Over exposing my footage, what am I doing wrong?

[Daomay]

I am shooting almost every week but as a hobby. Some shot I take it is fine but most of my shot are over expose. What am I doing wrong? I am still learning about ISO, shutter speed because I just started doing this 3 months ago. I keep loosing the sky, meaning the cloud just become white instead of shape of form. I know it is a stupid question but I don't want to move on to the next step like learning about grading etc until I get most of my shot perfectly right. Any suggesting?

Here is an example.

password is = 1111

It is so frustrating.

 

[Babu]

Nice video. Like the slow-mo. The only way to get great exposure of the sky is to expose for the sky. If you're shooting shadows in the same frame well the blacks will be pitch black. Until you shoot RAW or a form of a LOG profile the only way is to light the shadows while exposing for the highlights or shoot with the sun at your back.

 

[Cassius]

Expose for the sky, though sometimes you might have to push it to something in between. Then you have to push and pull the highlights and shadows in post until it looks right. Dynamic range is a limiting factor of all cameras. Your issue here is one of understanding what 'overexposed' means. Exposure depends on your subject. If the person sitting on the concrete in the video thumbnail is your subject you aren't overexposed. But your highlights are blown, which is the issue you actually mean to address.

 

[richg101]

grad filter is the key.

 

[Daomay]

Thanks you all for the kind advise. I use PP2 and PP4 a lot because I like the skin tone on people. It give me that nice clean looks. I like my slow motion at around 200FPS but the shutter speed I believe is lock at 200 where I can only go up. I also have the ISO or the aperture to play with. I notice that when I look into my monitor before I record the slow motion or start buffing, the darker the shadow or the darker my subjects the more I can pick up with the sky in the background where the white is not so blown out. I think some shots I might have the setting just right but most shots I might have the setting all wrong.

 

[Daomay]

grad filter is the key.

sorry rich what is a grad filter?

 

[David W. Jones]

A set of neutral density grad filters as noted.

 

[David G. Smith]

A "Grad Filter" is a graduated neutral density filter. They are graduated from the highest level of neutral density to clear across the filter.

Here is the Wikipedia article on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_neutral_density_filter

They are also available with graduated colors also, which can be used to add color to the sky. If you have seen the movie "Top Gun", and other films from Tony Scott, you have seen colored neutral density filters used for a heavy effect.

 

[William_Robinette]

I wouldn't say anything here is really overexposed. You are loosing the sky in some places but your exposures for your subjects looks bang on - and that's many times more important then absolutely holding everything in frame. I don't shoot on the 700 so I don't know if you can get more highlight range out of different picture profiles but this doesn't look bad at all.

Sometime our job is to decide what to loose, as opposed to trying to keep detail in everything as the risk of out subjects looking poorly.

 

[Daomay]

I had a look at the grad filter. That might solve my problem I will certainly give it a try. I think William has a point I love getting a nice skin tones with this camera, if I push dynamic range on the camera I loose a bit light and everything seem to be darker where I might gain more in the sky. I think over time I will get better with this camera....maybe because I am still stuck with the kit lens hehe. Every time I am out shooting and some guy with a Mark 2 who see my camera and see the slow motion through my monitor....they all seem to fall in love with it. This camera is a joy to shoot with but I get the next step is to learn how to grade my footage properly.

 

[David G. Smith]

Remember with a grad filter, the darkening and/or coloring of the filter will affect any person or object in the frame that extends into the image area of the darkening and/or coloring. So, framing is important. From your footage, I don't know if I saw any shots where this might not be an issue. Moving shots could also be problematic with a grad filter. For similar footage, tweaks to your exposure, picture profiles and grading will probably serve you well.

 

[eheath]

What made you justify buying a $8k camera when you didn't know what iso, shutter or aperture was? You're lacking in your dynamic range, meaning your clouds are losing their detail while your mids are exposed correctly. There are different PP settings that can help you but only to a certain point.

 

[Nirv]

What made you justify buying a $8k camera when you didn't know what iso, shutter or aperture was? You're lacking in your dynamic range, meaning your clouds are losing their detail while your mids are exposed correctly. There are different PP settings that can help you but only to a certain point.

Indeed. But can we be sure those clouds are not just 100-109 values that have been clipped?

Like soooo many FS100 users blamed their camera poor highlight performance yet hadn't got a clue about superbrights or used software that arbitrarily clipped them or they'd used profiles they'd downloaded which had poor highlight handling (there are many!).

Maybe there's a bit to be gained by a bit of highlight roll off in post? How about the OP post a grab of their waveforms to see if there's anythings left to find?

To my mind the OP did a good job of exposing the scenes and concentrated on getting the skin right, the audience will not be looking at blown out clouds only pixel perverts on forums do that. As a viewer it's far more disconcerting if the subject of the scene is under exposed to save the sky which no one should be interested in unless it's a landscape shot.

Grads are not the way to go when shooting people! If there is any highlight detail left then a Grad in Post would be a good choice.

 

[Gene Sung]

Just out of curiosity, what are you setting your Knee too? I've been keeping the knee in the low 90s when shooting with sky. Not sure if I should go even lower on the FS700.

 

[Justin Kuhn]

Someone was saying the auto-knee on the FS100 resulted in really excellent footage, I'm wondering if it's the same on the FS700...

 

[Daomay]

What made you justify buying a $8k camera when you didn't know what iso, shutter or aperture was? You're lacking in your dynamic range, meaning your clouds are losing their detail while your mids are exposed correctly. There are different PP settings that can help you but only to a certain point.

Eheath, I have a restaurant & bar plus a spar which was pass on to me. I have over 24 staffs. I have a wife and kid and I am in my 30. I love film since I was a little kid. I have alway wanted to do film or do short film. At the start of last year I told myself I could keep running my business and be happy with a wife & kid or I could stop going to vimeo and see all those creative mind make beautiful moving image. I don't very have the time to go to back to school to study film. I do have time to go out shooting every weekend. I am still new at this and I don't use my camera to make money I just want to shoot and refine my technic and skill. Some people might say why buy the FS700 when you can get a GH2 when you are starting off. Why get a Toyota when I can get a BMW. Anyway after listening to what most people have to say. I think I need to get my aperture and ISO just right before I start filming. I have only started shooting less then 3 months. I hope I get better over time. At the moment I am enjoying shooting with the FS700 very much. I am also grateful that with the FS700 and FS100 community such as this are very helpful when I encounter big or small problem. The true is I don't even have a tripod hehe. I am still stuck with the kit lens and a $280 slider.

 

[Daomay]

Just out of curiosity, what are you setting your Knee too? I've been keeping the knee in the low 90s when shooting with sky. Not sure if I should go even lower on the FS700.

I don't even know where that is but I will look into it.

Auto Knee function(Seen in some cameras), Usually when you adjust levels to shoot people or scenery against a strongly lit background, the background will be totally whited-out, with buildings and other objects blurred. In this case, the AUTO KNEE function reproduces the background clearly. This function is effective when:
1. The subject is a person positioned in the shade under a clear sky.
2. The subject is a person inside a car or building, and you also want to capture the background visible through a window.
3. The subject is a high contrast scene.

 

[William_Robinette]

What made you justify buying a $8k camera when you didn't know what iso, shutter or aperture was? You're lacking in your dynamic range, meaning your clouds are losing their detail while your mids are exposed correctly. There are different PP settings that can help you but only to a certain point.

Right but he's got emotion and nailed the feeling. What else matters?

the audience will not be looking at blown out clouds only pixel perverts on forums do that.

Truth.

99% of this forum could benefit from heading that.

 

[Nirv]

Someone was saying the auto-knee on the FS100 resulted in really excellent footage, I'm wondering if it's the same on the FS700...

That is certainly true when using the Standard gamma curve. The auto knee is 99% accurate and as good as I can set manually with the odd time it guesses wrong which is not often.

Do NOT use it with the CineTone gamma curves it's just wrong and you're better off manually setting it per scene which is a 5 sec job.

I don't have the FS700 so don't know how it compares to the FS100 but surely worth trying if anyone is struggling with knee and slope settings.

 

[Jusgorilla]

what Nirv said. Have you looked to see if you haven't lost that extra 109 superbright in post? Most NLE's just clip the highlights above 100 IRE.
If on Premiere, throw a "fast color correcter as 1st filter (top in heir achy) and set "output white" to "235" and check on the vector scope if there was actually more headroom than you thought.
If on FCP, then throw on a "procamp" filter first (not sure which of the 2 sliders) and play with the slider that deals with highlights to bring them into 100 IRE (check vectorscope while doing this)