[Richard Herd]

The camera requires a minimum lux of 100. At ISO 320, f/1.4 is video black (IRE 7.5).

[Richard Herd]

Probably there’s nothing to worry about. I’m a curious kind of guy. Now, I think about all this in terms of computer-data rather than film-chemistry. Somewhere on the cow is an explanation of the difference between 10-bit log and 8 bit DCT. Can’t remember who wrote it, but it’s quite good.

Here’s how I think about image capture (I use a panny ag-hvx200 but recently shot a movie on an XL2), and it’s why I use my incident light meter, and I set the zebra pattern to 100%.

For example, let’s suppose your camera’s minimum luminance is 100 lux (about 10 Foot Candles) at 60i (like most of the 8-bit DCT cameras), and let’s assume the camera can capture 5 f/stops.

Anyway, the f/stops would correspond as follows (@ 320 ISO):
f/1.4 (10 fc), f/2 (20 fc), f/2.8 (40 fc), f/4 (80 fc), f/5.6 (160 fc)

A “perfect” image in the NLE, then, could be set so the f/1.4 (10 fc) corresponds to 7.5 IRE and the 5.6 (160 fc) = 100 IRE. This makes a very nice image, but requires a studio environment.

When runnin’-an’-gunnin’ exterior day, I’ve seen f/stops way up there, like f/32 (500,000 FCs!—and sometimes hotter!) (Hey, I live in South Lake Tahoe and a noon day sun over the beautiful lake is really quite bright—obviously, split ND filters and a polarizer is essential).

If we assume the same 5 f/stop contrast, then the f/stops are as follows: 8, 11, 16, 22, 32.

That means the f/32 corresponds to 100 IRE and the f/8 = 7.5 IRE.

In other words, all the available luminance that’s less than f/8 is blacked-out, like under the brim of a golfer’s hat. Or shadow in the trees, etc.

Another technique to fake extra contrast is to use gels–again, that’s impossible during external day covering a golf tournament.

[Richard Herd]

That’s an obscure question. 🙂

I encourage you to research the following:
— Sampling frequency
— discrete cosine transformations (DCT)
— Fourier transformations
— logarithmic scale
— wavelet transformations

It sounds like the general problem you’re describing is the mathematics of how photons are digitized and quantized, by these fancy gadgets we call cameras.

Another very interesting Web site is https://lurkertech.com on how all the stuff mentioned above becomes editable video.

I assume your camera is 8-bit DCT. It’s very interesting to read how 8-bit differs from 10 bit log, and how DCT differs from wavelet.

In sum, it’s absolutely amazing that these cameras work at all! Kudos to the geniuses who build these tools.

[Richard Herd]

Transfer from my camera to the HD. (I use the P2 store very often, but today someone came in and I needed some audio, so I used the camera as a capture device. I was hoping to just drop the MXF file where it belongs, but no. So I used the P2 store.) But in the future, it’d be nice to drag and drop from the camera.

[Richard Herd]

It is also called “B-roll.”

The “A-roll” is the news anchor talking to the camera about the baseball team, the “B-roll” cuts in, from that days game: the highlights.

B-roll can be literal or non-literal. The above example is literal.

A non-literal example aims at taking a picture of the emotion. For example, the news anchor talks about a tornado (or something), and the B-roll cuts to the people searching through the ruins. (Film history is full of better examples, Ingmar Bergman movies for example.)

[Richard Herd]

Frame Rate * Shutter Angle = Shutter
1/24 * 1/2 = 1/48
1/30 * 1/2 = 1/60

How many foot candles did you light to?

[Richard Herd]

May I suggest a link: https://lurkertech.com/lg/fields/