How to correctly expose everytime?

Yeah you’re right. But I’m talking about the light meter (when I press the auto focus button on the back of the 7D) indicator. Depending on the amount of light you are shooting in it dances up and down the scale. When it hits dead center (you would think that’s the optimal setting) the footage is usually blown out in certain areas. So I adjust the amount of light coming in to where it dances one click below center and my footage comes out nicely exposed. It’s helped me.
 
Ian-T said:
Ha...and here I thought I was the only one. I underexpose by one and sometimes two. When I'm dead center it means I've overexposed.
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That makes 3 of us. There is no way to judge exposure looking at the view screen in direct sunlight when your exposure is f22. You can't even see the frame.
Lucky for us they included a great through the lens spot meter at no extra cost.
You just have to trust your light meter. Works every time.
 
Ian-T said:
Yeah you’re right. But I’m talking about the light meter (when I press the auto focus button on the back of the 7D) indicator. Depending on the amount of light you are shooting in it dances up and down the scale. When it hits dead center (you would think that’s the optimal setting) the footage is usually blown out in certain areas. So I adjust the amount of light coming in to where it dances one click below center and my footage comes out nicely exposed. It’s helped me.
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Yeah, sorry I wasn't really replying to your post, just stating in general. This is sound practice though!

If there was live view zebra striping it might help a little in judging an image, though after practice you can usually judge an image's exposure just from looking at it - in terms of areas of high and low contrast.
 
Quick and easy way to meter light 90% perfectly everytime. Buy a cheap 1GB Compact Flas Card. Take out your card for video and put the 1GB card in when you are metering light. (Just remember to take it back out again when you start filming). In live view, get the settings close to what you want and take a picture. Set your picture playback mode to "Info" this will give you the picture and the histogram and all the areas that are over exposed (they'll be blinking). I've done this for all my test shoots, but I have a photography background and that's how we meter when we do weddings. We have to meter quickly and a light meter just slows things down. You can generally get something within 1/2 stop easy especially indoors. Outdoors it's a little more difficult especially if you want the sky in the shot.
 
badhairdude said:
Question,

this article

http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/2009/08/exposure-and-metering/

says to over expose because it retains more information than under exposing. I know this is for stills, is it another way with video? It makes sense but all you guys are under exposing.... Hm.
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You have a good point about not being underexposed. It has always been the case in video that any area that is underexposed, but has some light on it will be a good place to look for noise. The more even the lighting the better the image will appear.
These sensors seem to overexpose very easily and become very burned out so I've found slightly under is safer than slightly over.
A light meter is still the best way to evaluate your scene. The view screen is very risky.
 
Essential Tips:

Turn LCD brightness from Auto To Manual.

Select brightness to 3 or 4. 4 is like the gamma of most Contemporary Mac Screens.

Don't use a still to judge the exposure histogram. Roll 2 seconds of video and then look at the histo. Take the Time to Learn what the histogram means to you given the results you want from the shot. What does it mean if it's all pegged up in the left side? Probably too dark - or a very low contrast dark scene. If it's pegged high left and high right? High Contrast scene. if it plateaus in the middle-ish(nice bell curve) milder contrast - good RANGE of tones recorded. After a while you will get an idea of what your exposure is like compared to what you are looking for in the histo, and then you will eventually be able to shape the histo to your suiting with lighting, filtration, and iris adjustment.

Use Highlight Alert. This will very quickly show you where overexposed areas are. It's okay if a pinpoint is flashing if you are looking at a chrome bumper in full sun - but if someone's face is flashing you have a problem.
 
I just use the histogram. It's all you need...

I wouldn't try and underexpose too much either. Just push it all so close to overexposing, but still have detail in your highlights. It's the way to go. Definitely worth the time to pop off a few pictures and check it out.
 
RyanT said:
I just use the histogram. It's all you need...

I wouldn't try and underexpose too much either. Just push it all so close to overexposing, but still have detail in your highlights. It's the way to go. Definitely worth the time to pop off a few pictures and check it out.
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Dare to compare:

Stills histogram vs. video histogram. You may be surprised.
 
quick question.

whats the difference between exposure and aperture on the t2i/7d?

I mean, the manual seems to use them interchangeably. I did try googling it but didn't get exactly what i wanted.

For video, i'm guessing aper/exposure is just changing the fstop...but is it different for stills? I see a different ruler line thing for exposure compensation
 
badhairdude said:
quick question.

whats the difference between exposure and aperture on the t2i/7d?

I mean, the manual seems to use them interchangeably. I did try googling it but didn't get exactly what i wanted.

For video, i'm guessing aper/exposure is just changing the fstop...but is it different for stills? I see a different ruler line thing for exposure compensation
Click to expand...

3 ways to control your image
1 Iris/Aperture/f-Stop
-The smaller the number the bigger the opening the shallower the focus the more light let in.

2 ISO/ASA
The higher the number the more "sensitive" the exposure is to light. If you have too little light, but dont want to change your focus field, you can make your image more sensitive to light and exposed better. If you have too much light, make it less sensitive.

3 Shutter Speed
How long light is allowed to reach your Film/CCD/CMOS and blur control.
The less time light has, the darker your image. The higher the number, the less time exposed. If you want fast action raw feel with no motion blur, you can put it very high to have a "raw" moving freezeframe feel, just make sure you have the light to back it up.

These will all affect your exposure
 
Back when I first started shooting 35mm I learned the zone system. With it you can meter any part of the image and use the reading to calculate where in the zone that particular tone would rest. I recommend some reading on this system. It's been great to me over the years.
 
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