iris settings for best picture quality

[deckardScott1980]

Just wondering when shooting with the dvx100a, there are many ways to get a great picture. Wondering what is the best way to get a nice image, that is over exposed or to dark that it causes grain. I want to light it well, but then adjust the iris so that i get a nice pic, not to bright or too dark. how can i acheive this????

 

[Joshua Provost]

Technically speaking, any lens system has an iris sweet spot where the image has the least distoration and is razor sharp. On the DVX, this probab around F4 or F5.6. The drawback is that at F5.6, there is very deep depth of field. So, a lot of people try to work closer to F2.8 for shallow depth of field.

A lot of people just light and then adjust the iris to get the right exposure. However, it is also pratical to work the other way around, select a target F stop and light to that stop. That's how most films are shot. So, if you have a target F stop you want to work with, whatever it is, then you can build up your lighting to get the right exposure. You can use ND on the lens to fine tune the exposure.