Auto Exposure Sucks! =/

Garret Ambrosio · May 2nd, 2003, 07:12 PM

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

Rob Lohman · May 3rd, 2003, 03:36 AM

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...

Alex Knappenberger · May 3rd, 2003, 01:04 PM

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/viewpub...sp?id_=2436083
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436084
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436116
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436117
http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436121

Adrian Seah · May 3rd, 2003, 01:21 PM

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.

Alex Knappenberger · May 3rd, 2003, 01:30 PM

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

Garret Ambrosio · May 3rd, 2003, 03:05 PM

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.

Alex Taylor · May 4th, 2003, 01:50 AM

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!

Zac Stein · May 4th, 2003, 02:11 AM

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

Shawn McBee · May 4th, 2003, 03:19 AM

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

Bill Pryor · May 4th, 2003, 11:06 AM

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.

Rob Lohman · May 4th, 2003, 03:44 PM

Lets get back on topic people... Thanks.

May 2nd, 2003, 07:12 PM	#16
Garret Ambrosio Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vallejo, CA Posts: 263	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 __________________ "USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population." -David Letterman

May 3rd, 2003, 03:36 AM	#17
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	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... __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

May 3rd, 2003, 03:05 PM	#21
Garret Ambrosio Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vallejo, CA Posts: 263	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. __________________ "USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out of every four people make up 75% of the population." -David Letterman

May 4th, 2003, 01:50 AM	#22
Alex Taylor Major Player Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 390	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! __________________ alextaylor.org

May 4th, 2003, 03:19 AM	#24
Shawn McBee Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Sarasota, FL Posts: 69	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 __________________ "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." -Mark Twain

May 3rd, 2003, 01:04 PM	#18
Alex Knappenberger High School Student Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Canton, Ohio, USA Posts: 609	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/viewpub...sp?id_=2436083 http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436084 http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436116 http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436117 http://www.villagephotos.com/viewpub...sp?id_=2436121

May 3rd, 2003, 01:21 PM	#19
Adrian Seah Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: London, England Posts: 87	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.

May 3rd, 2003, 01:30 PM	#20
Alex Knappenberger High School Student Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Canton, Ohio, USA Posts: 609	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

May 4th, 2003, 02:11 AM	#23
Zac Stein Major Player Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 730	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

May 4th, 2003, 11:06 AM	#25
Bill Pryor Contributor Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 4,449	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.

May 4th, 2003, 03:44 PM	#26
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Lets get back on topic people... Thanks. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors