Poor results on exteriors with Letus.
- Thread starter jacotte
- Start date
Taylor Rudd
Veteran
1) learn to expose
2) learn to light
3) post screen grabs
2) learn to light
3) post screen grabs
Richard J. Johnson
Joystick Member
agreed. It looks more like a camera issue then an adapter one. although most of it is fixable in post I would do some research and play around with the settings to get it right the first time.
DEPTH OF PHIL
Well-known member
Turn detail off on the EX1, it appears blown out , set your zebra on, lower it to 80 if it is sending you the wrong messages. White balance warmer, Use picture profiles to enrich your colors and crush your blacks, Also check your focus, it seems a little soft. I agree, A lot is correctable in post, so no worries
but generally you should be able to achieve a much more vibrant and sharper image to begin with from the Letus/EX1 combo, is this the optimized achromat from Letus you are using?
Cheers
but generally you should be able to achieve a much more vibrant and sharper image to begin with from the Letus/EX1 combo, is this the optimized achromat from Letus you are using?
Cheers
Last edited:
You can't fix the washed out whites in post. They are clearly overexposed.
I was wondering if the problem comes from the IRIS on the camera or the IRIS on the lens. I tend to leave the camera IRIS on automatic and the Nikon lens as open as possible (2.8 in this case). I must have made a mistake here somewhere.
Whenever I expose I have two options: Opening the Nikon lens and closing the EX1 iris or closing the Nikon lens and opening the EX1 lens. What exactly are the differences and advantages of one over the other?
Finally, leaving the EX1 iris on automatic yields good results for me. I will stop fiddling with the iris manually because I think that's where mistakes are made.
I was wondering if the problem comes from the IRIS on the camera or the IRIS on the lens. I tend to leave the camera IRIS on automatic and the Nikon lens as open as possible (2.8 in this case). I must have made a mistake here somewhere.
Whenever I expose I have two options: Opening the Nikon lens and closing the EX1 iris or closing the Nikon lens and opening the EX1 lens. What exactly are the differences and advantages of one over the other?
Finally, leaving the EX1 iris on automatic yields good results for me. I will stop fiddling with the iris manually because I think that's where mistakes are made.
It depends. If it's over 100 IRE then those details are gone, but anything below 80 IRE or so will look overexposed, but by lowering the white output there are details that can be brought back. Looking at those grabs I'm almost certain the majority of the details can be brought back.
That's the mistake right there. Never, ever shoot anything on automatic as a professional. Never. The camera doesn't know what level of exposure you want so it tends to do a "best guess" where it exposes to the average level within a scene so things aren't too bright or too dark. That's why the people in the foreground are blown out; the camera couldn't expose for them because it would make the faces in the background too dark, so it splits the difference. But in that shot you don't really care about the background so the correct decision would have been to expose for the subject. The camera won't know this. Always set your zebra and set exposure yourself.
Stopping down the Nikon increases the DOF and increases sharpness (up to a point), but with the Extreme you can't stop down past f4 or else you start seeing grain. The EX1's iris should be used for exposure as there is no grain limit.
Never trust the camera to make the decision for you. That's why you paid for the extra manual control.
Auto iris = bad. Really. Most of the auto settings on pro cameras are remarkably awful. Never use auto iris, autofocus unless it's some type of emergency and you have to capture something and don't have time to set the rig up.
If you haven't seen it, The Vortex Media DVD on the EX-1 delivers a great explanation about this.
If you haven't seen it, The Vortex Media DVD on the EX-1 delivers a great explanation about this.
Exposure has a marked effect on color rendition. Overexposed footage will cause the color to appear dull and low contrast. The other problem with that grab is the the white balance is off; it's too cool overall which together with the high exposure results in a purplish tone overall.