Huge Tornado footage / low light /pushing HMC40 to the max!

thabo

Well-known member
Thought I'd share footage of a huge tornado I shot on Monday June 20th in NE. Pushing the little HMC40 to the max with a low light scene file. Thanks for all the post on scene files guys! The BBC were with us and had a AJ-HPX2700 so I'm sure they got better footage. (for the impatient, the $Money$ shot is at 1:28 onwards!) God I wish I had a Sony F3 with me shooting 444!


Regards
Richard

Jacana Productions
www.JacanaProductions.com
 
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Yeah

Yeah

Yeah, I know what you mean, unless you're actually there you can never really appreciate the majesty of the bugger and also how it'll rip your limps off like a rag doll!! These things are really hard to film and even the IMAX footage I've seen doesn't look that good.
 
That footage turned out amazing! I'd never have guessed that was a HMC40 if I was never told. I didn't know it was THAT good in low light. Mind sharing the profile settings? I've been un-successful in low light settings.
 
Scene File for low light

Scene File for low light

Here are my scene file settings that I used. I pushed down the detail levels and then in post sharpened up the video a little and boosted the contrast a little I think. I tried numerous things in post to get the brightness up but when you've got bouncy footage and lots of detail in the shadows (the tornadoes debris cloud) not much really helps The BBC are sending me a DVD of the final program that uses the footage they shot so it'll be interesting to see how it looks and I'm 100% sure they have better footage. Mike the camera guy had an $18k lens on his camera but their objective was to get their presenter talking with a tornado in the background - they were very lucky! All scene file setting I got were from the various post on this forum. I also have my gain limited to 12db and I try to keep my zoom level fixed at 93. I did not have my nice shotgun mic on the camera as it just gets in the way.


Scene 2 =====
===========
Low Light
Detail Level -6
V detail -7
Detail Corning +5
Chroma Level -2
Chroma Phase 0
Color Temp 0
Master Ped -4
A. iris level 0
DRS off
Gamma B.Press
Knee High
Matrix Norm 2
Skin tone DTL off

Scene 1 =====
============
Normal/Bright Light
Detail Level 0
V detail 0
Detail Corning +1
Chroma Level 0
Chroma Phase 0
Color Temp 0
Master Ped 0
A. iris level 0
DRS off
Gamma Cine-like-v
Knee Auto
Matrix Cine-like
Skin tone DTL off
 
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