The pursuit of higher, cleaner ISOs

[Corey Robson]

I don't post often but with so much focus on low-light sensor technology particularly lately, I feel compelled to give a friendly reminder to young cinematographers about eye lights. Assuming you have a descent lighting package and one wants to capture the color in an actor’s eyes during close ups, you will need to light their face with about 10 footcandles or more to keep their pupils small enough to see a colorful iris.

This is a subjective number as everyone's eyes respond slightly differently to bright and dim light but 10fc will get you away from the all-pupil closeup look. Not to mention the value in giving your focus pullers reasonable stops to work with if you want to make your day - especially shooting large format. Just my 2 cents but for dramatic work, I hope it keeps some from feeling like their camera sucks unless it can deliver a silky clean image at 2000ISO or higher. Spend your money on lighting and it will pay you dividends. That is all, happy shooting

 

[Erich Roland]

Agree Corey. Good looking cinematography often requires/needs/wants light manipulation. That doesn't mean "lots of big lights" per-se unless maybe you want a deeper stop. Being able to shoot "available light" in the darkness is an interesting capability for certain things but doesn't mean it will look good.