FS7: Shooting Christmas Lights

I

infohou

Well-known member
Hey Folks,

Y'all want to help out a notalentwannabe shoot some lights? Around the corner and south a couple of miles is a nice house with many lights. Assuming they have not taken them down, of course. Many folks here still have their lights up.

So I will put the Nikon 24-70/2.8G on the Speedbooster Ultra and shoot Slog3/Slog3gamma.cine . Assuming Cine Meter II does not give me anything useful, any idea on exposure? I do not want to blowout the lights. Nothing screams VIDEO like blown highlights in my opinion.

Got a few minutes for you folks to think as the line here at Starbucks is quite long.

Thanks in advance,
Robert
PS: Using 23.98 .
 
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I use light meters quite often for shooting on my F55, but, there are times where it's not always possible. Sure, you could try reflective mode with your light meter and measure f64 or something crazy like that but the other option is to use your zebras stripes built into the camera (or waveform monitor) and set the light source themselves between say 65% - 70% (for slog3).

Remember that slog3 places a 90% white card at around 61% in slog3 so once you start going over 61% you'll get closer to the clipping point.

ScreenShot2014-08-21at55735PM_zps0aed166b.png


I have written a variety of exposure methods in my Ultimate Exposure Guide for Sony F5/F55 (FS7) so check it out if you want to get a copy www.cinetiny.com/exposeguide
 
Something else you might consider is attempting to shoot using several exposure methods. This very well could be a situation for using hi/lo key, particularly since you really need to preserve the highlights. You could also shoot with an EI of 800 or 1000. Worth trying one of the Hypergammas as well in Custom Mode.

Interested in hearing how it turns out.

Ned
 
starcentral said:
I have written a variety of exposure methods in my Ultimate Exposure Guide for Sony F5/F55 (FS7) so check it out if you want to get a copy www.cinetiny.com/exposeguide
Click to expand...

Thanks, just got the pdf. You have a bigger book that you are updating for the FS7, right?

BTW, reportadly I can't use waveform if I have the monitor LUT on so I guess I can switch back and forth.

Thanks,
Robert
 
nsoltz said:
Something else you might consider is attempting to shoot using several exposure methods. This very well could be a situation for using hi/lo key, particularly since you really need to preserve the highlights. You could also shoot with an EI of 800 or 1000. Worth trying one of the Hypergammas as well in Custom Mode.

Interested in hearing how it turns out.

Ned
Click to expand...

Yep, believe or not I was thinking something like that. HG7 is supposedly good for low light but I have not tried it.

The house I was going to shoot turns out to be not as I remembered it. Hope to head out again later and see if the big houses north of me still have the lights on. Gonna have the scanner on for possible nightcrawling.

Thanks for the ideas,
Robert
 
Christmas lights are very tough. I did not film this on my FS7: https://vimeo.com/115936793 but did so in Slog2 on my A7S in 4K with the Shogun. It's hard to keep the lights from blowing out if you also want to capture anything around it. I went for slog to try and capture as much from the highlights as possible.

I noticed the A7S too really clips blue channel with blue LEDs. FS7 is similar.

With the FS7 I might have used an HG - probably the 800 one, to minimize noise. I was shooting some shots in that piece at 80,000 ISO so I am not sure the FS7 could have kept up in the low light shots.
 
starcentral said:
I use light meters quite often for shooting on my F55, but, there are times where it's not always possible. Sure, you could try reflective mode with your light meter and measure f64 or something crazy like that but the other option is to use your zebras stripes built into the camera (or waveform monitor) and set the light source themselves between say 65% - 70% (for slog3).

Remember that slog3 places a 90% white card at around 61% in slog3 so once you start going over 61% you'll get closer to the clipping point.

ScreenShot2014-08-21at55735PM_zps0aed166b.png


I have written a variety of exposure methods in my Ultimate Exposure Guide for Sony F5/F55 (FS7) so check it out if you want to get a copy www.cinetiny.com/exposeguide
Click to expand...

I have to say Dennis Ultimate Exposure Guide for F series cameras is something everyone should read. It is a quick read with loads of information. Will it solve all of your problems, No. But will it give you the start to solve them on your own, Yes. A lot of the question on this forum would be answered with a once through read and then you have the reference to go back and tweak. Just my thoughts on the subject

No, I do not work for Dennis, and I paid for my UEG and it was worth every penny.
 
Thanks for the kind words Paul. The guide will never solve your problems but will give you the information you need to help you solve them for yourself :) That's the best it can get. Every scenario is different, combine with that the codec or gamma curve you are using and things can really turn into a matrix of possibilities.

Regarding slog vs cine/hypergammas, there's already some good evidence on the forums that cine/hypergammas can be more favourable than using slog in terms of image quality and/or noise/artifacts. Remember that hypergammas are only a few stops short of slog but if you chose to overexpose slog by two stops for a "cleaner" image then really you are getting the performance of something like HG7 anyway (11-12 stops) so…. . . :huh:


Again remember that two of the HG's on the new F cameras have the same dynamic range of the F3 in slog mode (800%) whereas F5/F55/F65/FS7 is 1300%
 
Great! Now all we need is to be able to use monitor and VF LUTS when using Hyper Gammas!

=mark knobil=
Docco DP
Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh!
 
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