testing: intensity of a chimera octaplus 6 vs. an aputure lightdome 150 using an aputure 1200d

Did you know that a 6′ octobox has twice the surface area of a 5′ octobox?

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I’ll pretty much always be pulling out my Chimera octaplus 6 after this test.

Let’s do some quick math to explain why:

A RED Komodo has 12.5 stops of usable DR at an SNR of 2 (per @thenewsshooter). For simplicity, let’s say that middle gray, or 50% exposure, has a range 6 stops below and 6.5 stops above this value.

On the commercial shoots that I most often work on, DP’s tend to expose Caucasian skin tones about one stop over this level, just below/near 60 IRE.

Let’s place our talents exposure at one stop above middle grey. This will be giving us 5.5 stops of exposure above our subject until we’re blown out in the highlights.

Can we expose for that blue sky in the background shining through the window?

Well, if our subject is exposed with 2,600 lux, and we know we have 5.5 stops of exposure of headroom until we clip, then we have all we need to do a quick calculation:

2,600*2^5.5 = 120,000 lux.

A blue sky falls somewhere between 80,000-100,000 so we now know that using the Chimera Octaplus 6 from 10′ away with an @aputure.lighting 1200d at 100% power will give us enough exposure to not be blowing out the highlights and still maintain a silky, perfectly exposed light quality on our subject.

And THAT’S why you should bring a gaffer along! 🤓