Filmed in 30p today at a vintage motorcycle/car meet ..too dark

arielman

arielman

Well-known member
You guys might get tired of me ...After testing the camera a week or so ago and with help from here , I am happy with the video that was shot .
Today I go to a Vintage motorcycle /car meet , It's sunny and no clouds . I set my camera to 30P and then set the white balance in the sun ( as usually done ) then go into the shade to set white for B setting .
I try to shoot an engine from an early Indian . The motor area is shaded , the rest of the bike is in the sun . I left the iris on Auto and set the Nd filters as requested . Thru the eye piece the motor is too dark and I set the iris manually .
The way I set the Iris is to just remove the Zebra lines. this has worked for me
before .
Almost all the cars and motorcycles were half way in the shade and the sun .
I have NO complaints with the colour , it was excellent.

At the end of the day we went to a suspended bridge . Once again I shot some footage of the river and the Falls..Dissapointment
I hooked up the camera to the TV to view what I shot today . I couldn't
see the engine area on the bikes and cars . Some of the footage of the exterior of the cars was also dark . If I opened up the Iris then then the zebra lines would come up , indicating the sky and grass were too bright .
The video (almost all) was slightly dark . This is not the same results I had a few days ago , although nothing has changed on the way the camera is set up.

What should have I done..opened up the Iris fully ( then there would be too much contrast ) or lower the shutter speed to eg 1/30 .
I noticed when shooting in the shade ( I set the camera to B setting )there seemed to be Funky colours in the sky and grass . I tried setting the White in the shade a few times , then gave up .

Today was the first time using a UV filter . I suspect the filter may be the cause of the issues today , not really sure though . like I said before, all the video shot a week ago was just beautiful . All the video shot today is garbage , not even worth watching .
tomorrow I am to go and try to film a young lad motocrossing . Help is BADLY needed here....Thanks Ian
 
The UV filter had nothing to do with your problem.
Sounds like extremely high contrasting areas in the image. Sometimes you have to let the "sky" bloom so you can see the main subject.
Any way you can post some grabs so we can see the results?
 
I think your problem was too much a difference between the bright and dark areas. If you don't do/can't do anything else, expose for your subject (the bikes) and let the background overexpose.

But the best thing to do is bring along some reflectors (assuming you can't go with lights) to brighten up the dark areas..bringing them closer to the bright areas. If you do that, you might be able to get a good over-all image.

Dan
 
Having the sky blow out isn't too bad an issue either (so long as the highights on your subject don't blow out). You can always go in and key in a new sky :D
 
Thanks Guys

After I posted this I took the camera outside , while there was still light and tried w/and without the UV filter ..NO difference that I could see.
I agree that because of the shadow / sunlight it may have caused the camera to be confused . Do you think an on-board light may have made a difference(sort of like a flash on a camera).
When you say slightly over exposing , do you mean eg some Zebras in the screen . When Filming river (at water level) looking towards historical buildings , the water and the sky are beautiful , to bad it was a little dark .
Since my editing program is not on this computer I will try to capture and Grab a frame to Post later . maybe by doing so you can see what I'm talking about . But I think you both are correct .................Many Thanks Again ......lets hope tomorrow turns out OK ..........Ian
 
arielman said:
I agree that because of the shadow / sunlight it may have caused the camera to be confused . Do you think an on-board light may have made a difference(sort of like a flash on a camera).
Click to expand...

Yep. Anything to bring the high and low levels closer together.

Dan
 
Depends on how strong was the sunlight. Sometimes sth white that will bounce the light will give you better reslts than a lamp. Unless of course you have Arri Sun as an on-board light :D
 
I shoot with 80% zebra, bumping halfway between almost zero showing in the highlights and when they really start crawling. Grass routinely zebras out in the way I expose, and I have yet to get an oversaturated or blown-out image.

You have a latitude of only a few stops before the camera suffers. If you're shooting a 2.8 - 4.0 in the shade and the background is over 11, you're likely not going to pull out an image in the dark areas. You can control this through tighter framing into the dark areas with less than 10 - 15% of the background being the higher value or use grip equipment to manually pull the background down.

We often carry a 8x8 single and double net to place behind a shaded foreground subject and a large, sunlit background to bring the stops in line. We're doing this on interviews on the new series and they used it to great effect on the BTS interviews reel for Kill Bill.

e
 
even cheap bounce boards (i.e. - white poster board) can do "wonders" for matching contrasts. Outdoors, there isn't a powerful enough on-camera light to make a noticeable difference, and if there were, the power consumption would make battery life impractically low. Simple reflector/bounce techniques are something to experiment with. Downside it you do need an assistant. Goodside is ours is an apprentice industry and well, I've held flags "Hollywood style" in 30mph winds on film shoots to get my foot in the door, and I imagine you could find someone equally as interested in what you do willing to do the grunt work for a shot at the "big time" ; )
 
Many Thanks for the Tips ...I have included a few pics so you can see what happened . I do believe a reflective material is needed as you will see .
While looking at the video my son says ..why don't you just use colour correction ....DUH !! well it did save the video , not as nice as if it was done right the first time but it saved the video .

Sorry guys It would seem I'm not allowed to post attachments ....Again Thanks to ALL for your help ....Ian
 
I am a new member (and I have purchased but not yet received my DVX100a) so please take my suggestion with a grain of salt. I do have a great deal of 35mm experience (still photography not video or motion film) and my suggestion is based on this experience.

Use a polarizer! Always use a polarizer outdoors, especially when shooting shiny stuff (glass, water, etc). Foliage is deceptively shiny, and if you have grass and trees in your shot, it will easily throw tons of unneeded highlights where you don't want them. Even the most beautiful sky will always look sickly pale unless you have the polarizer going as well. It will instantly reduce the overall range of contrast in a scene, making it much easier to capture. An ND filter will reduce the overall brightness of a scene (similar to increasing shutter speed, or stopping down) but the polarizer will reduce the highlights more than the rest of the scene, giving you a more even scene.

The one thing that a polarizer cannot really remedy is reflections off of bare metal (like chrome) so you have to adjust your shooting angle to make sure that you are not getting direct sun.

I almost never take my polarizer off my camera when outdoors. The only exception being late evening and night. I hope this suggestion is helpful.
 
Off Topic Question; Use of Black Promist w/DVX(Film look)?

Off Topic Question; Use of Black Promist w/DVX(Film look)?

Does anyone have any feed-back concerning as achieving a film look with the DVX 100A?

I'm wondering if a Black Promist filter will help me get there? Also which products are best?

Thanks :grin:
 
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