Zebra & Bars?

[Macfionn]

Im really sorry for this question, but I'm trying to familiarize myself with all the features so when my camera gets ordered (friday!! ) I can have a running start with it.

Can someone please explain to me what the 'Zebra' and 'Bars' is for, and how they are used/

Thank you.

 

[Erik Olson]

Search for zebra and color bars. Zebras are used to achieve proper exposure. Depending on how you set up your zebras (what percentage you prefer), you'll be looking for different things.

If you have a reasonably balanced lighting set-up you can expect that at 70 IRE, which is often used for proper exposure on people, you'll be looking for zebras to appear on facial highlight areas like the forehead and on the bridge and tip of the nose.

I use 70 - 80 IRE more often than not - looking for skin, light color fabrics and other textures to start crawling in the highlight areas.

Color bars are a tool used for calibrating monitoring equipment and matching multiple input sources (cameras) to a baseline standard (NTSC, for example). There are good tutorials online for this purpose that'll walk you through the process from top to bottom.

e

 

[ShugPro Digital Studio]

"Zebra" shows stripes on parts of your image that are over exposed (too bright) as an aid to help you set the correct exposure settings. You can set them to show up at any brightness listed here: 105%, 100%, 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%, 75%, 70%, 65%, 60%, 55%, 50%
(80% is the default.)

"Bars" displays color bars and sounds a test tone (through the outputs only) to use as a tool for calibrating your external video and audio monitoring setup. Not used in any way during shooting.

 

[Macfionn]

Perfect. Just what I needed, and thank you Both!

SDS, thank you as well for the 'layman' explanation.
Erik, thanks for that valuable link!

 

[rich_r]

And don't forget the waveform! Zebras are great for run-n-gun shooting (I normally use 100%). But for controlled lighting (or at least more controlled shooting) the waveform is really great.