FD Lens, Histogram, LCD Honesty...Blownout footage

Chris Light

Chris Light

Veteran
alright Ben B...chime in...or anyone else...

using Canon FDs: 50mm 1.4 ssc, and 24mm 2.8 ssc....run of the mill blah blah.

-3...l...3+ checks out. (exposure meter)
Histogram shows correct exposure. (lovely yellow mountain...or maybe it's white...)
LCD displays niceties. (i have never used the viewfinder...)

so, my issue is...
when i ingest my footage into my ever-loving PC, everything is so over-exposed.

was i dumb in assuming the the Hist, Meter, AND the LCD is lying to me?
It doesn't happen when i use the kit lens. Everything i shoot with the FDs is overblown, regardless of how it looks in-camera. (lenses are mint and function exactly as they should.)

I am learning to compensate and make the corrections in post, but the less i need to screw with my footage, the better, because as it is, Sony Vegas preview is darker, rendering to .wmv lightens the gamma, and Vimeo is another story.

i am tired of the guessing game.

Help...i can't drink this pain away.:crybaby:
 
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I routinely use a 50mm 1.4 nikon lens and have found that I tend to like the footage more when I expose at around -1 using the camera meter. 0 or above seems quickly blown out.
 
Link some screen grabs? What codec are you transcoding to? Is the footage blown-out before you transcode? Are you editing natively?
 
Personally I transcode to either lagarith or cineform (while doing pulldown removal) and edit. However I also see the blown out areas on the LCD too, unlike the OP.

OP, are you using creative movie mode? I think if you use the regular movie mode, the LCD would look darker than actual video in bright situations.
 
what's your metering mode in: multi-pattern, center weighted, or spot?
Z_0015.jpg
 
ok, more info...
(sorry ben, no grabs just yet...i'll try to get you a couple...)

blown out footage is BEFORE any transcoding, both in 720/60p and 108024p/60i.

i used to think it was cineform, but it's not.

Yes, the image looks perfect on the LCD and meters tell me i'm exposed properly. ONLY the recorded footage is blown out, and i mean, extremely.

Metering is center-weighted i believe.
 
And maybe this is important or maybe not, but i just looked at the original footage, and forgot i also took stills the same afternoon. NONE of my stills are over exposed...this is odd. Come to think of it, my stills have never been overexposed while using the same lenses.
 
Cavemandude said:
What are you using to view the GH1 videos?
Click to expand...
well, i use the bundled panasonic software(PhotofunHD) to ingest from the camera. But that seems insignificant now, because my stills are perfectly exposed...why arent my movies?...there must be something i'm not getting. None of this occurs with the kit lens.

i knew my XHA1 backwards and forwards, and had a great workflow, and same goes for my GH1....until i got more lenses...i'm just dumbfounded.
 
...ok, i'm a retard, HOW do you get a screengrab?

i don't want to get one within Vegas, cuz Vegas' preview is darker than normal, and my footage doesn't look 1/2 bad....it's within the Panasonic software, and rendering to .wmv that it's all blown to poo.
 
skinny! said:
And maybe this is important or maybe not, but i just looked at the original footage, and forgot i also took stills the same afternoon. NONE of my stills are over exposed...this is odd. Come to think of it, my stills have never been overexposed while using the same lenses.
Click to expand...
this has to be repeated...

blown out footage is only occurring in movie mode somehow...what gives?

i shoot only in Creative Movie Mode on full manual, shoot w/o lens on, Center-weighted metering, man i'm losin it.
 
I say that Vegas is displaying your video correctly and whatever you're using to watch the WMV file is not. Since when does Vegas not display videos at the same video levels as the original file?

I would install the Splash Lite video player and see what original GH1 MTS file looks like using that player since it displays the correct levels.

Randy
 
yes, I want to believe that Vegas is right.

but it's not.

i'll say it again. i don't have this issue with the kit lens or my still images.

watching the wmv is also not the issue. i can make the wmv look however i want, because nothing becomes a wmv until AFTER i've screwed with the footage.. and wmv is known to up the gamma anyway....so rendering wmv without touching my footage will make it worse.
as soon as i import whatever is on my SDHC to my PC, regardless of the player, be it VLC, or the Panasonic software, the stuff aint right. I repeat the same process with the kit lens, wow, everything looks great.
 
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to simplify it even further:

I import files from my camera to my PC. Stills AND Video, using my Canon FD lenses. Software doesn't even matter. I use the same exact exposure methods. Full Manual for stills, and Full manual for video. Both look great in-cam while taking them.

The results, however, are different. My stills look proper upon import to my PC. My videos, though, are so over exposed, i'm destroying them to correctly expose them in post.
My thinking is that there's something i'm not doing in Creative Movie Mode to make my movies act like my stills. I'm not sure why my movies look totally different.

one thing i remembered, and it may not be important...i deleted the ffdshow codec from my pc right around the time i got my FDs....could it be something so stupid like my PC using the next "best" thing for my software to view my footage?
 
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I tried an FD lens this weekend for the first time and had the same problem. Tried both a mac and pc to view the footage and it looks over-exposed. If you figure out what it is let me know.
 
Well you have to resolve why it looks much better in Vegas compared to whatever you are using to view it outside of Vegas. Use the Splash Lite video player and view the original MTS file since I know that will show the true video levels, at least it does on my computer.

Or import it into Vegas and export it as a MPEG-2 HD file and see what it looks like since WMV has its own issues.

Randy
 
Thanks Randy...i forgot one tidbit. The reason i'm not blaming Vegas is because Vegas is KNOWN for displaying footage slightly darker than the original. I knew this when i had my Canon xh-a1, and it's always something i work around with no issues. So in this case, i'm not worrying about how Vegas displays my footage, because i can bring in footage to Vegas, do nothing to it, render it, and bam, my footage looks as bright as it did when i imported it. sofar i have rendered to .wmv, AND MP4, same result.

I'll give that player you suggested a try, but the Panasonic import software that's included with the gh1 allows the viewing of original mts files, so i'm not sure if Spash will make my footage LOOK different, but hey, stranger things have happened :-)
 
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