Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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There shouldn’t be any change in exposure if everything is set to manual. One way to tell for sure is to activate the brightness percentage in the middle of the viewfinder. The button for that is near the top of the camera close to the handle on the left side. It’s the middle of 3 buttons (BRT DISP). When you slide a lighter object into the camera’s field of view (slowly) there shouldn’t be any difference in the percentage of brightness until the object enters the little brightness display square in the centre of the VF. If there’s something that’s still causing the camera to auto adjust the iris then the percentage should climb as soon as the object enters the frame.
Also keep an eye on the iris ring. if it moves for any reason without you moving it yourself then there’s something not quite right. The camera cannot auto adjust the brightness without the iris ring rotating.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Make sure the “magic” button is not active (full auto). Also as you’ve mentioned, make sure the auto iris slider switch is in manual mode. That one is on the lens itself. It’s probably best to use manual focus as well so the camera doesn’t try to refocus an anything else like your arm in the middle of your shot. In order to do this, in addition to putting the focus switch to manual is to pull the focus ring back until into straight mechanical focus mode. This disengages the focus ring from the motor drive.
No need to apologize for asking your questions. This is why these forums exist. The only silly questions are the ones you don’t ask.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
[Roger Bansemer] “The one set of zebras show it totally blown out and the other set shows me the 80%. Is that correct in my understanding?”
Correct. You have successfully grasped the concept 🙂 Use the double zebra bars the way you feel most comfortable doing it but you should also heed John’s sage advice. The lower percentage zebras are usually set for exposure of faces but what you set those at depends on the darkness or lightness of the skin. Very fair skin would suggest a setting of 70% but it can also be set up to 90% or so with very dark skin otherwise in those cases (dark skin) you risk losing detail. It all boils down to the exposure latitude of the camera which is how many F stops the camera can successfully retain detail in the highlights and the shadows at the same time. I think the EX cameras with their 1/2″ CMOS imagers has 7.5 to 8 stops of latitude whereas the newer 35mm sensor cameras like the Sony F3, F5 etc. can resolve about 12 or 13 stops. As an interesting aside, the human eye can resolve 20 stops.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
[Roger Bansemer] “What am I to key in at? The sky or the mountains to get the right exposure…”
The sky, because it’s still blown out, now more so than the mountains. Since you have zebra bars set to only display one of two, the 80% you have it set at will only show what’s at that level. The sky, which initially showed you it was 80% at that iris position now disappears from there and appears on the mountains, which is now exposed at 80% because you’ve opened up the iris even more. My old Sony PD170 also did this and for the novice this way of displaying the zebras was dangerous if one didn’t understand how the darned thing worked.
With the EX3 you have access to two zebra settings. Go to the viewfinder menu (VR SET) and choose to show 2 sets of zebras. Below that set your percentage to 80 and exit the menu. Now the blown out bits will have zebras showing all the time and the other set will appear (diagonally in the opposite direction) when the exposure for that part of the image reaches 80%.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Confucious say “When FCP starts acting weird the first thing to do is trash the preference files.”
There’s a free program at Digital Rebellion that will to this task for you called Preference Manager. You can find it at the link below.
https://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/
Try the program and see if this solves the colour issue.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
[Michael Slowe] “would you miss the ‘joystick’ that I refer to?”
Yes, I always miss not having access to my joystick. (but seriously folks) I never use the thumbwheel to scroll around in the menus because most of the time it never does what I want.
[Michael Slowe] “Do you shuttle between on screen menus whilst on a shoot?”
No, because normally I set preferences or more importantly, the picture profiles I want to use beforehand as well as the audio sensitivity of each channel.
[Michael Slowe] “I didn’t realise that an improved chip might give (slightly) better picture quality.”
The improved imagers have less noise and a bit more sensitivity, but the overall package, including the 50 Mbit recording format is not nearly enough to make me trade in my EX1R and EX3 for the newer models. Besides, if I need to shoot for broadcast I’ll use my Ki Pro Mini which can record at a much higher bit rate than the 50 Mbits/sec. recording rate. No one in a viewing audience or a client is going to rush up to a TV screen and exclaim “Wow, will you look at all that picture noise. How come you’re not using the new cameras?”
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Excellent!
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Did an automatic ProApps Update just happen recently on your Mac? Are you running OS 10.6.8? If so then here’s the explanation:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/142/880849
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
Clint, you’ll probably notice that the image generated by the new CMOS sensors are less “noisy” than the older EX1R and EX3 units, which is a good thing. I didn’t know that the PMW 200 doesn’t have a rotating grip. That’s a feature I would miss when shooting straight hand-held. I have plastic bones in my right wrist used as a repair from a previous injury and that rotating grip is a big deal for me.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com -
You can’t shut it off per sey, but you could turn the screen brightness to zero. That would probably accomplish the same thing.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks
http://www.reeltimevideoworks.com