Shooting on a bright sunny day.

D

DVX100Shooter

Veteran
I just did a shoot yesterday in 100 degree hot weather! The camera kept telling me to switch to a different ND filter 1/8th or 1/64 or OFF. If I am trying to achieve one uniform look wouldn't all that switching around mess up the look? I guess I could go back and color correct everything in post. I was shooting some cars at a show. When I was getting my wide shots in the bright sun it asked for 1/64. 1/64th looked pretty dark on the LCD monitor and in the viewfinder on some shots. I had to adjust the LCD monitor so that it faced almost the opposite direction so I could see the screen better. I don't have a Shade for the flip out monitor yet which I am going to need for days like that. I haven't watched my footage on a monitor yet to see if it came out dark or not. However when I put the camera slightly inside the car it asked for 1/8th or off.
 
Re: Shooting on a bright sunny day.

If you're looking for one consistent look color-wise, then using the ND filters won't affect a thing as long as you're careful to recreate the amount of light entering the camera with the proper aperture setting so everything is consistent.

If you're looking for one consistent look depth-of-field-wise, then using a ND filter will hurt your consistency, since obviously a f8 with no ND is going to look different in that regard than a f2.8 with a 1/8th ND.

If the d.o.f. isn't an issue, then don't worry about it. And if you do switch to the 1/64 ND and it's too dark, just open a stop or two.
 
Re: Shooting on a bright sunny day.

[quote author=PaulK link=board=news;num=1091368889;start=0#1 date=08/01/04 at 17:55:36]If you're looking for one consistent look depth-of-field-wise, then it will, since obviously a f8 with no ND is going to look different in that regard than a f2.8 with a 1/8th ND.[/quote]

I'm quite sceptical that with a video camera with 1/3" CCD's they will be pretty much the same thing.
 
Re: Shooting on a bright sunny day.

Yeah, you're probably right, but you know what I mean. :)

I suppose we can imagine an extreme example. Suppose he was doing a lot of shooting with a mountain range in back. If he was switching from small apertures with no ND to wide apertures with 1/64 ND while trying to focus relatively close, you would probably notice a fuzzier outline of the mountains with the latter. Maybe. ;D
 
Re: Shooting on a bright sunny day.

Yeah, you and your extreme examples... That's why we end up with 12 pixel CCD's... ;D
 
Re: Shooting on a bright sunny day.

If your camera is asking for a stronger ND, that means that the apeture is all the way closed (f22) and the picture is still too bright. Use a stronger ND, and use closer to the middle range of the lense (f8-11) Be careful shooting auto iris in the bright sun, especially with cars, because sometimes the sun will reflect off of a car window or something into the camera and fool it into adjusting the iris down when you don't really want to. This will cause the picture to go dark momentarily.
 
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