Just curious what methods members in this site use to get clean footage with a hvx200 and brevis adaptor. I have difficulty achieving moody lighting without getting murky grainy compressed footage. I heard someone say a good idea is to overlight and then step down the lense. My question is do you step down the SLR lense or the hvx lense? Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks.
suggestions for getting good HVX+Brevis footage
- Thread starter PIMP
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Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
First question to ask is - does your footage look alot better if you shoot it without the adapter? In other words is your problem - how do I get moody lighting in general with an HVX, or what's wrong when I add the adapter? If its the former, that's a long story.
I don't think the adapter should change much except that you need a little more light than without it and because the adapter is softer you might need to add a bit of punch - perhaps more edge lighting to your images. Its often good to get a decent exposure somwhere in the picture rather than just make the whole shot moody and dark - but that pertains to shooting without an adapter as well. I don't think the adapter itself should make a whole lot of difference.
Re overlight and stopping down. Someone here suggested overlighting and stopping down in post I think, but that's a bold decision. I don't know what overlighting then stopping down the iris could even mean. Either way you are lighting for the final f stop.
In film I used to overlight , overexpose , then print down for a dark mood but i don't see how that would translate to video.
That's my 2 cents.
Lenny Levy
I don't think the adapter should change much except that you need a little more light than without it and because the adapter is softer you might need to add a bit of punch - perhaps more edge lighting to your images. Its often good to get a decent exposure somwhere in the picture rather than just make the whole shot moody and dark - but that pertains to shooting without an adapter as well. I don't think the adapter itself should make a whole lot of difference.
Re overlight and stopping down. Someone here suggested overlighting and stopping down in post I think, but that's a bold decision. I don't know what overlighting then stopping down the iris could even mean. Either way you are lighting for the final f stop.
In film I used to overlight , overexpose , then print down for a dark mood but i don't see how that would translate to video.
That's my 2 cents.
Lenny Levy
Dennis Wood
DVXuser Sponsor
We ran into similar challenges with "Free Press" The HVX tends to get muddy in low light and this was something Piotr wasn't overly happy with. In conversations after, we would definitely shoot the HVX with a higher overall light level, and then bring levels down in post. The HPX500 is much cleaner under lower light, and we'd likely get away with lower light levels with the 2/3" cam.
Lenilenapi
Carbonite Member
Dennis is right. The HVX can be noisy in low light. That said I've had very nice results with low key scenes, and I've never tried adjusting in post afterward. Personally I don't pursue that approach partly because I'm a DP and I don't trust what people are going to do in post unless I really have a relationship with them. In my experience It's been disappointingly rare to find post people who really understands what the DP was after. Similarely a good timer in film is rare and valuable.
However you can get good results in the original, but it simply takes good lighting. 16mm is similar actually. You can get away with much simpler lighting in 35 where the inherent sharpness and detail in the image will provide the snap and detail. Here you need to help with lighting while remaining subtle enough to not show your hand.
Lenny Levy
However you can get good results in the original, but it simply takes good lighting. 16mm is similar actually. You can get away with much simpler lighting in 35 where the inherent sharpness and detail in the image will provide the snap and detail. Here you need to help with lighting while remaining subtle enough to not show your hand.
Lenny Levy