Is it better to adjust exposure on the lens or on the camera?

A

Amadou Coulibaly

Member
I have a question about adaptors.

Is it better to adjust exposure on the lens or on the camera? If I am overexposed, is it better to close down the lens on the adaptor or is it better to close down the iris on the camera? What will give better results?
 
It simply depends on what you want. That's the perk of using these adapters with digital cameras, you have 2 iris's to work with. If you'd like a deeper focus, stop down the 35mm lens more. If you want a shallower focus for this particular shot, stop down the camera. Or find some happy middle ground. Your in focus areas will be their sharpest if you're able to stop down both a little bit if that affects your decision any.
 
I'd definitely call it a perk. You don't get any of this in any other camera system similar to it.

It does depend on what you want, but to elaborate:

Do you want hyper shallow? If so then--

1. stop the camera lens down (Careful beyond 5.6 ~ 8. You start seeing dust if it's anywhere in your system)
2. Use ND Filters
3. External Filters
4. Then use the lens.

Or, Do you just want to slice light? if so then--

1. Stop the camera down
2. Stop the lens down (Careful beyond F8. Most lenses are garbage beyond this point)
3. INternal NDs.

A lot of the time I'll ride the camera iris and taking lens before I hit an ND filter.

So pick your poison! Just remember that the more you stop down your camera and the dirtier it is inside the more dust you're prone to see. The reverse of that is your image gets a bit sharper the more you employ the camera's iris
 
what kholi said,

control exposure with camera lens, control your depth of field with your 35mm lens.
 
Amadou Coulibaly said:
I usually leave my camera Iris on Automatic and the lens wide open. The camera stays at 1.9 most of the time anayways.
Click to expand...

Don't do that unless you're doing some hectic run'n'gun and don't have time to set your exposure manually! Auto iris will result in exposure fluctuations. Also, it's good to stop down the camera lens by one or two stops if you can afford it (when there's a lot of light) - it improves the edge to edge sharpness.
Manual mode with waveform monitor or zebras is the way to go.

I usually start with setting the 35mm lens aperture to get required DOF. Then set the exposure with camera lens and/or ND filter and in-camera gain.
 
many video cams overexpose ,we all remember white purple human skin tones from video cameras ,our skin doesnt look like that when we look at it , auto exposure is definitely NO,but sometimes i go to auto and then manual to make a couple of steps down (like 2 or 3),but even this doesnt help in many situations and its better to have own and controlled light than figting with the sun.
To remove whites i didnt used 35mm lens ,it just doesnt work like that on adapter, i use only camera exposure to get rid of ugly white holes.
 
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