Better to expose for low lights or highlights?

[Steven Thomas]

No doubt it all depends on what we're shooting.

I can see Stephen's point about shooting people.

I imagine the more you use the HD100, the better you will get determining the best way to achieve decent exposure across a given image.

Try shooting a concert under stage lighting only. You fight the dynamics of intense concentrated light. Here's where you need tons of lattitude.

[Stephan Ahonen]

When I'm about to go into a completely unknown lighting situation, here's what I do:

After I white balance, I use the same sheet of paper I white balanced on and using 70% zebras, iris up until the paper is in zebras, then iris up an additional stop over that. Or if you're using 100% zebras, iris up until the paper is just barely showing stripes.

When I'm adjusting exposure on the fly I turn zebras off and use the white characters in the viewfinder as my reference of how bright white should be, and work out where the midtones should be from there. This only works in a camera with a CRT viewfinder that has been calibrated to bars, however.

[Carl Hicks]

Originally Posted by David Scattergood

You've made mistakes (winging it etc)? Glad somebody else has when first starting out (and you quickly learn from these!).

As a rule of thumb, would it be best to leave at 70% or ignore completely? I'm reading some who do not use zebra at all and others who swear by 70% or 100%?
BTW - I was reading about zebra on this forum (not the JVC section) and some people are using -3db outdoors - I can't seem to be able to do this with the HD100 - possible?

David,

-3 db is not one of the gain choices on the HD100. HD camera all need more light level than SD only cameras, which are now sensitive enough to offer negative gain modes.

Regards, Carl

[David Scattergood]

^^ Thanks Carl.