Documentry shoot stills

Malik Sajid · November 5, 2008

Here are the couple of frame grabs of the shoot that i had done last week. These are raw footage grabs with no color correction or any thing. I would want to hear from you guys on these frames. I am disappointed by the output mainly because of the exposure, light was so much at that time of the day. Please tell me what mistakes you find in these images and what should have i done. Shot with Sony DSR 250p on mini Dv.

Shot indoor with natural light coming from the side through a window in a 12x10 ft. room.

This is the shot from the other side(see the window)

This is one of the frame from the timelaps sequence. Shot for almost 5 min.

another one shot outdoor in shiny day at around 12'o clock noon

Performance happening in the shades of the shrine (see the under-exposure in wide)

Do we have to light up always. I mean suppose we see at something with eye and see that is ok, even then would i light up in order to look good when it is recorded. Increase the exposure or throw a light or whatever.

Should i apply an ND filter and open my iris????

Daniel Sheehy · November 6, 2008

For available light, in that sort of contrasty location, they look pretty good.

If you wanted to narrow down the depth of field, using ND and opening up the iris would have worked... assuming you had sufficient levels. You might have had difficulty getting that to work in the interiors.

A very handy tool on shoots like this is a couple of collapsible, double sided reflectors. They could have just helped lift the levels in a couple of the interior / heavily shaded shots you were worried about.

The only thing that stood out to me was the fact that, with the frames you've shown, you seem to be crossing the line occasionally when you move in for your CU's, but that could be deliberate..?