What Michael said.
In the video world, rely on histogram, viewfinder zebras, and a good monitor to determine exposure... do
not rely on your light meter to expose. Unlike the film world, you can instantly see if your exposure is good... so go by that. If film cameras had an absolute exposure-accurate viewfinder assist, cinematographers would be using those for primary exposure calculations, not the meter.
The meter has it's place, but not for primarily determining exposure for video. I have three meters that have not been out of their cases since our last real film shoot.
And yes, primes are going to always be so much faster than zooms, as you know. It's the simple optics of light going through four pieces of glass rather than 16 or 18. My primes are all T1.3 (super fast), whereas my fastest zoom is T3.4 (slow as molasses). With my matched primes, my f-stop setting stays pretty much the same when I switch lenses, but if I change to another prime that is
not part of the matched set, I often have the need to tweak the exposure as there are other factors involved. In the video world your eyeballs are a much better tool for exposure than a meter.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
