tips for newbie on outdoor shoot

[Ruby Gold]

I'm still very new to my DVX100b and have my first outdoor shoot coming up (mostly shoot interviews with studio lighting).

I will be shooting some footage of wind turbines in a rural setting. The turbines look like the ones in the attached jpg, but there's tons of them and they are apparently on a farm. The client would like them to be shot in context of the beautiful farm, animals, big sky, etc.

So I'm looking for suggestions for how best to set exposure, focus, shutter speed and white balance, given:

the big, bright sky as background, with dark green trees, green grass
most likely white and silver (e.g. very reflective) colors of the turbines themselves, and the movement of them in the sunlight.

All suggestions appreciated since I'm a newbie with this camera and want the footage to be in focus, good color, exposure, etc.

Thanks-
Ruby

 

[master151]

1. Use a polarizing filter.

2. For wide shots, don't set the focus to max. Keep the highest setting at around 95 to 97, or just press the infinite focus button. Setting the focus to 99 will actually give you a softer image.

3. Try to keep the iris at around f4 to f8, using the ND filter.

4. Don't shoot towards the sun.

 

[MalcolmOng]

You might need a neutral density gradient filter if you want to get nice ground detail as well as capture the sky

 

[cornelius]

Ruby, do you have a matte box? To be able to use the filters recommended you'll probably need one. It would also mean you could use a french flag to shield the lense from the sun.

Get the client to splash out of a helicopter for the killer shots!

 

[Ruby Gold]

No, I don't even know what a matte box is. But thanks for the helicoptor suggestion.
;-}