EX1R colors and white balance problem

[John Young]

Welcome Rawad.
Auto settings can sometimes be a gamble. I shoot a lot of EX-1 and sometimes use auto-iris (mostly to calibrate the shot, then switch back to manual iris), but very rarely use auto focus, almost never use auto white balance.
I would suspect that your trouble might be somewhere in the way the camera was applying the auto settings, butI would want to know some more information about your footage. It sounds like you are indoors. Is that right? What lighting conditions are you dealing with?
Any chance you can show us a still frame of the problem footage?

John

[Rawad Rhayem]

yes i was shooting indoors, The lights were dimmed and we had a lowell on camera light. i will upload a still as soon as i get to my computer

[Ronnie Martin]

I have shot many hundreds of hours with the Sony Ex family of cameras. The Ex-1, ex-1r, ex-3, and 320 and have never shot anythong on auto. I have used the push auto iris and push auto focus to get basic set up and then adjust acordingly. Most of the time I set my gain for that will allow f stops at 4.0 or 5.6. When out doors in the daytime I am usually at -3 or zero with gain. There have been times that I had to bump the gain up in low light situations to 9dB with the iris almost wide open and still got superb images with little or no noise. White balance is ususlly set up with warm cards and the picture profile I use is by Doug Jenson called Doug 1. I would recommend getting his dvd on the ex-1 with the ex-1r update. It is excellent and you will learn a lot about the camera from Doug.

Ronnie Martin
Kato Video Productions
http://www.dirtracingvideo.com
http://www.ramtv.tv

[Rawad Rhayem]

I will look for the picture profile setting from Doug Jensen and hopefully that will fix the colors. But i meed to determine if my camera is defected or not when it comes to overexposing and that’s what i asked if any had the same problem but i guess everybody here uses manual Iris. I love the feedback and appreciate the time you take to write a reply

[John Young]

If you are getting really bad overexposed shots, a picture profile isn’t going to solve that. I also highly doubt that your camera is defective, and that is what is causing the issue.
It sounds like what you are looking for is an simple easy answer to your problem. But a hundred different things could be causing this problem. We are trying to help you out. Just give us some more info and we might be better able to do that.

Thanks,
John

[Michael Slowe]

Rawad, I endorse what has been written here about this camera, I’ve now shot four documentaries on my EX 1 in varied circumstances and found it produces great quality pictures (and audio). I tend to rely on the picture shown on the side screen when setting exposure and find it to be very accurate. I have not altered any settings for the screen since I got the camera new. Surely you are looking at the screen, did it show over exposure? Also, I often set my colour temperature (Kelvin figure) by looking at the screen and I have a number of Kelvin settings in various Picture Profiles, but the best way is to do a manual ‘white card’ balance if you have time.

Did you notice zebra markings on your screen which should have warned of over exposure? If you have to use manual iris due to lack of time when in ‘run & gun’ mode I find it to be pretty accurate but, as others have written, it’s best to set iris manually, but look at your screen and try and get a good picture, that will be your best indication of what you’ll get on your video.

Michael Slowe

[Rawad Rhayem]

ok i uploaded a picture from my footage. The walls in the background are overexposed even though the lights were not that high in the ballroom. The skin tone is overexposed as well …. not sure how clear this image is. Another question, i need some recommendations on the shutter thing… Do i leave it automatic or should i shut it off and set it manually? I shut it off and have it set to 1/100 but another videographer has it 1/60 …can someone explain all this to me please.

[Don Greening]

[Rawad Rhayem] “I shut it off and have it set to 1/100 but another videographer has it 1/60 …can someone explain all this to me please.
“

It’s generally accepted that to start with, the shutter speed is set to double the frame rate. For example:

• if your shooting format is 1080i 59.94 (60i) then shutter is set to 60 fps.
• if your shooting format is 1080p 29.97 (30p) then shutter is still set to 60 fps
• if your shooting format is 1080p 23.98 (24p) then shutter is set to 48 fps and so on.

The lower the shutter speed the brighter your picture will be because there’s more time for the light to hit the imagers. This means that setting the shutter speed higher is also another way to darken the image in addition to adjusting the iris. If you’re shooting with electrical lighting it’s also a good idea to increase the shutter speed in multiples of your frame rate to avoid any rolling shutter or light pulsing issues.

– Don

Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com

[Rawad Rhayem]

Thank you Don. I will keep shooting 1/100 shutter speed since i shoot weddings and a lot of movement. Maybe 1/60 indoors when the light situation is so low.

[Rawad Rhayem]

btw, i shoot 1920 * 1080i