Properly exposing with a bright window

[Brian Patterson]

I want to make sure I'm doing this correctly. I'm shooting with a VX2000. I find that anytime I am facing any large window the image in front (person) is dark and unrecognizeable. If I switch to manual exposure mode and change the f-stop the character becomes brighter but so does the background. I'm thinking this is the best it's going to get but I'm wondering if there is another way to control this. Basically I'm trying to avoid the person looking like an alien that has just landed on earth.......(massive bright light behind them!!!).

Would adding ND filters help with this? What about going to ND1 and adjusting the exposure......does it have something to do with the White Balancing button???

[Pat Chaney]

If the contrast range of a scene exceeds the recording capability of DV then you need to either reduce the highlights (e.g. put a sheet or something over the outside of the window, or shoot at a different time of day) or increase the shadow levels, either by lighting or using a large reflector (white card is fine but you can buy large material reflectors that fold up quite small). ND filters will just darken the whole scene and won't help on their own.

Where possible the best solution is usually to rearrange the subject and/or shooting position. If none of these are possible then you have to just expose for the subject and let the background window blow out.

[Don Bloom]

Way back in the day when I was doing still work (you still see it today) I used a strong strobe on the camera to help counteract the background being blown out. Off course film is much more workable in that situation than DV tape. So your choices are; let the background blow out, use some sort of reflector in front of the subject matter to help open up the shadows, or use a light to counteract the shadows. If you choose #3, use the light carefully or you could end up going the other way. A combination of reflector and light is the best choice, well actually the BEST choice is not to be in the backlight situation but sometimes you don't have that opportunity.
OH well, sometimes you just gotta say "what the ****" and go with what you got!

Don B

[Tom Hardwick]

Good replies guys. I might add that white balance has no effect on the situation at all. Brian, the best way is to go with the situation. I've shot many a wedding speaker in this way and the window has been a complete washout of zebra stripes as I shoot. But in fact it's scarier than it looks. On the TV later all that happens is that you have a corectly exposed speaker with a completely white and featureless background. In some ways this deletes the distracting carpark and concentrates the mind on the speaker alone. Probably best to zoom in as much as possible so that there's more speaker, less background, but in reality it works well and is nothing to be afraid of I find.

I've had well meaning people offer to draw the curtains for me to block out the light but I'm a firm believer that we photographers need light above all else, and I for one am happy to manually expose and burn out the unneeded.

tom.

[Mike Rehmus]

If your editing software supports lumakeying, you can just shoot the background (properly exposed) long enough to have a nice loop. Maybe 10 seconds.

Then lumakey the prime footage so that the bright window image is replaced with an underlying clip. That clip is your background clip.

Sometimes you cannot get a background clip and you can use something else.

If you have the time and $ you can always balance the window by covering it with a ND film.

[Brian Patterson]

It's a wedding so the walk down the aisle can't really be reflected or set up as described in some of the posts.....

Thanks for your replies, they helped!

[Rick Barry]

Brian, in fear of stating the obvious, but have you tried using the backlight feature of the vx2000? Also, the camera will suggest in the viewfinder display when you need to use either of the nd filters.
Rick