Suggestions for shooting at night at DVinfo.net

Tom Greever · January 3rd, 2005, 06:20 AM

I'll be shooting a highway this week at night. It's a big mess of intertwining overpasses that have tacky color-changing neon lights along the side of the road. In post, I'll speed up the footage to make all the cars go super fast and motion blur.

Any suggestions for shutter/exposure settings? I wouldn't mind if the image naturally blurred on it's own -- but I want to get the most color and light I can from the car and street lights.

Boyd Ostroff · January 3rd, 2005, 07:30 AM

Without being there I don't see how we could suggest exposure settings... I think you'll just have to experiment around a little. If you don't mind the motion blur and loss of resolution then you can try slow shutter speeds as needed. I think the main thing will be to avoid adding so much gain that the image gets noisy. My experience is that you can add up to 9dB without much noticeable effect. In manual mode if you turn the exposure wheel to the maximum position it will be +18dB. Now reduce it slowly as you count each click: +15dB, +12dB, +9dB.

See how that looks at the default shutter speed of 1/60 (or 1/50 PAL). If it's too dark then you'll need to try slower speeds. But realize that when you drop below this speed you will (theoretically) cut your vertical resolution in half.

Unfortunately the PDX-10 is not the idea camera for shooting this sort of thing at night...

January 3rd, 2005, 06:20 AM	#1
Tom Greever Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Western Chicago Suburbs Posts: 32	Suggestions for shooting at night I'll be shooting a highway this week at night. It's a big mess of intertwining overpasses that have tacky color-changing neon lights along the side of the road. In post, I'll speed up the footage to make all the cars go super fast and motion blur. Any suggestions for shutter/exposure settings? I wouldn't mind if the image naturally blurred on it's own -- but I want to get the most color and light I can from the car and street lights.

January 3rd, 2005, 07:30 AM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	Without being there I don't see how we could suggest exposure settings... I think you'll just have to experiment around a little. If you don't mind the motion blur and loss of resolution then you can try slow shutter speeds as needed. I think the main thing will be to avoid adding so much gain that the image gets noisy. My experience is that you can add up to 9dB without much noticeable effect. In manual mode if you turn the exposure wheel to the maximum position it will be +18dB. Now reduce it slowly as you count each click: +15dB, +12dB, +9dB. See how that looks at the default shutter speed of 1/60 (or 1/50 PAL). If it's too dark then you'll need to try slower speeds. But realize that when you drop below this speed you will (theoretically) cut your vertical resolution in half. Unfortunately the PDX-10 is not the idea camera for shooting this sort of thing at night...