But a light meter is a very important tool to understand, and there are many ways that a meter can be used when working with video. More importantly, if you wish to work in film, you should have a thorough understanding of meters and the use of the gray scale. This column is designed to provide you with the basics about the use of meters with video and film. The two meters measure and calculate light readings in different ways, and consequently the information that each meter provides must be used properly by the camera person. Before we discuss how each meter works, we should first explain several things about the mechanics of meters, and how they can be used to work with film or video.
Some meters measure light in footcandles, which is then translated into f-stops.
A footcandle is a measurement of light that theoretically equals the amount of light received from one candle at a distance of one foot. Lux is the European equivalent of footcandles. For the purpose of the article, we will use f-stops as the standard measurement of light. Lets begin with the shutter speed. The reason for this is that there are 30 frames of video per each second of tape, but there are two fields of video per each frame.