What %% exposure is your scene usually at?

F

filmguy123

Veteran
I find that unless I'm outdoors and having to close the iris and/or use an ND filter, often with iris fully open I get an exposure around 20%-40%, with the actors at 25%.

This doesn't seem good or ideal... and I am guessing it hurts the image quality?

What do you usually shoot for to get a scene exposed at? And also, what if you want to capture the natural look of the area you are in? Is it better to get a bunch of lights and get that exposure up to 70%-90% and then take it down a bit in post, or what?
 
I always make sure my highlights are below my 100% zebras, and I like my subjects faces to be as bright as possible usually, I like 60% or above.
 
Skin tone highlights should be at 70%. That's what most professional cameras Zebra's are set to by default. The HVX gives you the option to go zebra %70 (hurray!!!). The DVX, unfortunately is at 80%, and it's really anoying when you're used to 70%.
 
Highlights at 70????? I thought the highlights were supossedt o be peaking at 80%.....???

Hmm..... thats encouraging.
 
Highlights at 70????? I thought the highlights were supossed to be peaking at 80%.....???

Hmm..... thats encouraging.
 
So what happens to your image if your conditions put everything around 20%-40% of exposure even with iris fully open? Does the image look a lot better/cleaner/etc. or what? Also when skin tones are at say 25% and something in the background is at 40%-ish?
 
No, it'll look muddy and grainy and flat and blah.

You want to take full advantage of the dynamic range of the camcorder. If your highlights are running at 40% at most, you're getting lousy exposure.
 
This is kind of a noob question, but I was reading in the lighting section about how a camera like the HVX usually gets about 4 stops of dynamic range, or 4 brightness levels. The way this works with the IRE exposure with the zebras... would each "stop" or brightness level be equal to about 25% of the IRE rating the zebras pick up?

For example, if I am picking up the 4 highest brightness levels or stops, would

0-25% be one of those stops (aprox)
25%-50% another
50%-75% the next
75%100% the final stop or brightness level I am currently picking up

And so therefore by keeping it around 20%-40%, I am only using maybe two different brightness levels or stops of the camera's full dynamic range that it is capable of? Is that correct?

Or am I way off base...?
 
The HVX has about 8 stops of dynamic range, not four. You should be using the entire range whenever possible -- your highlights should be up around 100, your skin tones around 70, your average scene brightness around 50, and your shadows down at 10 or below.

If you're not using the whole range (or as much as you can get) you're wasting a lot of the image-making potential of the camera.
 
Yea i ve apparently been shooting to bright. But maybe that swhy the footage comes out so clean. we darken a hair in post.
 
Barry_Green said:
The HVX has about 8 stops of dynamic range, not four. You should be using the entire range whenever possible -- your highlights should be up around 100, your skin tones around 70, your average scene brightness around 50, and your shadows down at 10 or below.

If you're not using the whole range (or as much as you can get) you're wasting a lot of the image-making potential of the camera.
Click to expand...

This is basically what I try to stick to. :thumbsup:
 
So what would be the best way to measure out a scenes exposure? The DVX100a has 80% and 90% Zebra settings right? So how would we measure for a 70% skin tone?
 
taormina said:
Brandon - remind me again how to use this...
Click to expand...

Hit the zebra button a few times till it says "marker on" and then you can just move the camera around and it shows the percentage.

So Barry - with the 8 stops, is the "formula" or theory that I posted correct (that 100%/8 gives you 8 percentage ranges that could correspond to a stop or brightness level?) - see original post for clarification. Just wondering I had the idea right...
 
yea its the sae as a "waveform" its a scale of brightness in the signal from -15 => 110.

Though dont really look at it like %. its more like.... 0-125. Though a properly calibrated screen can only show, 0-100. So they use that as "percents". the negative numbers are technichally illegal for broadcast or soemthing. but in digital transmission it shouldnt matter.
 
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