dark and highlights...shot

M

milleto

Well-known member
Hi.

I had my first shot outside were I was practicing with the 24p settings. As I was shooting I had some trouble trying to decide what to do when sometimes a shot had very dark areas next to very bright areas, and it looked like I either had to underexpose the shadows or overexpose the highlights. Also if I move from a darker area into a brighter I had to use the iris to control the light going in but it seemed hard to make a smooth pan and iris movement where you wouldn't see the iris shifts.

Examples...sunset hours...dark areas in shadows next to, snow, white clothe, sky.

How to do you go about this?

I was wondering how different people deal with this.

I hope this is interesting enough for you to make comments...

Peace
Thanks
Osmany
PS....I posted a clip in screen grabs sub forum
 
is this question too stupid? too difficult?

any ideas where I should look to learn more?

Sorry if is a bother.. I'll try to poster more interesting question next. hehe

Osmany
 
It's tough when you have to move through dark and bright areas together - you need to find a happy medium really

My advice would be to expose for the brighter areas and add light to the dark spots to bring them out - you can always redarken them in post.
 
try not to change the iris when going from one place to another with continuous shot....changing the iris will change the depth of field which may cause image to be out of focus...unless that is what you want....
 
thanks a lot for responding...cool. I will keep experimenting and guess one day will know what I don't know now.

I didn't think about the iris changing the DOF as well...ummm. ???????thinking...is there another way to deal with light changing when shooting on the run? I guess..1- try to move the iris and refocus..hopefully after panning..otherwise is way too much..no? I don't know how else to do this....sometimes I'm tempted to set the iris in auto...so I can focus on focus and pans..but I'm trying to learn the right way..MANUAL...ummmmm...still thinking.

any more ideas?

MasterP...yes.I was thinking it might be better to be overexpose than underexpose, have a feeling it'll be easier to correct...if that's what you meant.

Thanks a bunch.
Osmany
 
Are you shooting doco or narrative?

If narrative, you really need to find a creative solution around it. You should be able to shade the bright parts, maybe a big silk, and at the same time add light to the darker areas. That's not to say that no one has ever done an "iris rack" before, they have, but it's tough.

If you're doing doco work, it's acceptable most of the time to go with an auto-iris and let the camera figure it out.

Oh, and given the choice between overexposing and underexposing, usually its good to err on the side of underexposure. You can usually recover a lot fo shadow detail (albeit with some noise), but you can't recover clipped highlights. However, if the only overexposure is some bright object in the background, some highlight that is not on your subject or critical to the scene, then I let the overexposure happen sometimes. The most important thing is being able to see peoples faces and eyes.
 
milleto said:
it is for doc...events and stuff where you don't have control.

Thanks for your help.
Osmany
Click to expand...

Well you should then expose for the subject, whatever it is. This is also true of narrative but you have more control to even the balance.

Your motto should always be - expose for the subject, depending on how you want your audience to percieve it.
 
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