Hello.

i'm going to be doing a documentary and a lot of it will take place at night at a park in florida that has been HEAVILY lit with several million small holiday lights.

are there any special settings for night time shooting with an obscene amount of small lights in the backgrounds?

this will be with a dvx-100a

matthew

If it is indeed heavily lit, you could use reflectors and wide open apeture for a nice effect. Also, maybe take something for an eyelight. Exposure for highlights, bring out shadow detail in post.

i have never used reflectors...so far everything i have done has been solo operator and 90% on the go

what aperature setting would you use??

matthew

As wide as you can get it. Also, depending on focal lengh and subject/background distance, should soft focus the lights when they are background.

If you are solo, you might try a camera light with diffusion on it (to get rid of news look) if you are shooting peoples faces.

And if possible, test before going out.

well i am in massachusetts and the project is in miami, so i won't have a chance to go out before hand, but the project is with/for a friend and i'll be there for 5 or 6 days so i should be able to spend a good bit of time testing things out.

i am VERY new to the dvx-100a, it is my first serious camera, and i'd appreciate some tips on which settings to play with to get the best results.

matthew

Matthew, use proper exposure for the subjects, be careful not to underexpose. Use manual focus, and like Stephen suggests, keep the cam wide open.

can someone give me specific settings, wide open is a bit vague, i'm a newbie at the cameras at this level with all of the controls.

i have used a lot of cameras but the dvx-100 allows a bit more control than i'm used to and specific references to which settings would be grately appreciated.

matthew

Wide open - aperture/iris opened wide.

ok thank you.

i thought you meant the iris but i didn't want to ASSume

matthew

Also, shooting 24p at 1/48th or 1/24th shutter with give more light to work with without weird artifacts. If you are shooting locked off still shots, you can use the new slower shutter speeds but note that moving objects will strobe/blur (which also be used for a nice effect but experiment first).

I would definetly use cine-gamma and expose for highlight - I would disagree with Frank about worrying about underexposure. Cinegamma will allow you to bring alot of detail from the shadows, but no detail from blown highlights.

Leave matrix and other settings as is if you don't have time to test before hand.

Avoid shooting with gain unless desperate as noise will be noticably and unless you are shooting news-type documenatary or have no other choice, it will degrade the shot.

And finally, disregard everything I've suggested - what's most important is to experiment, learn and develop your own look and technique. That's what will set you apart...

i guess what i'm looking for is a crash course in what specific controls give what effect so i have a base to use for experiementing.

i will try to use my tripod as much as possible but a LOT of this has got to be done handheld walking around an event, at night with literally 3+ million lights!

matthew

"Crash course"?

Beware of the word "crash" in "crash course".

Here's my two tips plus some soapbox time:

(1)

Try to use techniques of previsualizations that many DP's etc. use.

Get visual samples (photographs, clips, paintings etc.) that have the look you are striving for.

Then that gives you and us a specific idea of what you "see" - then we could give you an idea of what settings to use. But it's not quite that "simple".

(2)

The best crash course in how the settings works it to hook up the camera to a large, quality monitor via SVHS - get manual out, set camera at controlled subject and adjust every setting, full range, one at a time, until you understand what it does.

I did this when I first got the camera. Really helped alot.

SOAPBOX:

Many people under the mistaken impression that there are "magic settings" in the camera that apply to scenes.

That's not how it works. The world is too complex with too many variables to work that way. One person's "perfect settings for night shoots" is another's "ugly blue and overexposed".

There is no easy way - you have to understand how the camera work, how DV works, how the settings work and most importantly, how light and shadow works, and the be able to use them to get the look in a particular shot in time.

I don't mean to sound like I'm evading the question, but I see lots of people asking "what settings to shoot for xxxx" or whatever.

The basic problem is they haven't ask themselves the first question - how do I want this to look, to feel? And the answers need be extremely specific. What levels of color, shadow, noise, highlights, gamma do you want? What focal lengths and apertures are you want (i.e. framing and DOF)? What camera motion, motion blur do you want? And on and on.

That doesn't mean being open to experimentation and the moment (I make experimental shorts), but it's combination of knowing your medium, your tools, and your inner artistic voice.

That applies to everything from news to event to art films.

Of course, you can just switch it to 60i and auto and fire away. That will work but may not be want you want. That's the crux of the issue - how important is it to get a specific look?

The bad thing about the DVX100 series is how many interconnecting settings it has. The great thing about the DVX100 series how many interconnecting settings it has.

Let me add this. Don't use auto focus. If you are shooting 24p you probably won't anyway but you might in 60i. This cam has what is to me an irritating autofocus issue. I have found that often the auto focus on this cam does constant modulating (seeking) to find the right focus. Most cams do this of course but usually they do it for a moment and then stop. They do sometimes start again but this one does it then stops then does it then stops then does it then stops quite a bit. This causes a VERY distracting effect that is especially noticable and very much amplified with little backround lights. The effect is more severe than with other cams I've used. The worst part is you can't see that it's happening on the LCD or viewfinder. You don't know it happened untill you see it on your NTSC.

thanks for all the tips, it has given me a huge push in the right direction.

i had a lot of fun last night playing with the shutter and the iris

can someone share some more tips on what sort of settings you could use on the iris for different situations?

the only thing i haven't quite gotten the hang of is that feature where it is supposed to show more detail for focusing, it says in the manual something about showing an outline around the subject or something, and i can't see any real change when i use that button.

matthew

thanks for all the tips so far, it has really helped guide me towards what to play with to learn how to make the camera give me the looks i want and to understand why i wasn't getting what i wanted...

so, last night i went out and did a bunch of shooting in a dimly lit parking lot.

it came out quite nicely, i did most of it with the shutter at 1/24 and the iris full open, then when some of the stores/signs were qutie bright i tried the iris at 3.4

the city streetlights had a reddish glow and lights in car dealer parking lots were bluish, i know that this is from the type of bulb/temp etc. but what is the best way to minimize that?

also, at night, what is the best white balance to use? i have a set of warm cards, would one of those be appropriate?

is there a setting that would minimize the halo around the lights?

i was shooting all of this in the F5 scene file with only the shutter and iris changed. all of it was in manual focus.

matthew

Matthew:

Generally I shoot night exteriors at 3200K, but if there is a predominate light source such as a parking lot (sodium vapor) I might balance to that so that the skin tones are clean. To keep the Xmas tree lights looking nice at 2900K or so, 3200 should work. If you are using an onboard light, white balance to that and the use of a warm card would be pretty as well.

thanks for the info charles, i am not using an onboard light, i am VERY new to a camera with this many options, how can i set the white balance for the levels you spoke of?

i have been doing standard white balances and cheating with warmcards from warmcards.com

i know enough to know that the pink and blue colors are from the type of light, but not enough to hit the specific settings you spoke of.

matthew

Check the section in the manual on the various white balance settings. Indoor is tungsten, generally 3200 degrees Kelvin or 3200k. Outdoor is 5600K, though these numbers vary with cams. film stocks, lights etc.

i know what the numbers mean, but i'm dense, how do i specifically set the white balance for those numbers?

i know the presets are 3200k and 5600k, but other than that, is there a way to specifically dial in a set number?

matthew

I need to seek advice in shooting at night as well. I just got my DVX100A and was testing it day and night. I notice that there was much noise in the darker areas. A clip can be seen at

http://etilise.com/try.m2v (sorry for the size (34M), don't know how to make good quality and small mov file).

First I watched the clip on a 14" TV and it looked great. Later I watched it on a 25" and 34"... the quality was not very good at all on the big screen. I can see much noise in areas between the buildings and particularly in the sky. The neon light looked like bleeding as well.

All three shots were done with factory default F1 scene with fully opened iris and 1/60 shutter. 0db gain in the first two shots. The firework shot has 6db gain. I note that when the firework lit up the sky, much of the noise was gone. However, as it dimmed the noise came back again.

I notice that the noise can be found in day shots as well. Basically I cannot get low light and dark areas without noise. Please advise if there are settings and things that I may try. Thanks!!

well i already did the shoot, i was using the f5 presets, i did it with the shutter wide open and the iris wide open.

came out pretty good without having to use the gain settings at all.

matthew