Lighting Difference in Two Cameras?

[Pat Ford]

We might just have a winner!!!

I guess I knew this about the gain control…but it had not occurred to me.

I had left set-up for the cameras to the last moment. And in the flurry of activity I may have missed the fact that the gain number was not showing up. I rarely, if ever, pump up the gain. I may not have noticed that the gain number was not showing…

Thanks Jason!! And thanks to all of you for your kind help. You’ve been most generous!!

[Craig Alan]

Correct. On both the pd150 and pd170: IRIS, GAIN, and SHUTTER speed work this way. As does white balance. The camera defaults to auto when you “turn off” these manual controls.

Pat,
If you have a black b.g. and moving, colorful, hard-lit subjects, the auto sensors will be taking an erratically changing average. The camera might capture the black curtain, for example, with as much detail as possible and the costumes and faces will be blown out, just the opposite of the desired result. The ND filter works pretty well under these circumstances. If you find that you now do not have enough light, you can add about as much as 6db of gain without noticeable noise.

AE shift, if employed, will also make two identical cams no longer match.

If you do not have experience in a particular light, and you have no way to properly monitor the image, you can use the cameras’ meters. Zoom in on the part of the image that you care most about. Faces, for example. Put the camera on auto then back to manual. Take note of the settings. Turn on 70 zebra. The faces should show the stripes. Go wide, turn on 100 zebra—how much of the image is blown out?

The talent, here, is moving into radically different amounts of light. The camera operator needs to ride the iris control to compensate.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Pat Ford]

Well said Craig, thanks.

In the future, if we do this job again, we need to have a production meeting regarding the stage set-up. We could avoid such things as:

1. Black background on the stage. The girls’ dresses were light or white…against a black ground with a spot. As my #1 camera guy said….”It’s like trying to shoot a supernova on stage!”

2. We tried to make the spots go away this year, but we were not successful. In my humble opinion, the spots add nothing to the stage presentation. The two huge screens to each side of the stage serve the purpose of highlighting the girls. I am not a stage lighting expert, but it seems to me that the use of the spots in a fairly brightly lit venue is well-nigh useless. In the old days, they were used to create dramatic pools of light in a dark hall. This ain’t happening here.

By the way…none of this means that we could not have done our job better. That is certainly true. This shoot is a huge job…set-up takes a significant amount of hours over two days. However, we need to have the cameras matched. We need to have a video production meeting for 15 minutes or so before the start of show.

By the way, I have used the term “girls” throughout our discussion. I do not mean any disrespect here…you would not catch me performing in front of several hundred people…let alone walking down a runway in high heels wearing a two piece bathing suit.

They are talented and brave people. Kinda cute too, if an old geezer can say that without fear of getting arrested!