Following Zebra pattern is giving me dark images...

omar_

omar_

Well-known member
Hey guys, i'm still a little new to the DVX and when I follow the Zebra at 80% for light exposure I get dark images, especially when shooting shots with both landscape and sky in the frame. Reducing the IRIS enough to get rid of the Zebra lines makes the image too dark ...
What do you think about that?

Here are some screen shots to see what I mean.

It was very sunny that day and in the afternoon NOT sunset as it appears...

image3.jpg


image0.jpg


image1.jpg


image2.jpg
 
These images are awesome; now use your level's and brightness and contrast to make them scream. (Use your scopes)
 
John_Hudson said:
These images are awesome; now use your level's and brightness and contrast to make them scream. (Use your scopes)
Click to expand...

Hey John, are you talking about in camera or in an NLE? Would raising the Brightness add noise? I am wondering because I desperately WANT my images to SCREAM!
 
John's right.

John's right.

In FCP you add three way color corrector to the clips. Bring down the black first then adjust the white to a legal level and maybe just a touch of the mid levels.
 
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You can adjust to your hearts content. but i think it may be a touch too dark, cause its bringing out compression. Shot similarly, but with the master pedestal at 0 or +1
 
John_Hudson said:
These images are awesome; now use your level's and brightness and contrast to make them scream. (Use your scopes)
Click to expand...
Hey thanks John. I'm playing with that now, if you mean in NLE?
I wanted to keep all of that in camera as opposed to post, but I guess I can't have it all...

I never used the scopes before so it's a little confusing for me

About the resolution, I took a snapshot in my NLE, Sony Vegas while the preview screen was at 720 X 480...


I'm a little wary about using color corrector for these shots but the "Gamma" "Gain" and "Saturation" features are helping a little.
 
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TimurCivan said:
You can adjust to your hearts content. but i think it may be a touch too dark, cause its bringing out compression. Shot similarly, but with the master pedestal at 0 or +1
Click to expand...

I like the first one you did, despite some noise? The second image is bringing out compression, but that may be because the background of my original was slightly out of focus.

I'm going to try adjusting my master ped. It was actually at -2 for this shoot! The detail was -4 too, which may have had some effect.
 
guys, I'm curious I see that your color corrections are very bright. Why not just shoot initially with some over exposure using the IRIS instead? It ends up looking the same don't you think?

Btw, John, what were your settings?
 
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omar

Make sure your monitor is calibrated properly. My CC'd version of your Grab looks nice on my monitor and my scopes (Vegas) say it is so.

No settings here; just level's.
 
BEcause youre preserving more imformation in the image. The highlights, and such. nothing is blowing out. then yo ucan adjust the way the brightness is distributed through the image, and thus preserve that visual information while brightening up the image. you cannot compress highlights in camera.
 
Omar,

If you have your zebra at 70, then you don't need to close the iris until the zebras are gone. That method is only valid if your zebra is set to 90 or above, even 100. If set it to 100 and close the iris until zebras are gone, then you are guaranteeing that you have no overexposure.

Even though these underexposed images can be corrected in post, you're better served capturing a full latitude image as possible, which means using as much of the 0-100 range as possible without overexposing... and then tweaking just a little in post.

Zebras at 70 is more often used to set exposure on skin tones, where you adjust the iris until the zebras just show on highlights on the skin.

Josh
 
The weird thing is I burned the footage to a DVD and saw it on a TV because it was a gift to a family friend and we watched it together and the footage was EXTRAORDINARY! The images were very bright, not the way they looked on my pc! and the quality was superb.

I didn't do anything to them in post too because I had already burned the footage. They were like "your camera is Amazing!" lol. Seriously though the quality of the footage was amazing and it was really bright on the TV; I'm not sure why
 
this goes to show WHY YOU NEED A MONITOR!!!!!

i need one as well. i learned the hardway. I am now searching for a 13" Sony CRT monitor......
 
TVs are usually brighter than PC monitors; they use different gamma. And Mac monitors are different than XP monitors too.

So yes, as Timur said, you want a proper production monitor, properly calibrated.

In lieu of that, learn to use the zebras effectively and it'll help you get the right exposure in the field. I use 70% and 105% on my two zebra settings, usually relying on the 105's. I know Evin prefers 90% and 100%, so it's all a matter of personal preference and the way you choose to work.
 
TimurCivan said:
this goes to show WHY YOU NEED A MONITOR!!!!!

i need one as well. i learned the hardway. I am now searching for a 13" Sony CRT monitor......
Click to expand...
I'm with you!!!! Because when I saw the images on the TV I was stunned literally and so was everybody else! and I did not touch color in post at all.

The funny thing is when i saw it on TV I actually felt some shots were too bright :huh: and this was using 80% Zebra. wow man.
 
TimurCivan said:
this goes to show WHY YOU NEED A MONITOR!!!!! i need one as well. i learned the hardway. I am now searching for a 13" Sony CRT monitor......
Click to expand...
Guys do you think a little portable 3 inch color tv would work just to give you an idea of the color on the screen without lugging around a big monitor. Something like this would make things easier:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000CGCCM/sr=1-39/qid=1150353820

or a little better:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000DIM9AS/sr=1-68/qid=1150354065
 
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