COMPOSITION
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Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterRead more: Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterThe 300dpi digital poster is now available to all PixelSham.com subscribers. If you have already subscribed and wish a copy, please send me a note through the contact page. 
DESIGN
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This legendary DC Comics style guide was nearly lost for years – now you can buy itRead more: This legendary DC Comics style guide was nearly lost for years – now you can buy ithttps://www.fastcompany.com/91133306/dc-comics-style-guide-was-lost-for-years-now-you-can-buy-it Reproduced from a rare original copy, the book features over 165 highly-detailed scans of the legendary art by José Luis García-López, with an introduction by Paul Levitz, former president of DC Comics. https://standardsmanual.com/products/1982-dc-comics-style-guide 
COLOR
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No one could see the colour blue until modern timesRead more: No one could see the colour blue until modern timeshttps://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2  The way humans see the world… until we have a way to describe something, even something so fundamental as a colour, we may not even notice that something it’s there. Ancient languages didn’t have a word for blue — not Greek, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Hebrew, not Icelandic cultures. And without a word for the colour, there’s evidence that they may not have seen it at all. 
 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/211119-colorsEvery language first had a word for black and for white, or dark and light. The next word for a colour to come into existence — in every language studied around the world — was red, the colour of blood and wine. 
 After red, historically, yellow appears, and later, green (though in a couple of languages, yellow and green switch places). The last of these colours to appear in every language is blue.The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye. 
 https://mymodernmet.com/shades-of-blue-color-history/True blue hues are rare in the natural world because synthesizing pigments that absorb longer-wavelength light (reds and yellows) while reflecting shorter-wavelength blue light requires exceptionally elaborate molecular structures—biochemical feats that most plants and animals simply don’t undertake. When you gaze at a blueberry’s deep blue surface, you’re actually seeing structural coloration rather than a true blue pigment. A fine, waxy bloom on the berry’s skin contains nanostructures that preferentially scatter blue and violet light, giving the fruit its signature blue sheen even though its inherent pigment is reddish. Similarly, many of nature’s most striking blues—like those of blue jays and morpho butterflies—arise not from blue pigments but from microscopic architectures in feathers or wing scales. These tiny ridges and air pockets manipulate incoming light so that blue wavelengths emerge most prominently, creating vivid, angle-dependent colors through scattering rather than pigment alone. (more…)
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Composition – cinematography Cheat SheetRead more: Composition – cinematography Cheat Sheet Where is our eye attracted first? Why? Size. Focus. Lighting. Color. Size. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) on the right. 
 Focus. He’s one of the two objects in focus.
 Lighting. Mr. White is large and in focus and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is highlighted by
 a shaft of light.
 Color. Both are black and white but the read on Mr. White’s shirt now really stands out.
 (more…)
 What type of lighting?
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HDR and ColorRead more: HDR and Colorhttps://www.soundandvision.com/content/nits-and-bits-hdr-and-color In HD we often refer to the range of available colors as a color gamut. Such a color gamut is typically plotted on a two-dimensional diagram, called a CIE chart, as shown in at the top of this blog. Each color is characterized by its x/y coordinates. Good enough for government work, perhaps. But for HDR, with its higher luminance levels and wider color, the gamut becomes three-dimensional. For HDR the color gamut therefore becomes a characteristic we now call the color volume. It isn’t easy to show color volume on a two-dimensional medium like the printed page or a computer screen, but one method is shown below. As the luminance becomes higher, the picture eventually turns to white. As it becomes darker, it fades to black. The traditional color gamut shown on the CIE chart is simply a slice through this color volume at a selected luminance level, such as 50%. Three different color volumes—we still refer to them as color gamuts though their third dimension is important—are currently the most significant. The first is BT.709 (sometimes referred to as Rec.709), the color gamut used for pre-UHD/HDR formats, including standard HD. The largest is known as BT.2020; it encompasses (roughly) the range of colors visible to the human eye (though ET might find it insufficient!). Between these two is the color gamut used in digital cinema, known as DCI-P3. sRGB 
  D65 
  
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Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareRead more: Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareReal-World Measurements for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf Local version Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf 
LIGHTING
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Aputure AL-F7 – dimmable Led Video Light, CRI95+, 3200-9500KRead more: Aputure AL-F7 – dimmable Led Video Light, CRI95+, 3200-9500KHigh CRI of ≥95 256 LEDs with 45° beam angle 3200 to 9500K variable color temperature 1 to 100% Stepless Dimming, 1500 Lux Brightness at 3.3′ LCD Info Screen. Powered by an L-series battery, D-Tap, or USB-C Because the light has a variable color range of 3200 to 9500K, when the light is set to 5500K (daylight balanced) both sets of LEDs are on at full, providing the maximum brightness from this fixture when compared to using the light at 3200 or 9500K. The LCD screen provides information on the fixture’s output as well as the charge state of the battery. The screen also indicates whether the adjustment knob is controlling brightness or color temperature. To switch from brightness to CCT or CCT to brightness, just apply a short press to the adjustment knob. The included cold shoe ball joint adapter enables mounting the light to your camera’s accessory shoe via the 1/4″-20 threaded hole on the fixture. In addition, the bottom of the cold shoe foot features a 3/8″-16 threaded hole, and includes a 3/8″-16 to 1/4″-20 reducing bushing.  
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Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareRead more: Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareReal-World Measurements for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf Local version Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf 
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IES Light Profiles and editing softwareRead more: IES Light Profiles and editing softwarehttp://www.derekjenson.com/3d-blog/ies-light-profiles https://ieslibrary.com/en/browse#ies https://leomoon.com/store/shaders/ies-lights-pack https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/a5afmug/ai+photometric+light IES profiles are useful for creating life-like lighting, as they can represent the physical distribution of light from any light source. The IES format was created by the Illumination Engineering Society, and most lighting manufacturers provide IES profile for the lights they manufacture. 
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GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle GrayRead more: GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle GrayThe human eye perceives half scene brightness not as the linear 50% of the present energy (linear nature values) but as 18% of the overall brightness. We are biased to perceive more information in the dark and contrast areas. A Macbeth chart helps with calibrating back into a photographic capture into this “human perspective” of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_gray In photography, painting, and other visual arts, middle gray or middle grey is a tone that is perceptually about halfway between black and white on a lightness scale in photography and printing, it is typically defined as 18% reflectance in visible light  Light meters, cameras, and pictures are often calibrated using an 18% gray card[4][5][6] or a color reference card such as a ColorChecker. On the assumption that 18% is similar to the average reflectance of a scene, a grey card can be used to estimate the required exposure of the film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorChecker (more…)
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Light propertiesRead more: Light propertiesHow It Works – Issue 114 
 https://www.howitworksdaily.com/
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Photography basics: Solid Angle measuresRead more: Photography basics: Solid Angle measureshttp://www.calculator.org/property.aspx?name=solid+angle A measure of how large the object appears to an observer looking from that point. Thus. A measure for objects in the sky. Useful to retuen the size of the sun and moon… and in perspective, how much of their contribution to lighting. Solid angle can be represented in ‘angular diameter’ as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_angle http://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/steradian.html A solid angle is expressed in a dimensionless unit called a steradian (symbol: sr). By default in terms of the total celestial sphere and before atmospheric’s scattering, the Sun and the Moon subtend fractional areas of 0.000546% (Sun) and 0.000531% (Moon). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_angle#Sun_and_Moon On earth the sun is likely closer to 0.00011 solid angle after athmospheric scattering. The sun as perceived from earth has a diameter of 0.53 degrees. This is about 0.000064 solid angle. http://www.numericana.com/answer/angles.htm The mean angular diameter of the full moon is 2q = 0.52° (it varies with time around that average, by about 0.009°). This translates into a solid angle of 0.0000647 sr, which means that the whole night sky covers a solid angle roughly one hundred thousand times greater than the full moon. More info http://lcogt.net/spacebook/using-angles-describe-positions-and-apparent-sizes-objects http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/glossary/def.php.s=topic_astronomy Angular Size The apparent size of an object as seen by an observer; expressed in units of degrees (of arc), arc minutes, or arc seconds. The moon, as viewed from the Earth, has an angular diameter of one-half a degree. The angle covered by the diameter of the full moon is about 31 arcmin or 1/2°, so astronomers would say the Moon’s angular diameter is 31 arcmin, or the Moon subtends an angle of 31 arcmin. 
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Rendering – BRDF – Bidirectional reflectance distribution functionRead more: Rendering – BRDF – Bidirectional reflectance distribution functionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidirectional_reflectance_distribution_function The bidirectional reflectance distribution function is a four-dimensional function that defines how light is reflected at an opaque surface http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~zhu/tutorial/An_Introduction_to_BRDF-Based_Lighting.pdf In general, when light interacts with matter, a complicated light-matter dynamic occurs. This interaction depends on the physical characteristics of the light as well as the physical composition and characteristics of the matter. That is, some of the incident light is reflected, some of the light is transmitted, and another portion of the light is absorbed by the medium itself. A BRDF describes how much light is reflected when light makes contact with a certain material. Similarly, a BTDF (Bi-directional Transmission Distribution Function) describes how much light is transmitted when light makes contact with a certain material http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~smr/cs348c-97/surveypaper.html It is difficult to establish exactly how far one should go in elaborating the surface model. A truly complete representation of the reflective behavior of a surface might take into account such phenomena as polarization, scattering, fluorescence, and phosphorescence, all of which might vary with position on the surface. Therefore, the variables in this complete function would be: incoming and outgoing angle incoming and outgoing wavelength incoming and outgoing polarization (both linear and circular) incoming and outgoing position (which might differ due to subsurface scattering) time delay between the incoming and outgoing light ray 
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