why is my film not glossy?

K

krish

Well-known member
Ok so this might be a really stupid question but i will ask it anyway. I have seen many short films on this site and many if them have a very high gloss quality. They look very good in tems of resolution. I am a new owner of dvx100b and have taken some footage but have not been able to come even close to the kind of images i have seen here. What am i doing wrong?

I know that to get a good quality picture lots of things have to be considered like lighting, White Balance, Exposure, Contrast etc.. and in my defence i have taken all my shots in natural lights. ( I don't have any exteranl light fixtures yet).

I tried F6 with -3 detail level and CineLike Gamma V setting but to no awail.
I looked at some of the setting suggestions at DVfilm.com also and they looked promissing.

Here is an example of what i shot:
DVX100BTestGrab.jpg


But i dont see the sharpness of the image that i am looking for.

I have had my camea for about 3 weeks. I took a few shots pointing to the sun in the evening and sometimes this un-settling thought comes to mind that i might have blown my sensors in my camera by pointing to sun but then the normal images look ok in terms of color etc (I Think anyway)

Would appreciate any help.
 
Yes, a clip would be helpful. Also, I don't think you would have blown the CCDs just by pointing the camera at the sun in the evening. The light isn't that harsh when the sun is that low. It's remotely possible, but I doubt it.

Edit: Sorry, put this up the same time you put up your clip link.

Second edit: Ok, I just watched your clip. You're right, it is rather dull. :( I'm not sure why the first 30 seconds were black, but that's ok. I'm not sure what to tell you as I'm no scene file expert, but I know I have gotten more vibrant pictures than this under similar conditions. This is shooting in F6? It seems like it from the motion, but it doesn't have that progressive look. The compression hurts that a bit, but I've got wmv footage that holds up better than that. Hmmm.....
 
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Thanks for those comforting words about the CCD's.

My appologies again, the first 33 secs of the clip is blank. I didnt edit it properly.
 
I think this footage was shot in F5 with factory settings. I didnt really change anything just pretty mush turned it on and shot it.
 
Are you sure you don't just have the gain cranked up because it looks pretty noisy. If you did that would definitely help you a little bit.
 
I agree that your clip looks flat almost like the gain was set high and then your exposure set down to compensate. I really have no clue as to whether this is a malfunction of the camera or not but If you don't find a solution on this forum then I would have it checked out by an authorized repair facility.

Marlene
 
Yeah, I wondered about that too. The picture seemed really noisy for how much light there was. Hiking the gain and then closing down the iris will kill your picture like this, as others have said.
 
Ok. So i am going to take another short footage. This time i will set the gain to L and will also shoot it in natural light. Lets see if it looks any different.
 
gain will kill your image, take that $hit off! :D
just watched it and it looks a little dull yes, just reset your camera hit the little button with a needle thats inside wehre the lcd opens up. After u reset it go back and do another test.

24's image isnt that sharp, compared to 60i, is f6 24advanced? or 30? lol i to lazy too look at my cam
 
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For distance shots at factory settings with no additional lighting that looks about right. I hate what wmv compression does to 24P motion, it really can't handle any sort of motion blur. Do you have any kind of particular look you are going for? An example clip, film name, picture, anything? That might help. Or is it just a better general overall picture you were expecting?
 
I am using Auto Focus. I wanted to get just really sharp images. no particular look. One think i must say is all the great footage i have seen on this site have all been rendered using QuickTime i guess wmv is definitely part of my problem. I will continue to explore various shots till i get the sharpest image possible.

thanks again for offering such great advise.

Cheers,

Krish
 
I find that shooting digital, whether stills with my Nikon D1X or video with my XL2, lighting plays a very big role in saturation (actually I find this to be true with film as well). Yes a certain amount is achieved with camera settings but having enough light (probably more than you think) and exposing correctly probably plays more of a role in getting that "gloss" you are looking for than anything else, at least in the capture stage.

That said I normally capture pretty flat to preserve as much latitude as possible. Then the image really comes alive in post (both stills and video). Something to experiment with...

Matt
 
Yes that makes sense. I have Magic bullet but i have not used it so far. I will start playing around with some of that stuff.

Thanks
 
I'm with Matt (And follow a similar workflow)

Turn off all of the Auto Features and learn to use the camera.

Expose properly.
Expose for highlights.
Focus.
 
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