How do i overcome exposure issues like this...?

B

benandaim

Well-known member
Hey guys,

I went out and shot some LEX footage this evening. I used the zebras (1 at 80% the other at 105%)

Anyway i got the footage home, had a look and the highlights look like VGA 256 colours. How does this posterized look occur? it's terrible!!! The other subjects i were shooting looked properly exposed so i don't know what i've done wrong. Here are a couple of grabs.

rail.jpg


oval.jpg


My understanding was that you set the zebras at 105% and stop down until the lines disappear then go a bit below that...i dunno!

Obviously i'm very new to shooting with a 35mm adapter so any advice would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Ben :thumbsup:
 
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Doesn´t look all that bad to me. A simple problem of too much light in the background or too little on the subject.
To me the subject seems well exposed and that is the most important. You don´t want to be a zebra-slave and end up with an underexposed actor. And if that happens make sure to bring a lot of light to beat the sun ;-)
 
I don't have any experience shooting with 35mm adapters so take this for what its worth, it just looks like it was blown out, now even though you tried to address this with zebras it might just have been impossible to fix if the background is that bright while the foreground is that dark. The best fix is to simply light the subject in the foreground allowing you to not use such a large aperture and not blow out the background.

But it could be something to do with the adapter, i couldn't tell ya if thats the case.

edit: whoops, Alpi got here first!
 
I also have encountered, that blown out whites from 35mm adapters sometimes look strange, like you said posterized or somehow "digitaly limited".
But your footage looks like it was shot before dusk, the sun still visible but very very low.
On a cloudless sky, this will mean extrem contrast between the parts of the scene still being hit directly by the sun and the shadow parts (there´s not much sunlight spilled around because of the sun´s low angle, buildings, hills, trees will block a lot...)
So it´s almost like filming in an interior on a bright sunny day.
So either bring some HMI to knock up your subject a few stops or position your subject where it still gets hit by the sun and use reflectors to lower the contrast, or
simply don´t inlude the sky in your frame...
There´s one more: include the sky in frame, but only in the upper part, without the subject being in front of it and then use a ND grad to bring down exposure of the sky...

Hope that helps, good luck!
 
Spartacus is right. You could do with a mattbox and some ND grads. It would instantly solve the problem, giving the same exposure on the girl but darkening the sky down.

There is a question on another thread asking why do you need a mattebox. These images explain why.
 
Steve Shovlar said:
Spartacus is right. You could do with a mattbox and some ND grads. It would instantly solve the problem, giving the same exposure on the girl but darkening the sky down.

There is a question on another thread asking why do you need a mattebox. These images explain why.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but have to disagree with that comment. ND grads are fine if your shooting a vista or want to stylise your look. But to say that it would 'instantly solve your problem' is wrong. Agreed it would darken down the sky but it would also affect the exposure of the foreground (in this example, the talent).

I'd recommend using a screen behind the talent using a double black net. This would bring your exposure levels down enough to get some detail in your blown out areas.

See Image Below:

out.php
 
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First off, dont set your zebras to 105. Between 80 and 90 will help you with this. This of course it will mean that your going to have to stop down and add light on your subject. A bounce will work for this type of exterior shot.

Stop down your SLR lense or use an ND filter infront of it to bring down the amount of light hitting the GG. You cant over expose a GG but you sure can make it give you a bloom effect. Thats mostly what you are seeing here.
 
steadicamsteel said:
I'm sorry but have to disagree with that comment. ND grads are fine if your shooting a vista or want to stylise your look. But to say that it would 'instantly solve your problem' is wrong. Agreed it would darken down the sky but it would also affect the exposure of the foreground (in this example, the talent).

I'd recommend using a screen behind the talent using a double black net. This would bring your exposure levels down enough to get some detail in your blown out areas.

See Image Below:

out.php
Click to expand...

Maybe you should have read my original post where I explained that a ND grad will only work if the subject isn´t infront of the sky...

The use of a net to bring down exposure is valuable, although this is most practical in news/ENG scenarios with fixed positions (both camera and subject)
When you ad movement to camera and subject or need to get wide (you won´t get away with only CUs or mediums in most cases...) the net won´t cut it...

I forgot one other solution in my previous listing: shoot at another time of the day :cheesy:
 
a quick fix in post would be to desaturate your highlights so that the colors burn off to white instead of yellow, then white.
 
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i think you have to use polarizer filter ;) this way it will make sky darker, while leaving subject lit... my 2cents
 
steadicamsteel said:
I'm sorry but have to disagree with that comment. ND grads are fine if your shooting a vista or want to stylise your look. But to say that it would 'instantly solve your problem' is wrong. Agreed it would darken down the sky but it would also affect the exposure of the foreground (in this example, the talent).

I'd recommend using a screen behind the talent using a double black net. This would bring your exposure levels down enough to get some detail in your blown out areas.

See Image Below:

out.php
Click to expand...


Yes fair comment. I wasn't thinking directly about those particular images more of correct exposure foreground with a blown out sky, in which case a ND grad would work, as long as the talents head isn't up in the sky part of the image.
 
Check out the KNEE function. It should help prevent overexposure.

For this kind of shot, with lots of distance between foreground and
background, a screen could work well also.

Les
 
Only an opinion but I'd have made sure I was in CineD for the most dynamic range. That combined with a bounce card to bring up exposure on the girl.

You can't knock down the sky in that shot without also bringing down exposure on the girl, so you're only option, as I see it, is to bring up the exposure on the girl.

Although knowing that video's strength is in the toe I would have lowered overall exposure 1/2 to 1 stop while keeping master black at 0 to get as much shadow detail as possible.
 
seems like an ugly moment of the day and where she's standing bounce wouldn't do much. Silhouette her or call it a wrap?
 
bring your whites down, and maybe add a slight yellow to the gain.

Also, what i like to do with overexposed areas, is add a slight diffusion glow with magic bullet. Gives it a film edge.
 
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