goddam.

Michael Summers

Michael Summers

Well-known member
why is it that when i shoot i always get underexposed shots? iget the most beautiful shots through the lcd but when i get home and look at it, it looks like CRAP. the lcd and viewfinder show me fine results, but in the end, 90% is underexposed. i dont have $$$ for a field monitor. how to i calibrate these to get closest to what you see is what you get?
 
Re: goddam.

Are you watching your footage on a conputer monitor and/ or a external display? Computer monitors if not calibrated properly can show what appears to be underexposed shots which look fine when output to TV/ ntsc monitor
 
Re: goddam.

no just computer screen, but theres another problem too, whenever i capture perfectly focused material (im viewing them on my big screen as focused) they become unfocused when i capture them through fcp4. huh? i know theres something wrong with my fcp4 setting because when im viewing them in the logger, they are perfectly focused. oh god. im screwed.

edit: i exported to full quality quicktime and the focusing problem still persists. when it is paused, all things that should be focused are. when it is in play mode, everything becomes unfocused.
 
Re: goddam.

You mention "big screen" does this mean your previewing from DVX to NTSC TV before capturing? If so is the footage still underexposed? As for fcp4...I'm pc based so can't help
 
Re: goddam.

yes is underexposed on my tv, but  in fine focus while im playing through the tv. however, when i capture it through fcp it becomes unfocused.

here are the pictures of what im talking about. the one on the left is while the video is in pause, or being played before capture. the one on the left is the video being played, after capture.

focused.jpg
unfocused.jpg
 
Re: goddam.

If it's underexposed on your TV preview it is unerexposed. I had the same proble I overcame it by using the zebra patern, Iris down till the zebra stops then I push it back up a tad till I just see a hint. Not the most technical solution in the world but it works unless you are in the shadows with huge sunlight beyond the scene then it,s time for lighting or good reflectors.
 
Re: goddam.

Sorry you must have been modifying while I was reading your post...The pictures weren't there. Is this DVX footage. Which one is which you're saying their both left in your post
 
Re: goddam.

there are two pictures. one is on the right, which is unfocused. it is the smaller picture. i have come to the conclusion it is the camera, i did tests with the camera in all modes (30p,24p,60i) and a test with my vx2100 in 60i. the vx2100 did not exhibit this problem. arrrrgh. i reset the cam settings, no dice.
 
Re: goddam.

It may not be the camera as in 'bad camera" could it not be in some of the scene file settings like detail, gamma and the like?
 
Re: goddam.

You say focus is fine when viewed on tv. This suggests a hrdware/software problem to me...codec issues cam drivers?
 
Re: goddam.

Camera drivers is probably not an option as they all seem to run on the firewire driver . hopefully a fcp4 guru can help or maybe (God forbid) the DVX has gone south :-[ I hope it's not the latter
 
Re: goddam.

well i'll have to overexpose for the next time. what does A. Shutter setting have to do with this? its at -3. does this play into underexposure? i changed the focur problem by changing the detail level in the camera, and it looks better than it did before. it was weird how it only looks out of focus when captured.
 
Re: goddam.

I got the DVX100 I don't see any A.Shutter setting Shutter settings . the slower your subject or camera is moving the lower the shutter speed...Extreem speed could require as much as 1000
 
Re: goddam.

about the soft focus issue - before you conclude that it's the camera, realize that the footage:
1.) looks fine on a tv/monitor
2.) looks fine in FCP's capture window

would these reasons alone not indicate that the only problem is with viewing it through the quicktime interface?
try this:
open the source file with quicktime and hit command+J, select "video" for the first pulldown menu and then select "quality" for the second. check the "high quality enabled" box.
what essentially should happen is that without the high quality check box enabled, the footage should look mushy or out of focus as you've indicated. but when checked, it should retain it's quality and look just as it did when paused off of the source tapes. as far as the FCP issue, the captured footage (when fed out of the NLE, through the DV device, and into a TV) should look just as good as it originally did. i guess apple figured people would be using production monitors anyway to edit with and not really look at the canvas window with such a discerning eye... so they saved a bit of processing power and didn't enable high quality in this window. who knows ???
this may help, or i may be completely off
but anyway it's worth a try.
 
Re: goddam.

i always play in high quality. this was not the problem. i realized when i burned footage to a DVD, the footage did retain some of its initial sharpness (or more than being played through quicktime) so i conclude that fcp is just not very good at previewing. i dont understand why my sony does not show this problem though.
 
Re: goddam.

be sure your looking at thne LCD from mear straight on. it will show incorrect contrast and brightness if your not viewing it from the right angle. also be sure that your computer monitor is calibrated correctly . by default, your camera and TV will show the image with setup. the computer monitoir will not so its going to naturally be darker. also .. most current NLEs use dynamic resolution for video review and previewing. they use a codec that basically streams the vid at varying bitrates in order to keep a constant frame rate going and allow you to add effects and the like. even when the NLE is set to its highest quality of playback, its likely still not showing the full quality of the file. play it back in a program outside of the NLE like quicktime, and as mentioned, be sure the quality is set to max.
 
Re: goddam.

[quote author=michael_summers link=board=Events;num=1100214592;start=15#17 date=11/12/04 at 05:18:09]i always play in high quality. this was not the problem. i realized when i burned footage to a DVD, the footage did retain some of its initial sharpness (or more than being played through quicktime) so i conclude that fcp is just not very good at previewing. i dont understand why my sony does not show this problem though.[/quote]

You are right to conclude that. I've never been happing with the way things look in the Canvas in FCP. It's just a weird facet of its operation. Possibly some method of playing back video without too badly draining resources? I don't know.
 
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