Some Dark Stage footage (lots of UV lights)

[Marc Colemont]

For those who think the HD100 is not usable in dark environments.
Here are some samples (M2T) of footage I took with the HD100 from a show last week. The show was mostly lit by UV cannons 60 KWatt and Moving lights. The performers on stage wair mostly clothes which light up with the UV lights.

I used Tim's Low Light scene file. And switched between Black Stretch +3 and 0 during the show, depending on the needs. The White balance was set at 5600K. I stood at the FOH 39 meters from the stage. The Close-ups went pretty good from that distance (I'm used to a 10x lens instead of 16x) with the standard HD100 lens.

Thanks to Daniel the files can be downloaded here:
http://www.danielpatton.com/dvinfo/colemont/


UV Robots 10Mb
- Iris @ 1.4
- Black Stretch 0
- Gain 0

UV Close up 37Mb
- Iris @ 2.8
- Black Stretch +3
- Gain 0

Screen Girl 14Mb
A Girl on stage, with back-projection on her with a 5000 lumen videoprojector.
- Iris @ 4
- Blackstretch +3
- Gain 0

Pyro Man 14Mb
Performers playing with Pyro Sticks, this takes the HDV codec to the edge , but still pretty good :-).
- Iris @ 2.8
- Blackstretch 0
- Gain 0

Footage of Interview 17Mb
This footage from the HD100 looks so awesome. The colors are so good with this camera. The background is constantly changing with LED lights.
- Iris @ 5.6
- Black Stretch 0
- Manual White Balance
- Gain 0

[Manny Rodriguez]

I would love to see what you shot, but unforternatly I am not able to view the file, I am running a G5 OSX. help please..

[Marc Colemont]

http://www.videolan.org/
Download the free software video player. They have it for all operating systems.

[Manny Rodriguez]

thanks I'll try that right now

[Daniel Patton]

I have looked at one so far (UV Robots), the other is downloading but is doing so at a PAINFULLY slow pace, 4kb/sec! Would you like me to host a mirror for these files on a US based server (for those around here) that is a little faster?

The lighting, color and depth does look pretty good! Did you monitor through the cameras LCD? I would hate trusting it shooting something like that, my luck I would get home to find out I was either over or under exposed.



I do see a fair amount of compression noise around the girls standing far right and left. What setting did you have it at when capturing (Large, Med, Small, etc.)?

[Manny Rodriguez]

thanks I'll try that right now

[Marc Colemont]

Hi Daniel,

Hosting those files would be great!
I checked AspectHD HDlink settings. I didn't knew there were capture settings for this; It was set at Medium. I have changed it now to 'large' for my next captures. Actually makes me wonder if I should recapture...
Yes, I used the LCD flipout. I was not easy focussing, because I had to put myself in a narrow place at FOH with the Tripod at almost 2m high, so I couldn't use the viewfinder.
Before the show I asked the lighting guy to put up the brightest Cue they had. To make sure I was not over exposing my footage at any time.
And I used zebra at 70% as my reference for the brightest parts during the taping itself. So I knew I had some room left for some unexpected lightcues. The 'screen girl' file was the most difficult one. The image made on here clothes with a projector was very unpredictable. Very dark and bright parts.

[Jiri Bakala]

This server must be completely overloaded...nothing is downloading now.:-(
Please, let us know if the files get placed on a different server.

[Daniel Patton]

Originally Posted by Jiri Bakala

This server must be completely overloaded...nothing is downloading now.:-(
Please, let us know if the files get placed on a different server.

Yes, that server is VERY slow indeed. I'm working on the mirror now. As I type this 3 of the 5 files are:

Robots - 93% downloaded
ScreenGirl - 67% downloaded
Interview - 60% downloaded

Then I start the upload to our server, maybe another hour? I'll let you know.

[Jiri Bakala]

Thanks! I saw the 'Robots' file (the only one I managed to get) and it looks very good.

[Daniel Patton]

Here are the 3 files for now. I'll try and get the others up later tonight maybe.

http://www.danielpatton.com/dvinfo/colemont/

[Daniel Patton]

All files are up!

http://www.danielpatton.com/dvinfo/colemont/

Now that I have had a chance to check them all out I think these examples are pretty cool. Great job Marc, thanks for sharing!

[Marc Colemont]

Thanks Daniel for uploading the files. The server was indeed overloaded.
It was the first job with the HD100E. And have not seen SSE which I was worried about a bit.
I have now adjusted settings for the LCD display brightness. Since brightness 0 seems too bright. I have put it now at -2.
The keylight on the 'interview file' was therefore a bit low, since it looked OK on the LCD flipout. Next time I take my Laptop with me and HDVRack to make sure.

[Daniel Patton]

Considering the low light levels I would say you are lucky that you didn't experience any SSE. I get the feeling that these cameras are all set a little different as they dialed in the settings at the factory.

We also have HDV Rack but I have yet to even use it with the new camera, it was like cheating when I used DV Rack on the Canon XL1s. I guess I need to "get over it" and put it through it's paces.


I appreciate you sharing some of your footage, in fact I'm going to start another thread and offer some space on my server to others, so they can share as well. I would like to see more examples by DVInfo members.

Peace!