Nikon was consistently 2/3 stop over. That might be ok if you're proofing color negative film, but if you're shooting transparencies, 2/3 stop over-exposed is unacceptable. The only way to be certain you're getting what you want in the studio is use a hand-held meter and learn to use it properly.

 

[I.G.I.]

I was wondering about idea of using a digital camera to help set up film camera shots... evaluating exposure (replacing light meter), evaluating lighting ratios, evaluating color balance, evaluating dynamic range of lighting setup, setting up posing, etc.

I am not experienced with studio photography, but the though occurred to me that a digital camera might be useful for setting up a shot. This may be old hat to some of you, but it would be new to me.

By the way, I just bought and RB67, and I would like to start learning some studio photography.

Just to say that my digital rig (Konica Minolta) meters very differently from my Pentaxes (LX and MX) and from my Gossen meter; on the other hand the Pentaxes and the Gossen give almost the same readings. While the digital shots come more or less well exposed I never risked to follow KM metering with film - Gossen or Pentax give me infallible readings all the time. Why this discrepancy I have no idea.

 

[msage]

Interesting thread. I do the opposite, I use a hand held incident meter for my 4x5, 120 and DSLR.
Built in light meters lack the consistently of the incident meter. My suggestion is that you purchase a good incident meter and learn how to use it.
Use it for all of your cameras.

As to your original question, do what works for you!

 

[DREW WILEY]

I've found a handheld spotmeter to generally be more reliable and precise than any form of on-board camera metering, simply because I know exactly what/where it is reading. Cameras have to somehow split the light away from the lightpath, and are affected by different lenses, and gosh knows by what else in a digital camera. I need to be consistent regardless of format or type of film camera. Plus the fancier something becomes - the more bells n' whistles - the more that can go wrong. I know someone will debate with me and reply that their DLSR or Smartphone method has proven perfectly reliable - but c'mon - those things haven't been around very long to begin with. I've put my gear thru absolute torture over decades outdoors, sometimes in extreme conditions. Take a spare battery, keep the battery warm, don't drop the light meter in a creek (which I've done twice) - other than that, not much to worry about.

 

[ambaker]

I can see uses for it, much like the Polaroid backs of yore. I would trust the histogram more than the display, for exposure. The big thing would be setting up the shot. But then you need lenses with a similar field of view.

In the end, there is no substitute for learning to "see" like your camera.


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