COOL TRICKS with the DVX100b

[mackfilm]

I made this thread for all DVX100b users to share their own cool tricks and methods of film making which they use or have learned while using their camera.

Here's Mine:

1. Often you find yourself in a twilight situation where the color in the camera comes up with a bluish tent. If you wish to lighten up the atmosphere (besides opening of the iris), go to your scene settings and pump up the COLOR TEMP. It will make your footage much lighter and also adds an orangish tint-----which I personally prefer.

Any others?!

[Nathan.Buxton]

what an amazing tip! i have one too:

If you ever find yourself shooting and suddnely notice that when the actor moved toward the camera, the all of a sudden become blurry, FEAR NOT! You can adjust the focus of the image with the thing at the front of the camera!! never again will you have any blurry ghosts in your picture!!

[trezpasser]

Nice thread going on. Hope to see allot of usefull tips and solutions here. Kinda going over my skills of the camera in my head, but can't really come up with someting usefull to share right now. promise to post whenever it turns up.

[HonestDon]

On flat cloudy days, go into your gamma settings and select 'b.press'. I will add a little punch to your flat image.

[Nathan.Buxton]

Ok i feel bad because my last post was sarcastic and jackasstic.

here's a real tip (although its not really specific to the DVX, and is only really aimed at very rookie photographers):

Have you ever noticed that your footage is just slightly soft? Does it always seem like everyone else's footage is sharper? it could be due to various scene file settings, but the more pronounced cause of this could be low light. Now when i say low light, i don't necessarily mean the image is underexposed, but that there is insufficient light to operate the lens in its peak performance range. for the DVX i believe this range is from about f4.8 up to im not too sure (can someone maybe chime in on this?). If you can light your scene adequately enough to close the 'iris' (aperture as it is more commonly called) to 4.8 or at least more than in the 2.x range, you will notice a much sharper image.

[ifownlee41nite@mac.com]

[QUOTE=Nathan.Buxton;993105]Ok i feel bad because my last post was sarcastic and jackasstic.

I got to admit that it was funny though. But I am still learning new things about my own camera and am eager to hear some of the ideas fellow dvxusers have.

[Robbie Comeau]

saran wrap over the hood of ur lens, soft adn dreamy look

[mackfilm]

saran wrap over the hood of ur lens, soft adn dreamy look
Nice tip on the saran wrap. It worked really well when i tried it out on my dvx100b

[tcgliderguy]

Sometimes you make contributions to a group like this that were not even intended...
Nathan.Buxton, you've enriched my vocabulary.....
Jackasstic is a terrific word!
Thank you for sharing!

-TC

[Moseph]

if ever you and some other people want to review some footage you've shot, instead of everyone looking at the LCD, you can look through the viewfinder and flip the LCD open and upside down, then back at the camera so its facing straight out from the camera's side. this way, the LCD and the EVF turn on at the same time. i use that technique on my DVC30 all the time and it just gives you some more space, which is nice if its a really high temperature.

[swishpangrl]

[QUOTE
Have you ever noticed that your footage is just slightly soft? Does it always seem like everyone else's footage is sharper? it could be due to various scene file settings, but the more pronounced cause of this could be low light. Now when i say low light, i don't necessarily mean the image is underexposed, but that there is insufficient light to operate the lens in its peak performance range. for the DVX i believe this range is from about f4.8 up to im not too sure (can someone maybe chime in on this?). If you can light your scene adequately enough to close the 'iris' (aperture as it is more commonly called) to 4.8 or at least more than in the 2.x range, you will notice a much sharper image.[/QUOTE]


I've noticed that too in tests - If you need to be on the safe side (ie people are actually moving around) it's like film - shoot in the middle apertures and you'll have a a wider depth of field.

[stinkpot]

Nice tip on the saran wrap. It worked really well when i tried it out on my dvx100b

.. try black nylon pantyhose over the lens.

:beer:

[Tomiger RoPort]

Ok i feel bad because my last post was sarcastic and jackasstic.

here's a real tip (although its not really specific to the DVX, and is only really aimed at very rookie photographers):

Have you ever noticed that your footage is just slightly soft? Does it always seem like everyone else's footage is sharper? it could be due to various scene file settings, but the more pronounced cause of this could be low light. Now when i say low light, i don't necessarily mean the image is underexposed, but that there is insufficient light to operate the lens in its peak performance range. for the DVX i believe this range is from about f4.8 up to im not too sure (can someone maybe chime in on this?). If you can light your scene adequately enough to close the 'iris' (aperture as it is more commonly called) to 4.8 or at least more than in the 2.x range, you will notice a much sharper image.

Yeah it's between f4.8 and f16, but since there are a few ticks of f16 (if you know what I mean, you can move the iris wheel a little bit before you reach true 16) you gotta be careful.

[cinealma]

Polarizer tip:

When using a circular polarizer for exteriors, trying to get nice blue skies, etc., sometimes I found it hard to figure out the "right spot" when rotating it. I'd refer to the screen and thought, ok, it looks good right there, something like that. But quite by accident, I discovered this:

Open up the lense so you blow out a good deal of the picture. Zebra lines all over the place! Now, rotate the polarizer until you get to the spot with the fewest amount of zebras. THAT'S THE SPOT!

I'm not sure if technically this is the correct way to do it, but it seemed to work great for me when shooting out in the desert recently.

Cheers!

[Robbie Comeau]

if ever you and some other people want to review some footage you've shot, instead of everyone looking at the LCD, you can look through the viewfinder and flip the LCD open and upside down, then back at the camera so its facing straight out from the camera's side. this way, the LCD and the EVF turn on at the same time. i use that technique on my DVC30 all the time and it just gives you some more space, which is nice if its a really high temperature.


y dont u review ur footage on a crappy cAMera..

[Nathan.Buxton]

because he probably didn't have a crappy cAMera on set, but had to review for continuity... why would he do it if he didn't have to?

[cecil995]

because he probably didn't have a crappy cAMera on set, but had to review for continuity... why would he do it if he didn't have to?

BAHAHAHAHA!!!

Personaly I always carry around my sony high8 cam for reviewing footage, its much more portable than those heavy and useless field monitors!

[mackfilm]

I use my sony handicam for reviweing footage. But does playback on a different camera cause damage to the tape?

[zipper1022]

head cleanliness is best described as my friend put it once

"sleep with a dirty girl, and then with a clean girl, the clean girl gets dirty... therefore, keep both your bitches clean and your... tape... will playback smooth"

[mackfilm]

dirty..........

[SimonB]

Some good tips, thanks!

[craigbowman]

DVX100B Camera Tip #42

If you've been a real good little indy producer and you place your camera under your pillow before you go to sleep, the DVX production fairy, (I think her name is "Jan something or other"), will secretly arrive at night and leave a completed feature with fantastic story, terrific acting, great sound and absolutely ground breaking visual effects.

However, because its just so... well magical, you'll be the only one that can see it. To everyone else it will look like the piece of crap you shot the day before!

[mackfilm]

lol that is funny.

[commalot]

DVX100B Camera Tip #42

If you've been a real good little indy producer and you place your camera under your pillow before you go to sleep, the DVX production fairy, (I think her name is "Jan something or other"), will secretly arrive at night and leave a completed feature with fantastic story, terrific acting, great sound and absolutely ground breaking visual effects.

However, because its just so... well magical, you'll be the only one that can see it. To everyone else it will look like the piece of crap you shot the day before!

Very funny! I think I experienced that once but I wasn't yet awake.

[andythefilmer]

the DVX fairy! i would call him Barry Green!

[DPStewart]

Good tips in here.
ANY MORE???
Anyone?

[pietro jona]

As for the iris: I strongly desagree, we're not talking about lenses for 35mm SLR.
Small sensor cameras like the DVX100 need to be used with the iris all the way open. When the iris is closed you have problems due to diffraction.
The best way to expose and shoot with a small sensor camera is in my opinion to keep the iris open, adjust the exposure using the built in ND filters of the camera and shutter speed and then doing the fine tuning with the iris.
Hope I explained myself well enough, not an english speaker here.