I just got a 100b and did my first shoot with it yesterday--an interview. LOVE the camera, but have some questions I couldn't find answers to in the manual or Green's DVX Book, so I thought I'd try here. All input appreciated. First, the set-up:
The interview was with an African-American woman with medium dark skin. I did a basic 4-point lighting set-up using an Omni for my key, a small Rifa for the fill, a Pro light for my hairlight and a Tota to throw light on the background. There was some cloudy daylight coming through frosted windows very high up in the wall. I manually white balanced with a white card, set the zebras at 85% and used them as my guide for the iris setting, which was around 6.8. I used manual focus. I used an external lav mic connected to input 2. Mic Gain level at -50dB, Mic ALC off.
Questions:
1. After looking at the footage, it seems that the tighter I went with the zoom, the more "rich" the color appears. When I was wider, it looked a little tiny bit washed out/overexposed compared to the tighter shots. Am I imagining this?
2. Also, looking at the footage, it seems that when I went wider, I lost the sharpness of the focus ever so slightly. To set focus--I went in to Z99, focused and then pulled back out to however I wanted to frame the shot--does the focus not hold if you pull too far out? How does this work?
3. No zebras, i.e. overexposure was registering, yet a couple of times the "ND filter 1/8" message popped on screen. What would cause this? Particularly if no overexposed areas are registering with the manual iris setting I chose based on zebras? Seemed very strange.
4. The woman looks good, but she has hot (shiny-looking) spots in places on her face that didn't show up as zebras when I was shooting, or just very, very minimally. I used face powder when I saw her looking shiny, but since the zebras weren't registering, I figured I was okay. Yet, in this footage, these spots look really shiny--a little blown out. If they were--why didn't the zebras show it? Could another issue be causing this problem? Any help here is greatly appreciated so I can correct for it in the next interview to be shot next week.
5. I set audio levels to hover around -12dB, occasionally going into one or two red squares. When I captured the footage, the audio seems very low. Of course, better too low than blown out, but I'd prefer a a stronger level. Suggestions?
6. Last but not least--should you set the Black Balance along with White Balance for each shoot?
Thanks so much for any and all help.
Ruby
The interview was with an African-American woman with medium dark skin. I did a basic 4-point lighting set-up using an Omni for my key, a small Rifa for the fill, a Pro light for my hairlight and a Tota to throw light on the background. There was some cloudy daylight coming through frosted windows very high up in the wall. I manually white balanced with a white card, set the zebras at 85% and used them as my guide for the iris setting, which was around 6.8. I used manual focus. I used an external lav mic connected to input 2. Mic Gain level at -50dB, Mic ALC off.
Questions:
1. After looking at the footage, it seems that the tighter I went with the zoom, the more "rich" the color appears. When I was wider, it looked a little tiny bit washed out/overexposed compared to the tighter shots. Am I imagining this?
2. Also, looking at the footage, it seems that when I went wider, I lost the sharpness of the focus ever so slightly. To set focus--I went in to Z99, focused and then pulled back out to however I wanted to frame the shot--does the focus not hold if you pull too far out? How does this work?
3. No zebras, i.e. overexposure was registering, yet a couple of times the "ND filter 1/8" message popped on screen. What would cause this? Particularly if no overexposed areas are registering with the manual iris setting I chose based on zebras? Seemed very strange.
4. The woman looks good, but she has hot (shiny-looking) spots in places on her face that didn't show up as zebras when I was shooting, or just very, very minimally. I used face powder when I saw her looking shiny, but since the zebras weren't registering, I figured I was okay. Yet, in this footage, these spots look really shiny--a little blown out. If they were--why didn't the zebras show it? Could another issue be causing this problem? Any help here is greatly appreciated so I can correct for it in the next interview to be shot next week.
5. I set audio levels to hover around -12dB, occasionally going into one or two red squares. When I captured the footage, the audio seems very low. Of course, better too low than blown out, but I'd prefer a a stronger level. Suggestions?
6. Last but not least--should you set the Black Balance along with White Balance for each shoot?
Thanks so much for any and all help.
Ruby
