Damnit, I took my camera to school today, and I gave my camera to a couple kids to walk around and get some funny footage (they are nuts) and in almost every shot of something good, it was backlit, and as you all know, Auto exposure isn't good with handling stuff like that, so it exposed for the bright backgrounds and bright lights, instead of the subject, oh well. Now I have lots of funny stuff shot poorly =/. I should of gave them a little lesson instead of just telling them which button is the record button, heh.

well don't be blaming AE, thats just wrong.

I love AE, I do everything in there. I write documents and spreadsheets in it, if it could browse the web and send emails I would never Exit out of it. :-)

But seriously, I love AE even if it can't do EVERYTHING.
I used it to design a t-shirt logo because it know it better than most programs so I knew i could get the logo the way I wanted it using AE instead of Photoshop or Illustrator.

*Didn't read the post alert (sirens)* ;)

Heh, I wasn't talking about After Effects, even though I suck with that program... :D

EDIT - I changed the subject so it's more clear. :)

O hehe, ok, I wrote faster than I thought

I thought you meant you couldn't fix the footage in After effects
not talking about Auto Exposure.

I always call After Effects AE and I just assume other people do to.

hehe

I think we have two different discussions going on here. Alex, I believe is referring to Auto Exposure (AE) and Jim is referring to Adobe After Effects (AE). You two can try and sort it out from there.

Alex, try manual exposure.

Alex
A word of advice, don't lend your camera to anyone, especially someone that doesn't understand how to use it properly.
You really enjoy your camera and it would most likely be devestating to have it lost or damaged. You do good work Alex, you have more dedication and incite than a lot of people twice your age.

Yes, of course, if I was operating the camera, I would use manual exposure properly, but like I mentioned, it was some other crazy kids using my camera filming some funny stuff, and they are electronic illiterate to begin with...

At first glance of the thread title, I too thought it was about Adobe After Effects. I've edited the thread title to read "Auto Exposure" for clarity.

There are several things on cameras that suck...auto exposure, auto shutter, auto video gain, audo audio gain. Notice that all those things that suck begin with auto. Just because it's there doesn't mean it should be used. My previous car would do 120 miles per hour, but that didn't mean I should use it that way.

That'll teach ya to lend out your camera! Heheheh.

Bill, don't forget the worst of all, auto focus! :)

For sure! I thought after I posted that I left out something--good catch. If you had to pick the worst of the worst, that probably is it.
The manufacturers put all the auto stuff on because they can and it's cheap and appeals to the masses, but for a normal person (by our standards of normalcy, if there is such a thing), the very first thing to do when you get a camera is turn all the auto stuff off.

On the other hand...there is always an exception. On occasion, I do the same thing Alex did--I let somebody else use a camera. But, the person who uses it is sort of experienced and it's used for things like talent auditions. I turn on the auto stuff and say, "Here...push this button to record, keep you finger off the zoom when you're shooting, and don't put anybody in front of a window."

I usually refer to the full-auto mode as the mother-in-law mode.

"Oh, looks like Gladys is chopping off heads again."

..heh thats another problem I have with letting other people shoot stuff with my camera -- They can't frame FOR CRAP! and oddly, i've had 2 kids so far film some stuff with my camera, and it's not chopping off heads, but rather bodies, meaning they have the camera frame up way to far, and that also means the auto exposure underexposes the subject because it's exposeing for either the sky and the lights on the ceiling, because these kids can't frame...

Honestly, in good daylight and in the right conditions, I use the auto mode. There's nothing to worry about with auto focus, especially in daylight, because the aperature is usually at f11-f16, which basically makes a insanely deep depth of field, so the need for the camera to keep re-focusing isn't necessary. When the light gets low or when I need to shoot a subject that will throw off the auto stuff, I will use the manual modes...

Alex, kids with your cam...dangerous!! I had two adults use my cameras last weekend because I had to "run" things and dang, that was a mistake, like you said they couldn't frame crap, they zoomed in and out of everything they shot...it was a disaster. I guess we are both lucky in the sense at least they didn't drop the darn thing.

Speaking of AE (the adobe kind), how the heck do you use that program, I have it and I can't even figure out how to start anything with it.

Heh, i'm in the same situation as you. I have access to AfterEffects also, and I can't figure it out for crap, I can do some stuff, but the timeline is so screwy, it sucks, it doesn't make any sense, because howcome you only have 8 seconds of footage on the timeline at a time? It's stupid....lol

"Alex, kids with your cam...dangerous!!"

I use the word "kids" loosely, I myself am considered a kid, apparently, i'm only 14. :D

14 OMG... Dude...8 seconds of footage? Timeline? I can't even get to that point. I definitely admire your quest at 14, when I was 14 I was consulting the realtors in the town I live in, in which I was setting up their XT's and PC's to hook up to the then new MLS system utilizing the newest and greatest HST modems (9600 baud)... I was a freelance tech at the ripe age of 11 fixing PC's, old ugly bulky and expensive ones paying about $100 a MB. I was so used to being called the "whiz" kid and now that I get to eat at the "grown up's" table with kids of my own that torch has passed on...well enjoy the lime light kid, soon you will be on this end trippin about a 14 year old's knowledge of electronics and computers. :oP

If I remember correctly the default PROJECT LENGTH in AE is 8
seconds. You must lengthen your project BEFORE putting the
footage on the timeline. Now I don't have AE installed currently
so I can't check how, what and where but this is what I remember.

Hope this helps some...

Garret, yeah, when people say "computer genius" or whatever, I usually tell them to shut up or I might punch them in the face. :) Everyone needs to have lots of lost of knowledge and experience with them. I just read a pretty funny article in the newspaper that was written by a really old lady, and basically it was about how some 15 year old girl came into her office and said "haha, you have a crappy old antique type writer", or something similiar to that, and the old lady went on ranting about how it wasn't a old type writer at all, except a new one that erases all the mistakes and all that crap, and she went on to say basically computers suck, and she has had nothing but a bad experience with them, and she mentioned she used a IBM that she has had for 8 years, hah, go figure. She also mentioned that in her views, computers will be "obsolete" in like 10 years, I actually know someones grandpa who believes that also, haha...

I've been using computers since I was about 6, and I got my first computer of my own when I was like 8, it was a big 200Mhz AMD K6, with 32MB ram and something like a 2GB HDD, and a 15 inch monitor, which I still actually have (the monitor), and was actually using it for quite a while until I finally bought a 17 inch at BestBuy for like $120...moving from years of that 15 inch monitor, to this extra extra sharp 17 inch monitor, was pretty crazy. I was like "whoa, thats better". I built a new system in 2000 (I was about 11/12) which is the system I am still using now, with the exception of some small upgrades. It was my real first experience with actually building a system, but I have helped put many together and fix them before that (with my uncle). I discovered it was quite easy, and neither me or my uncle knew much about what hardware was good or not at the time, so we just went to a local downtown computer shop, and they sold us this 1GHz AMD Athlon, 256MB PC133 SDRAM, some cheap DFI motherboard, and a case for $500, I later found out that I got ripped off big time, when I got into looking at good hardware and reading reviews on the internet, but oh well, what can I do? I put it together in literally no time at all, and slapped a OS on it and was running...I had bought a ATI 32MB AIW 128 pro video card at the time, which I am also still using, and I have upgraded some things like the HDD, I was using nothing but a 13.6GB hdd, but then I bought a 40GB, and a new soundcard, and a burner, thats about it.

Now I just need to get a job so I can build a new system. :D


Here's some pictures of my computer, and case, which is quite chopped up and very loud, sounds like a jet, but hey, why not? The fans were only $1.00 each WITH the grills, I couldn't pass it up when I ordered the case online. :D I do have a switch on the front to turn most of them off except 2, which is where it's at basically all the time...

http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=2436083
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=2436084
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=2436116
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=2436117
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpubimage.asp?id_=2436121

you can have whatever length of the timeline you desire in AE, its in the composition settings. The rationale is that you don't have to have an 'endless' timeline in sight when you're working on a short effects sequence or a 30 sec commercial.

Rob, Adrian, Thanks, that helps a lot, i'm sure that was somewhere in the help files or in a tutorial, but I never bothered reading them....heh

Alex, when I was six they had computers alright, they called them calculators! :p Seriously my first PC was the Osborne One and a Timex Sinclair. Your generation definitely has the technical advantage. I thought I started early...in fact in my day, I did, but my two-year-old knows how to negotiate around the XP interface with some sense on what she is doing.

Ok that's a bit off topic, anyway, back to AE...maybe if someone would write a quick and easy tutorial and I will get the hang of using it. Something real simple like a looping PSD animation or even a letter i.e. "A" moving across the screen, somthing that will help me understand the interface.

Hehe, I'm 17 and my first computer was a 386 :D Those were great though, can't beat the games I played on that.. especially Commander Keen!

Anyway, thread hijack.. I had quite the problem with Auto Exposure at the wedding I filmed a few weeks ago, the altar was in front of very large windows on an overcast day. Not good! And I wish it was just as simple as turning AE off, but my cheap little consumer camera doesn't have such an option. Time to save those pennies!

First computer i used was at school at the age of 4, it was a bank of BBC dumb terminals, we did great mathematical drawings on it.

Auto exposure is real hell to deal with when it doesn't work correctly.

A couple of rules, especially if we are talking about a shoot with many uncontrolled conditions like a wedding or candid footage.

1. Are you viewing the material on a tv monitor, don't judge with the computer screen.

2. The people who will recieve/watch the material do not have an eye like you do, if it looks passable to you, it will look fine if not great to them. I know that sounds like an easy way out, but the fact it is edited together is better than what 99% of people can do, and they will think it is great.

Don't kill yourself, some situations are uncontrollable and should not be taken personally.

Zac

This whole thing's gotten a bit off-topic, but I thought I'd throw in with my own first computer story....

I'm 24 and my first computer was an Apple IIc with a monochrome monitor....on which I played games like Zork 3. And don't forget the dot-matrix printer, hey? I never even imagined that computers would become what they are. The next year (First or Second grade) my school got the Apple IIe, the first computer I ever saw that had a mouse. I flipped out. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. DOn't you sometimes wish you could go back in time and show your young self what you have now?

-Shawn

OK, if you guys are gonna tell first computer stories...mine was a "portable" Kaypro 4. I shot a TV spot for the thing, with an HL79, and went down and bought one the next day. It came with Wordstar. OK. Enough.

Lets get back on topic people... Thanks.