dsr450 setup

[Ram Shani]

hi

 

i am about to shoot low budget commercial. me going to use dsr450

 

its a model against white screen

 

once in full light

 

once in silhouette

 

i need advice for camera setups for beauty and for handling the white screen (knee ,gamma, pedestal )

[Jeff Regan]

I just returned from shooting the Bonneville Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Not a studio, but lots of white backgrounds. The settings I used with my DSR-450WS were:

 

film gamma 1

hard clip 109.5

knee OFF

detail OFF

master black -4

master gain -3

 

These settings, plus colorimetry of your choice will ensure that there is no knee compression

affecting skin tones, you will have detail in whites, blacks will be black, no detail artifacts.

 

If the camera looks too soft, try using detail on low settings. I think the camera looks very

natural with these settings. Do know that if you really overexpose white, it will go above 100 ire.

Better to control the light than let the camera do knee compression, IMO.

 

Make sure that you have manually tweaked white shading at the F-stop you anticipate shooting

on an evenly lit white area at a focal length close to what you'll be using most often. If you

can't do this, than at least make sure the scene file is set for the proper lens make and model.

All that white in the background will show white shading error well.

 

Best of luck, if you haven't already shot this commercial!

 

Jeff Regan

Shooting Star Video

www.ssv.com

 

 

 

 

hi

 

i am about to shoot low budget commercial. me going to use dsr450

 

its a model against white screen

 

once in full light

 

once in silhouette

 

i need advice for camera setups for beauty and for handling the white screen (knee ,gamma, pedestal )

Edited August 22, 2006 by Jeff Regan

[Michael McIntyre]

Thanks for sharing that set-up info, Jeff. Rather than start a whole new thread, I thought I'd keep this going with set-ups in general (hope that's okay). It's old-school Sony but not too much of a stretch. My camera menu / head's definitely not as deep as the DSR450.

 

I'm speaking of a Sony DXC537. Did some tests today and happy to keep this camera going. It's old and used but new to me. This combo seemed to look pretty good on the monitor / scopes....

 

A. Iris -1 (used only as reference for manual exposure setting)

M. Pedestal -4

Detail -20

EVS OFF

DCC OFF

Hi_Sat Matrix ON

 

That's the 1st pass set-up I did. The Hi Sat. just adds a little chroma to primary colors. No need for EVS or DCC. I don't wanna crush the blacks too much and the next shoot is pretty run and gun with not much time for tweaking in-field.

 

So, this is not Sony-specific. My question reveolves around 'detail' and how far people take it down. Values range from +99 down to -99.

 

-15 -> -30 looks good. Beyond that, it becomes a question of how 'soft' is safe and whether focus becomes questionable. After all that rambling....... What pedestal / detail lsettings are you happy with most often?

 

Thanks - Michael

[Simon Wyndham]

I find that turning the detail off doesn't make things soft. Just more natural. The DSR450 for instance can look very '16mm' with the detail off.

 

All a matter of personal preference. Different camera heads behave differently, so -20 on a 450 may not be the same as -20 on another camera.

 

I prefer my master ped to be just above digital black. Going this low will not crush the blacks, it merely changes the 'brightness' of the blackest black. I also usually shoot with the detail off. but since I am in charge of the productions I make I can dictate stuff like this. When I shoot commissioned work it is down to client preference.

[Jeff Regan]

I find that turning the detail off doesn't make things soft. Just more natural. The DSR450 for instance can look very '16mm' with the detail off.

 

All a matter of personal preference. Different camera heads behave differently, so -20 on a 450 may not be the same as -20 on another camera.

 

Simon,

 

The footage that I shot at the Bonneville Salt Flats week before last looks very 16mm like. Watching this footage reminds me of a '60's documentary on 16. Having owned many top end Ikegami and Sony cameras, I have always been reticent about turning detail off. I've done it on the occassional green screen shoot, but not many other times.

 

The DSR-450WS has over 1 million pixels vs. most other SD cameras(like the Panasonic SDX 900) with 520K. I believe this is the key factor in the natural, smooth, organic look of this camera. It has more resolution due to the chipset, not artificial enhancement. With film gamma, the latitude and gray scale are exemplary. I was shooting all kinds of contrasty scenes, lots of different textured whites, all kinds of clouds and of course miles of white salt and nothing was over exposed, all had a natural look, plenty of shadow detail, fleshtones looked perfect. I got the look I was hoping for and didn't need overhead silks or nets or reflectors or HMIs.

 

Only problem I had was white shading error with the 2X extender. I'm used to auto shading and a separate

extender lens file with my Sony BVP-550WS cameras, which the 450 doesn't have. I will just set up a

separate lens file for 2X extender, but it's a hassle to remember to recall it everytime the extender is used.

 

Jeff Regan

Shooting Star Video

www.ssv.com

Edited August 27, 2006 by Jeff Regan