Indoor Lighting for HVX200

I

idealsceneprod

New member
Hi everybody,

My name is Val, and I'm an indie filmmaker out of Austin, Texas, and I'm shooting my first feature at the end of the year (www.AmnesiaTheMovie.com), on the HVX200 (which I love), and have an indoor lighting question.

I've been shooting a bunch of things indoors, and I seem to always have noise in the footage, and it's driving me crazy. I'm shooting 720p 24pn.

I try to keep my skin tones between 30-50% and they come out decent, but sometimes with noise. The surroundings though, looks like mud... full of noise.

Anybody know just how much light I should have in there? I don't own a light meter yet, so I've only been using the Marker on the HVX.

My test room is an exercise room with overhead fluorescent tubes, to which I add a 200w CFL fixture and a 400w one, and occasionally use my 126-LED panels for close-ups.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Val Gameiro
Writer, Director, Filmmaker
Austin, Texas
 
Out of curiosity, when you say "skin tones," are you shooting caucasian skin, or darker? I seem to remember conventional wisdom being 70-80% being the relatively magic number for caucasian skin, and 50-60% being in the ballpark for darker tones.

Someone with more/different experience can correct me if I'm wrong, though.
 
I was going for 40-50% on Caucasian skin tones. Have you had success with 70-80%? Doesn't that blow out the highlights? As I understand it, it's better to underexpose a little than overexpose, because the shadows hold more detail than highlights on digital video cameras... I'm just learning, so I may have misunderstood...
 
You (typically) want Caucasian skin tones to hit from 60-70, with the brightest parts at 70. No, that doesn't blow out the highlights -- the blowouts don't start until 99 or above.

Yes, it's better to underexpose than to overexpose, but you don't want to do either. You want to nail it. If you underexpose, you get noise (as you've seen), and you also rob yourself of a couple of stops of dynamic range. Video is already limited enough in that regard, so go for the full range.
 
Wow, well, I guess that makes sense. So, if I understand correctly, I should have the background and surroundings fairly well illuminated as well, no? If I want to keep the noise down in those areas too.

At what % level does noise start to enter in? Meaning, what Marker reading should I have on the background so as not to have noise?

I wonder if film is as light hungry as the HVX200...

Thanks a lot for the info, David :)
 
Noise lives primarily from 2 to about 40, worse in the lower part, of course. Probably worst in the 20s.

If you light your subjects (Caucasian) in the 60-70 range and light the surroundings to match naturally, then you should be good to go. Make sure your whites don't blow out; with the same level of illumination as what's on a Caucasian face, they'll probably hit around 95. You can put pure white objects all the way up to 99, and to get full benefit of the dynamic range, you generally should be pretty close to that.

You should definitely learn and use the zebras.
 
I shoot corporate and have to be wary when shooting interviews with the hvx200/hpx171,
regardless of how well lit your subject is, certain colours produce a lot of noise, I don't know the science but I'm guessing due to where they sit in the spectrum,
when people wear grey suits for example, they always produce noise, as do other mid range colours,
 
Hi everyone, thanks a lot for the info. I'm heading off to one of my locations to do some camera tests and collect footage for a teaser I can use during my Kickstarter or IndieGogo campaign. We have a 6-weekend and 30-weeknight schedule to get the film in the can, which is 1 month less than I had originally anticipated, so that's good news. All things being equal we'll get the budget and make the film, and get it released middle of next year, hopefully... fingers crossed!
 
Hi Grant,

I've been running my tests with Cine D (primarily) and Cine V, and I tried B-press as well (but not very fond of it).

Do you have any recommendations?

Thanks,
Val
 
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