light problems in 24p and 24pa

[dvxbeginner]

i am a beginner and shooting outside on a tennis court with the dvx 100a in broad daylight. i am in the testing phase of which mode i would like to shoot in for streaming video tennis tips to my website. f1, f2, f3 and so on. i have tested all scene files f1-f6 and downloaded the clips to premiere and converted to a quicktime file. however with the shutter off the 24p is very dark and the 24pa is almost impossible to see the tennis player and it is broad daylight with the sun a blazing. i tried other shutter speeds as well and even darker. 60i is ok but still a bit dark. i have auto focus and auto iris on and do not know if this is part of the problem or not. can anyone let me know why everything is so dark. i am a complete beginner so any help would be greatly appreciated.... thanks.

[J.R. Hudson]

Not exactly sure without seeing for myself...

Are you sure you had AUTO IRIS on (For exposure?). Is it possible you had it stopped down in Manual Mode and didn't realize it? Did you have it in AUTO IRIS and then switched over to 24p mode assuming you were in AUTO IRIS mode?

Something tells me you switched over to the 24p F Settings and did not adjust the IRIS properly.

[Guest]

I personally have found from experience on the progressive modes with cinegamma on that the auto exposure is to dark and I have to manually bump it up and check exposure with the zebra.

[John C Lyons]

dvxbeginner,

have you white balanced the camera before?

[dvxbeginner]

hey guys,

thanks for the tips. you all were right i needed to adjust the iris manually whatever that means. i assume it lets more light into the lens or something because it brightened up the shot nicely. as far as white balance goes i have not clue. should i just go by the a b and prst switches on the camera or adust manually somewhere like the iris? not sure how the zebra works either. is there a standard for outdoor bright sunny days in for the iris settings? i noticed the view finder kept changing with the f and around f 3.4 to f 5.0 looked good for me under the 24p settings. does this sound right? also is it a bad idea to shoot in 24p or 24pa and stream? last thing... i put the scene dial on f5 of which i thought was 24p but the view finder displayed 60i. this only happened at the end of my shoot and i don't know if me fiddling with the iris has anything to do with it or not. anyways thanks for all the info. you guys are great.

[J.R. Hudson]

Always do a WB whenever lighting conditions change. You are free to use Presets however...

IRIS is the Exposure. Opening it up lets MORE Light in (Given you brightness) and Closing it blocks light from coming in.

You can always quickly hit the AUTO IRIS button to see what the camera reccomends and then switch off for further control of your image.

You can hit the ZEBRA button to turn on and off the ZEBRA looking stripes that will show you blow-outs (Over exposure).

A preset of 5600 will work on bright ass sunny days if you use Auto PRST.

A litttle tip on exposure:

EXPOSE (IRIS ADJUSTMENT) for highlights.

[dvxbeginner]

thanks mr. hudson for the great advice. as you can see i know nothing but your info will put me on the right track hopefully. i just purchased a 2.0 ghz dual g5 and final cut pro to edit all my work. i am very excited and hope it all works out. thanks again for taking time to give some advice to me.

kind regards,

[J.R. Hudson]

No probelm. And I know about NEXT to nothing! :D

[magicdavek]

*i just purchased a 2.0 ghz dual g5 and final cut pro to edit all my work.

kind regards,

Your a beginner and you're using a DVX100, a 2.0 ghz dual processor G5 Mac with Final Cut Pro? That's beginning? Wow. I wish I was a beginner.

[J.R. Hudson]

No shit. I began on a Chinera Super 8 and this ridiculous splicer from Kodak. (You know the kind with cement!?) :o

[magicdavek]

I had a Kodak Super 8. It was my graduation present from college back in 19--, before the camcorder was invented (video cameras had separate recorders-not the dockable ones we're used to today).

But I did start "at the top" but was all rented stuff. The first video I produced in was in 1992. I used a PBS affiliate studio, an NBC affilate news anchor, a three chip Sony for some location vignettes, and was edited at the PBS station's control room - all in studio 1 inch master tape-cool! Now I do miniDV and Digital 8 on my 1999 Blue & White G3 (upgraded to G4)-ugh.

[VictorE]

Anybody remember the "Sankyo" Super 8? I had that, and a Bell & Howell projector that you could do an audio dub with. My buddy had an Elmo. Oh the days of taking your cartridges in to be developed, with your fingers crossed...

[Guest]

Hey DVxbeginner, first off what I need to tell you eevnthough you are a beginner is to never and I mean never use Auto settings, know what you want to do to get lumanice on a bright day in 24p or 24pa is to set the shutter to 1/24 if that dose not work look at you ND filter switch and see if it is Switched in next do that and see if it works if not I can give you evenmore tricks that will get, but I think that it will work and remember DO NOT use Auto settings that is horrible.

[CamOp]

I personally have found from experience on the progressive modes with cinegamma on that the auto exposure is to dark and I have to manually bump it up and check exposure with the zebra.

I had the camera on a scope yesterday and found this to be true.

[CamOp]

Most sports are shot for broadcast at 60i even when 24p is a choice, as in HD.

A higher shutter speed will give you sharper images – good for slow motion.

Back in February I shot some footage at the Siebel Open for a DVD tennis magazine, I set the shutter to 1/250.

[Stas_Tagios]

Anybody remember the "Sankyo" Super 8? I had that, and a Bell & Howell projector that you could do an audio dub with. *My buddy had an Elmo. Oh the days of taking your cartridges in to be developed, with your fingers crossed...

I still have my Sankyo Super-8 camera! :) Bought it used back in the late 80's and made a lot of shorts with it. Solid little camera, though the lens was a little soft. Can't say I miss the days of spending $20 per 2 1/2 minute cartridge for film and processing, but back then, it was a lot better than shooting video with any remotely affordable consumer video camera.

[Stas_Tagios]

I personally have found from experience on the progressive modes with cinegamma on that the auto exposure is to dark and I have to manually bump it up and check exposure with the zebra.

You can adjust in the menu the auto-iris sensitivity for each of the scene files. The 24p modes have a default setting biased toward slight underexposure to maximize the "film look" of the cine gamma and avoid blowing out highlights.

In some situations, in particular shooting outside, I too have found that the default settings result in an overly dark image (a combination of the underexposure-biased auto iris and the auto-iris's natural tendency to close way down to avoid over-exposing bright skies).

[toddmcm]

Totally disagree about that shutter setting of 1/24, even in 24P mode.

I seem to have much better luck with it off, or at 1/48 when in 24P or 24PA.

[Mike_Donis]

The great thing about video is that it retains shadow detail pretty well...so you can shoot a little underexposed to maintain as much of the highlights as you can, and then brighten it a bit in post, but keeping the original detail of the image 8)

[Neil Rowe]

why on earth would anyone use auto iris? :P