Ruby Gold

Cool Walter. Thanks for the encouragement.

The interviewer will not be on camera, so I will use and modify your suggestions accordingly. Seems I'll have to use a stronger key than I ordinarily use in order to light two faces properly, or just maybe use the barn doors as you suggested and make it more diffuse rather than focused. Still am not quite clear how this won't throw shadow onto the other interviewee, but like everything, it will probably make more sense once I play with it with stand-ins. Thanks again--

Ruby

Thanks you guys--these are all great suggestions--really appreciate it.

I like the concept of treating the small group as a single subject (to some degree) in how you light them. Although I can imagine that where you place them and and if they move much can have a big impact on who gets whose shadows on their face.

Thanks again!

Ruby

Thanks you guys for the suggestions.

Because I'm fairly ignorant--having only done basic 3 and 4 point lighting set-ups for one-person interviews with just a key, fill, hairlight and sometimes background light, and because what I have in my kit (and the only lights I'm familiar with) are an Omni, Tota, Pro and small Rifa--can either of you (or anyone else) point me in the direction of some good sites/tutorials to help me educate myself around the type of set-ups you're describing? Of course, I get the gist of what you mean, but have no experience with using any of the set-up/lights you've described.

Thanks again for the help.

Ruby

Hi all. For the digital video productions I've shot (I'm using DVX100b), I've only used my basic Lowell kit and only lit single-subject interviews with pretty classic three or four-point lighting. I feel fairly confident within that set-up, the lighting has looked good, nice modeling, etc.

However, I now have some shoots coming up that will be interviews with two or three people and I'm totally clueless about how best to arrange and light them so that I'm not casting one person's shadows on another, etc.

I'm sure I'll have to rent other lights in order to make this work, but I'd greatly appreciate suggestions and/or useful links regarding simple/best ways to arrange and light two or three folks in an interview set-up.

Thanks to all for any help you can offer!

Now why didn't I think of that?? <_<

and, yes, it's my real name...

Thanks so much for this incredibly thoughtful response--really helpful.

I'm thinking your first comment about the ND warning indicating white card overexposure and therefore setting the WB incorrectly because the color channels were clipped is likely what happened. If this were the case, in the future wd the better thing to do be to close the iris down enough for the ND warning does not appear, and then white balance? Do you think that wd correct it?

All your points about the LCD are well taken and I get it--sadly I don't have a monitor, and, until now relying on the zebras has worked for me. I was surprised by your comment about 85% being too bright for AA skin. I usually set them at 80% for Caucasian skin and 85% for dark skin. Am I going in the wrong direction? I thought that a higher percentage (e.g. 85 vs. 80) wd allow more brightness in order to accurately assess exposure for darker skin. Not so? What wd you typically set zebras at for Caucasian and AA skin on a DVX100b?

Thanks again for your help and I hope you don't mind the additional questions.

I shot an interview with my DVX100b yesterday, using 3-point lighting and manually white balanced the camera. White balance was achieved, though the "ND 1/8" indicator flashed at the same time, for a second, and I'm not sure what that meant. I set my zebras at 85% (my subject was African-American) and set the exposure manually so that the zebras were just barely visible on her highlights (about 5.6). In the LCD it looked great.

Now that I'm looking at the captured footage, it looks slightly yellow and her highlights look too hot. Given that the zebras weren't really visible, hardly, and the manual white balance was achieved, I'm not sure why it's too yellow and the highlights too hot.

I want to correct this before the next interview, so all help greatly appreciated--particularly around why the ND 1/8 indicator came on and what I might have done wrong. Thanks!

http://www.bebob.de/international/zoe-dvxl_eng.html

You really did nothing wrong. The jumpy zoom could be due to a couple of things.

Worst case, the gears or electronics in the camera are a little off & need looking at.

Was the servo switch on the camera cleanly engaged? I've found that it sometimes doesn't engage properly initially, needs a little help.

 

Could also be a dicky remote - battery still good? Was the signal path to the camera clear?

If you were trying to be discrete about the zoom, the remote may have not been pointing cleanly at the camera.

 

I'd just set the camera up again & see if you can sort out the issue.

If its a dicky remote, that should be easy to prove.

If its the gears/motor in the camera, the zoom should be jumpy when you use the zoom buttons on the grip or handle.

Thanks Daniel. Yeah, I checked the battery straight away--it's fine, and the path was okay too. Using the rocker on the camera--it's not jumpy at all, so, thankfully, it's not the gears/motor. I have a shoot coming up and felt like I needed to work this out so I bought a Varizoom VZ-Rock-DVX Zoom Control with Touch Sensitive Rocker Switch from B and H, in hopes that that will work smoothly. Any thoughts/experience with it?

I'll check the servo switch to make sure it was cleanly engaged--thanks for the suggestion--and, if that was the problem, will shoot myself for having spent $240 unnecessarily!! Thanks again.

I've never tried to zoom with the remote. Certainly a wired zoom control such as a ZOE will be far better. Nice & smooth.

I've never tried to zoom with the remote. Certainly a wired zoom control such as a ZOE will be far better. Nice & smooth.

Thanks for the response, and forgive my ignorance--but what is a ZOE?

Also--what wd you do the situation described? Say the interviewee is saying something particularly poignant and you want to come in for a nice smooth, slow close-up?

thanks-

I have a series of interviews to conduct by myself using my DVX100B. I need the talent to look to the side of the camera in order for the shot to be framed/look right, so I planned to sit a foot or so to the side of the camera (alternating sides with various interviewees) so they have someone to look at/engage with as I ask the interview questions. With my old camera, I've been able to do this (with a little clamshell hooked up as a monitor) and use the remote to do nice slow zooms for close-ups and pull back out again.

When I tried this out with my new DVX100B, I found the remote zoom to be very uneven--speeding up, slowing down, stopping--basically delivering unacceptable performance for a production. Does anyone know if the wired remote does zoom any smoother?

thanks!

Thanks a lot for the great feedback you guys!

Ruby

Hi there. I'm relatively new to my DVX100b and have only shot in 60i for my projects with it. Mostly I've chosen this because a) it's familiar; B) 60i handles motion more cleanly; and c) I was scared of the commitment to 24p shooting and editing.

I keep hearing how beautiful the filmic look of 24p can be, and I have a new project coming up, so I went out and shot some test stuff in 24p and 60i just to compare. I do see what everyone is talking about in terms of the creaminess of the colors and the filmic look of the motion. What I also noticed on the stuff I shot is that the 24p looked a bit dark to my eye, somewhat 'slow motion-y' when focusing on a flag waving in the wind, and it seemed as if sharp focus was harder to achieve than in 60i.

My questions to the forum are:

I noticed that the 24p setting has a 1/24 shutter speed. Does 24p 'work' with a faster shutter speed and wd that help with the 'dark' look or does 24p need to be shot at 1/24? Does one typically need to use a lower f-stop with 24p than 60i--or, is the darker image I'm referring to not typically a problem for most folks?

Some of the footage I shot in 24p seemed to be a bit out of focus where the stuff I shot in 60i with the same settings was nicely focused. I had the camera was on autofocus most of the time, so I'm wondering if the difficulty with focus is because of the slower shutter speed in 24p? Or some other factor related to 24p? Or using auto instead of manual focus? I was doing street shots, so it seemed easier to just put it on auto focus while shooting these tests. Any illumination here greatly appreciated.

Last, but not least. I edit in PPro 1.5. If I edit on a 24p timeline, can 60i footage be used on the same timeline as the footage shot in 24p? Conversely, if I edit on a 60i timeline, can 24p footage be used along with 60i? I'm thinking of shooting interview footage in 24p and my outdoor cutaways with more motion in them in 60i, but don't know if you can mix the two on one timeline. Again, any help here greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Thanks to all for your input!

I'm actually creating a DVD (so, not broadcast and not Internet) that will be used in various programs to help ex-offenders about to be released from county jail in dealing with finding housing, dealing with their own recovery from drugs/alcohol, and dealing with money and finances so they can make it on the outside.

Part of the script in the "dealing with money" section has VO talking about money and how hard it is to make it, deal with it, etc etc and the plan was to use imagery related to money (e.g. check cashing places, ATMs, etc), along with images of consumerism to run over the VO. Hence the images from store windows.

Most of the stills I shot DON'T have the company's logo in it, however I'm aware that these ads are somebody's pictures and I don't want to be a jerk and use without permission OR get sued. I'm talking a total of maybe 30 to 60 seconds in the entire production, so it's a long shot that anyone would sue me, but... the project is being financed by a government entity so I figure I should be somewhat careful and see what info I can dig up. I know that any people on the street are fair game, but just assume that these pictures are owned by either the photographer who took them or the store who paid for them, so I don't know what could come of it.

Any more thoughts?

thanks-

Ruby

Does anyone know if you're shooting stills on the street for use in a production, and there is a store ad (like a giant GAP photograph of a model in the store window) in your image, are you violating copyright to use the image without permission?

Thanks-

After the focus problems with my brand new 100B that I described in an earlier post, I ended up sending the camera in to be checked out. Turns out the repair guy did find a slight misalignment in the focus which he said he corrected.

Just got the camera back and I'm still noticing a very slight soft focus when close in, so I'm wondering if it's me or the camera. I'm paranoid that I may have a defective camera, and I want to replace it if that's the case, but the soft focus is so slight, and I'm so new to the camera, that I can't tell if it's me or the cam.

To reiterate the problem:

I'm shooting in indoor settings with 3 or 4 point studio lighting, iris is manually set and ranges from f/5.6 to f/6.8. I set manual focus by zooming in to Z99, focusing, and then zooming back out to frame the shot. When zooming back in after this for close-ups, I've had a little bit of a problem with soft focus on close shots. It's not on every close-up shot, but has appeared somewhat randomly both before I sent the camera in and after. I don't notice the soft focus on the lcd screen when shooting, but after capturing the footage.

I'm also noticing that across shoots, even when the face is totally in focus, the person's jewelry (true on three different shoots/people) is not. For example hoop earrings or necklaces are blurry while the face and neck are in focus.

I know shiny things can be a problem for auto focus, but I'm in manual. Any thoughts on why this might be occurring, and if this is an indication that wd confirm something's wrong with the camera? Or is it me?

I've attached screenshots showing the soft focus issue when more zoomed in (the man), and the blurry earrings/focused face thing (the woman).

All thoughts appreciated on whether it's me or the cam. I want to stop tripping about this, but if there truly is something defective with the camera, I don't want to ignore it.

thanks again-

Ruby

Thanks again Peter for all the helpful info.

Ruby

Thanks to all for great tips--I really appreciate it. And Peter, I had the exposure at f/6.8 most of the time, f/5.6 for a few clips. It doesn't seem from what you said that those stops wd have impacted the focus. But, I guess, as many suggested, that the movement of the subject may have been the issue.

As for a monitor--any suggestions on what to get that wd be useful but not cost an arm and leg (I spent my arms and legs on the camers), and also how to calibrate said monitor?

Thanks again-

Ruby

In addition to the excellent suggestions and comments here, in case you had the lens' iris wide open (smallest f-stop value), you might test using a more closed-down iris, such as f4 or f5.6. A larger value f-stop will make the depth of field less shallow, increasing the depth of the scene which will appear in focus.

 

Of course, increasing the f-stop value also affects exposure, so an iris adjustment might not be appropriate depending on your lighting resources and so forth. And for some shots you may want the DOF as shallow as possible.

 

Note that as you stop-down the iris (increase the f-stop value) on a 1/3" CCD cam's built-in lens (such as the DVX100), light diffraction/scattering through a very small iris may increase to the point of causing undesireable softening of the image. This is usually not an issue with f-stop values of approx. f5.6 or smaller on these cams. You can double-check for this on a high resolution video monitor.

Thanks!

Ruby

There is probably nothing to gain from using autofocus in the wide shots. Just focus as usual. If anything, the autofocus may cause trouble if it starts buzzing or seeking.

 

If you use the lens at its widest, or with a wide angle lens, the depth of field will be quite large, covering any small focus imperfections.

One other question. After looking at footage I shot in a recent interview, I noticed that when I went in for a very tight close-up, the shot was slightly out of focus.

I was in 60i mode, using 3 point lighting, manual white balance, manual iris setting, and manual focus.

To set focus, I framed my shot, noting the zoom number, then zoomed all the way in and focused. During the interview I wd zoom in or out for a tighter or wider shot, going out as wide as the original zoom number I noted. Everything seems in focus except the super tight close-ups.

Any ideas why these were out of focus or how to correct for that in the future wd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Ruby

Thanks a lot for the tips. I'm assuming you mean the ND filters built into the camera, right? Also, I was planning on shooting in 60i, not 24p, just because I think with the motion of the blades and everything 60i wd look better. Is there any reason not to?

Last, but not least--I always manually focus--in this setting, however, for the wider distance shots--wd it be better to use auto focus on the infinity setting? Just curious. Thanks again-

Ruby

For wider shots in daylight, focus should not be a problem. You'll more than likely need to use 1/64 ND filter on the camera, to avoid getting any diffraction from the iris closing down more than f16. But if you're using a polarizer, you might be able to use the 1/8ND filter in many situations.

 

You should try out the different gamma settings to see which one suits you best, especially if you're trying the expose for both white windmills and green foliage in shadow. The "cine-like" gammas look pretty good, but try them all and see what suits you.

 

Shutterspeed you can use at your discretion. It might look interesting in some shots of the blades moving to use a faster than normal shutter. But you probably don't need to use anything faster than 1/48 or 1/30 in 24P mode the rest of the time.

 

White balance can also be used at your discretion. For midday, it's usually best to WB in direct sunlight. In late afternoon or sunset though, you can amplify the warm look of direct sunlight by white balancing in the shade. One of the nice things about the DVX is that you can adjust color temperature a little bit after you white balance, so you can warm up or cool off the color by eye, using the menu.

 

FWIW, you might also look into shooting from a raised platform every once in awhile, so you have some shots that include enough ground and not just sky in the background.

I'm still very new to my DVX100b and have my first outdoor shoot coming up. I will be shooting some footage of wind turbines in a rural setting. The turbines look like the ones in the attached jpg, but there's tons of them and they are apparently on a farm. The client would like them to be shot in context of the beautiful farm, big sky, etc.

So I'm looking for suggestions for how best to set exposure, focus, shutter speed and white balance, given:

the big, bright sky as background, with dark green trees

most likely white and silver (e.g. very reflective) colors of the turbines themselves, and the movement of them in the sunlight.

All suggestions appreciated since I'm a newbie with this camera and want the footage to be in focus, good color, exposure, etc.

Thanks-

Ruby

Thanks for the response.

I'm sure that I wasn't in auto mode--it puts a little "A" in the display if you are. Don't think I was in auto iris mode either, but good thing for me to make absolutely sure of next time. And thanks for the response about black balancing.

Ruby

I am more familiar with the dvx100a, but these symptoms you've described sound a lot like the camera was in auto mode... the shot looking softer as you widened out;

or the look of the shot changing as you zoomed.

Are you completely sure the camera wasn't in auto mode?

If I remember correctly, the camera only prompts you to change ND filters if the auto iris is engaged.

 

...what type of moniter were you reviewing the footage on?

No need to set it before every shoot, as the black level is unlikely to change very much between shoots...unlike the white balance.

I just got a 100b and did my first shoot with it yesterday--an interview. LOVE the camera, but have some questions I couldn't find answers to in the manual or Green's DVX Book, so I thought I'd try here. All input appreciated. First, the set-up:

The interview was with an African-American woman with medium dark skin. I did a basic 4-point lighting set-up using an Omni for my key, a small Rifa for the fill, a Pro light for my hairlight and a Tota to throw light on the background. There was some cloudy daylight coming through frosted windows very high up in the wall. I manually white balanced with a white card, set the zebras at 85% and used them as my guide for the iris setting, which was around 6.8. I used manual focus. I used an external lav mic connected to input 2. Mic Gain level at -50dB, Mic ALC off.

Questions:

1. After looking at the footage, it seems that the tighter I went with the zoom, the more "rich" the color appears. When I was wider, it looked a little bit washed out/overexposed, the color of the women's face became slightly yellowish--compared to the tighter shots. (see attached screenshot comparing tighter/wider shots with same camera settings).

2. Also, looking at the footage, it seems that when I went wider, I lost the sharpness of the focus ever so slightly. To set focus--I went in to Z99, focused and then pulled back out to however I wanted to frame the shot--does the focus not hold if you pull too far out? Do you need to re-set it for the different distance? How does this work?

3. No zebras, i.e. overexposure was registering, yet a couple of times the "ND filter 1/8" message popped on screen. What would cause this? Particularly if no overexposed areas are registering with the manual iris setting I chose based on zebras? Seemed very strange.

4. The woman looks good, but she has hot (shiny-looking) spots in places on her face that didn't show up as zebras when I was shooting, or just very, very minimally. I used face powder when I saw her looking shiny, but since the zebras weren't registering, I figured I was okay. Yet, in this footage, these spots look really shiny--a little blown out. If they were--why didn't the zebras show it? Could another issue be causing this problem? Any help here is greatly appreciated so I can correct for it in the next interview to be shot next week.

5. I set audio levels to hover around -12dB, occasionally going into one or two red squares. When I captured the footage, the audio seems very low. Of course, better too low than blown out, but I'd prefer a a stronger level. Suggestions?

6. Last but not least--should you set the Black Balance along with White Balance for each shoot?

Thanks so much for any and all help.

Ruby

Hi:

 

My experience with the GL-2 is that is has a

magenta push! It regularly white balanced as

too red or magenta causing me to stay away

from purchasing the camera.

 

Later, I read a review of the camera onlne and

it complained of the same problem you mentioned.

Of course, Canon didn't know what I was talking about. :)

 

I have several GL-1s and they don't have this

problem. You may well be able to cheat the

camera with a slightly colored card. Experiment.

 

Schuney

Hey, thanks a lot for this response--makes me feel less crazy! Yes, been back and forth with Canon a few times, and though they've been very willing/responsive, they don't see what I'm talking about. I'm thinking of just giving up and getting a Panasonic DVX100b. Big step up. But, again, thanks for your reply.

Ruby

Hi:

 

My experience with the GL-2 is that is has a

magenta push! It regularly white balanced as

too red or magenta causing me to stay away

from purchasing the camera.

 

Later, I read a review of the camera onlne and

it complained of the same problem you mentioned.

Of course, Canon didn't know what I was talking about. :)

 

I have several GL-1s and they don't have this

problem. You may well be able to cheat the

camera with a slightly colored card. Experiment.

 

Schuney

As I undersdtand it, most DVD players will add the 3:2 pulldown to 24P material when the player is set up for an NTSC monitor. The best course is to burn some test DVD's and play them on a variety of players.

Thanks for the response Michael--and testing is always the best way, to be sure--but I haven't bought the camera yet, so I don't have that ability. Please forgive my ignorance, but I'm not entirely clear what the various "pulldowns" mean when it comes to progressive modes. If you could explain in simple terms or point me in the direction of a good source, that'd be terrific.

thanks again-

Ruby