Trying to brighten up a recording that was a bit dark

[kwkeirstead]

Here are two short clips from a 2 hour recording I did 2 days ago.

https://vimeo.com/89134976
The 1st was given a small boost in brightness and contrast.



The 2nd is right off the camera.
https://vimeo.com/89071866

Notice that whereas the 1st is indeed brighter, we lose detail in the lady's white dress and on the men's vests.


I did a somewhat proper white balance (I was 65 feet away and could not get the white card to fill the viewfinder).


Tomorrow I will repeat the event, first putting the camera to x2 or x5 to get the white balance.


I am using a cine scene file.


My spot meter was at times around 20-25%, I recall when I opened up to bring it up to 30-35% I started to get overexposure on the white objects.



I will read Barry's book to see if I can somehow stretch the range of colors.

Any better ideas?

 

[David Jimerson]

You are definitely running into the limits of the dynamic range of your camera. The difference between the bright lights and the shadows looks to be quite a bit larger than your camera can resolve.

What's the light level of most of the show? I'd go for a good exposure at that level (skin tones peaking at around 70 IRE, whites peaking around 95 (for headroom)), and then either adjust it on the fly when the scenes change, or just leave it.

 

[kwkeirstead]

Thanks, David. The lighting level was generally quite high, I typically had to go to f4 to get the whites from crashing when the ladies with the white dresses came on stage.

The scene file I was using was FILMIC.