Newbie does interview

G

gbadgley

Active member
Howdy, I've been shooting a bunch of interviews with the Lumix 14-140 in the community gardens where I live. This time I decided to go with a Nikkor 35mm f1.2. The talent was an award winning Canadian photographer so that was a bit intimidating from the start. I set up no problem, and tested the audio and it was good. The problem was with the clipping. It turned out that his face was fairly blown out( I have no monitor). The rest of it was great, background was out of focus, composition was good, color balance everything, except for the clipping. Now I had sent my Zebras to 65 percent. When I was trying to get the exposure right I kept dropping the ND filters, and I think I was up to about ND 3, and they still would not go away. It was early morning with a nice soft light. I guess I should have dropped down to ND 4, but it was just so unexpected with the nice soft light. With the Lumix I didn't have this issue at all. I think I might have rattled myself right from the start when I tried to white balance to a white card which when I tried it said I exceeded the level. We tried different approaches but the first take made the whole image green. On my second take I just went with the 5.6K preset and that worked except for the clipping. So, my main issue is with the clipping. I guess I should have dropped it down to ND4, right? Looking back I should have gone there, but I was intimated and there was time pressure as well. It was not a relaxing experience!!!
 
What was the f-stop on the Nikkor lens, where do you normally have the f-stop on the Lumix, and what was your ISO/gain set to?
 
Suspect your ISO setting was way too high. For interviews I'm normally @ ISO 200. Understand the pressure. I try and set my camera up ahead of time so I can concentrate on exposure and composition at the shoot. Sorry to hear you shoot did not go well.
 
How did you gauge exposure?

If you were going by eye from the monitor in an exterior day setting, it's not surprising you overexposed... the LCD has horrible glare and always makes your exposure look far darker than it actually is. From the factory, it's also miscalibrated with low brightness (from what I've seen).

Future solution #1 is to calibrate your LCD. #2 is to trust your zebras, waveform, and spot meters. #3 is to get a simple LCD hood for daytime shooting. #4 is to use the EVF as a better guage. These are all steps you can take that will work until you decide you need a monitor.
 
Live by the waveform ...or die the death of a thousand cuts if you ignore it or dont understand it!

There is absolutely no reason to clip footage if one uses it.

BTW - I am wondering how the OP used the zebras that he set up?
 
I set my first zebra to 65-70 as an exposure reference for Caucasian-esque skin, then switch to the second zebra at 95-100 to keep an eye on clipping.
 
Okay, I had my zebras set the same as Bern did. It has been suggested that my ISO was too high. I have to be honest here, and that I have been a bit of a turncoat lately, and have been shooting in the default video mode. I'm doing some outdoor stuff, and it seems to give a little sharper image. But this default doesn't use the ISO scale but DBS whatever that is. The default is 0db which is where I was, and there are two lower settings -3db and -6db. Should I have chosen a lower setting?
 
I would suggest spending some quality time with the manual and/or Barry's AF100 video (which is quite good).
What you're doing now is going to give you sub-optimal results ... you bought a good camera, might as well
learn how to get the most out of it.

jeff
 
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