Advice on exposure for outdoors sunset & campfire shots
- Thread starter egaley
- Start date
I suggest that you hire a professional DP.
J.R. Hudson
Spirit Animal
Erin Erin Erin
A PD170? You can't be serious. (In my best John McEnroe impersonation). You can rent a PD170 but it's going to look like shite compared to the DVX100. That's your call.
Great news. You will be shooting an MV soon. Very soon in fact. Directing? DP'ing? All of the above? I'd consider getting ahold of one of these cameras in advance. Hate to think of you on Day 1 stumbling around trying to find the Zebra button. What's a Zebra? Sigh........
You have a major task in front of you that are carried with some basic questions. Scary. I'd pay money to film you during this process.
In 24p Mode, Focus will be Manual by fiat. You never want to shoot Auto Focus anyway. Really. With a band bouncing around I can just see the Focus trying to stay ahold of something, anything. Your going to have to plan your shots and focus on them manually. DO NOT EVEN TRY AND MOVE THE FOCUS RING WHILE IT IS IN SERVO MODE.
Exposure? Well, a quick and dirty method is to line up your shot and press AUTO IRIS and make adjustments from there. What kind of adjustments? You want to check that Zebra button. You want to expose for highlights. You want to make a decision early on if you will use Auto Iris Level - 4 to + 4. Do you remove light from the shot? Do you add light to the shot? DO you use flags to block the light?
Are you going to be using lights or all natural? Bounce cards at least? Mirrors maybe?
WHITE BALANCE
Just Zoom in and Focus on a White Board under the lighting conditons being used and press the WB button.
In all reality; if you are charging money for this little adventure; I'd consider placing a quick ad for any Austin area DVXusers to DP this for you; this way you an concentrate on Directing. If you really have no idea how to use this camera or the basics of WB and Exposure an experienced DVX DP would be really help. Perhaps Food and Credit/Copy if it infringes on your budget.
EDIT
Issac beat me to the punch. Do what he suggests!
A PD170? You can't be serious. (In my best John McEnroe impersonation). You can rent a PD170 but it's going to look like shite compared to the DVX100. That's your call.
Great news. You will be shooting an MV soon. Very soon in fact. Directing? DP'ing? All of the above? I'd consider getting ahold of one of these cameras in advance. Hate to think of you on Day 1 stumbling around trying to find the Zebra button. What's a Zebra? Sigh........
You have a major task in front of you that are carried with some basic questions. Scary. I'd pay money to film you during this process.
In 24p Mode, Focus will be Manual by fiat. You never want to shoot Auto Focus anyway. Really. With a band bouncing around I can just see the Focus trying to stay ahold of something, anything. Your going to have to plan your shots and focus on them manually. DO NOT EVEN TRY AND MOVE THE FOCUS RING WHILE IT IS IN SERVO MODE.
Exposure? Well, a quick and dirty method is to line up your shot and press AUTO IRIS and make adjustments from there. What kind of adjustments? You want to check that Zebra button. You want to expose for highlights. You want to make a decision early on if you will use Auto Iris Level - 4 to + 4. Do you remove light from the shot? Do you add light to the shot? DO you use flags to block the light?
Are you going to be using lights or all natural? Bounce cards at least? Mirrors maybe?
WHITE BALANCE
Just Zoom in and Focus on a White Board under the lighting conditons being used and press the WB button.
In all reality; if you are charging money for this little adventure; I'd consider placing a quick ad for any Austin area DVXusers to DP this for you; this way you an concentrate on Directing. If you really have no idea how to use this camera or the basics of WB and Exposure an experienced DVX DP would be really help. Perhaps Food and Credit/Copy if it infringes on your budget.
EDIT
Issac beat me to the punch. Do what he suggests!
imgentertainment@mac
The Reverend
John is totally right. I shot a campfire scene a couple of weekends ago just hanging out with some friends, and although I know how to use my camera there is no way in hell you could get away with auto focus. As for the exposure setting I played around until I got the right combination that I liked. The blacks were still black and not full of grain, the fire was a rich red/orange. If you have no idea how to even play with the camera to get the look you want, or you don't know how you can shoot it and bring it out in post. Then find you self a DP
Find a knowledgeable DP who knows the DVX100 in and out. I hope you don't think that we're questioning your experience, but based on your post I thought that hiring an experienced DP would yield the best results. I still think that's the best thing you can do for this shoot.
You'll have your hands full with everything else and if you want to get more business down the road it would probably be best to hire a DP who can not only give you great visuals, but give you a better understanding of the camera for future gigs.
thisiswells
Retired
You have many excellent ideas; don't ruin them by shooting yourself.
Bart_Boge
Well-known member
With video, exposing for highlights is a must. The zebra feature will cover your butt. The footage will look like a dark, muddy mess at the time, but you can pull a LOT of info out of the underexposed footage in post. How you light the principals will have a big impact as well. If you are using only existing light from the fire itself, you will be leaving a lot to chance. Fill lights and/or bounce cards to add more exposure to the image aside from the always-near-clipping fire elements will help in post.
What absolutely CANNOT happen is blown out video overexposure, which always looks like complete crap and is unfixable in post. If you are going to do this yourself, it might behoove you to go to your local State park and shoot some tests with people at campfires first. See how firelight behaves with a DVX100. Maybe even bring a few bouce cards and hold them up near a weenie-roasting kid to see what happens visually. Be prepared. Know what to expect on your "money" shoot. Everybody hates surprises!
What absolutely CANNOT happen is blown out video overexposure, which always looks like complete crap and is unfixable in post. If you are going to do this yourself, it might behoove you to go to your local State park and shoot some tests with people at campfires first. See how firelight behaves with a DVX100. Maybe even bring a few bouce cards and hold them up near a weenie-roasting kid to see what happens visually. Be prepared. Know what to expect on your "money" shoot. Everybody hates surprises!