My viewfinder isnt my best friend...

[Joel Ruggiero]

I always use my viewfinder to film but lately when I am filming things around concrete its always overexposed. I mean it looks awesome through the viewfinder and when I stick that tape into my other cam at the end of the day and watch it and I get real mad because everything we shot near concrete is overexposed. This really is making me mad because now about 10 min of usable footy is gone to waste. Does anybody else have this problem or a solution? ( i shoot skateboarding so this is becoming a common problem)

[Ken Tanaka]

Shooting against bright, near-white backgrounds will always be a challenge, particularly at times when the sun is high in the sky. You an expose your main subject properly, thus blowing-out the background, or you can set a "proper" exposure for the overall frame, thus making your subject very dark.

There is no single solution, and the camera is not to blame, although these cameras have such small luma latitude that blowing-out brights or crushing darks is a very common problem. Fundamentally, you need to exert complete manual control of your exposure. If you can control the event, shoot later (or earlier) in the day when the concrete is not so bright. If you must shoot when the sun's blazing, you can try shooting tighter shots of your main subject to minimize the amount of overexposed background.

[Joel Ruggiero]

we shot at about 10 am and it was an odd overcast skies. The problem is we skateboard and we're not very liked by the majority of people so we go on Sundays mornings to the city so we have a less chance of getting kicked out but I will see what I can do but I just want to see if anybody else was having this problem.

[Michael Wisniewski]

Joel try a polarizing filter (click here).

You might also experiment with a neutral density filter.

[Rob Lohman]

1) on what where you watching this? It might be salvagable

2) I use the zebra stripes on my XL1S all the time (I assume the GL2 has this as well) so to make sure stuff is not clipping unless I want to.

[Joel Ruggiero]

ya I was bidding on a polarizer on ebay cause I thought that would help. I do use zebra once in while but tend not to but I hope the filter will help me out.

[Jeff Toogood]

Why would you not use zebra stripes all the time? It would let you know that your scene is getting blown out and allow you to do something about it.

[Barry Goyette]

Joel

Zebras are your most important tool in controlling exposure, absent a good field monitor (which I doubt any self-respecting skateboard filmmaker would go for). The lcd screens, and viewfinders on consumer video cameras are simply not accurate enough to judge exposure by. Even pro cameras don't provide an accurate enough viewfinder. I don't know any pro shooters who try to go it alone on this...we all use the zebras...and so should you.

A polarizer will help matters, but also may increase color saturation in a way that may ( or may not) suit the grunge filmmaker.

Good luck

Barry

[Joel Ruggiero]

I use zebras but some times they just annoy me so it depends but ill have to get a polarizer and see how that works for me.

[Rob Lohman]

There is a reason they annoy you. Because you are blowing out
your highlights!!! You should not (or barely) see them when you
are doing proper exposure. So they are of no annoyance to you
then. I've set my stripes on my XL1S to 90% so I have a bit of
headroom left. A couple of stripes do not bother me (you could
even set it to 100%, but then any strip is already clipping!) and
when I see lots I know I'm overexposed.

Take the advice on the board here. The zebra's are there for
a very good reason! And again, if you expose properly they
WON'T be there!