Help with getting the best shot!

[Jordan Berry]

Hello,

I've read the entire manual for the XH A1, several times. I'm going out to spend the entire day shooting and then i'll come home and see how different things worked, and figure out how i can get the best footage. I'm fairly new to this amount of control over video.. Mainly going to be videotaping weddings.

If you could give me some advice, it would be very appreciated.

1) ND filter, what I can find out it's Noise Deduction? So this would be helpful if in low light and you crank the gain up to 12db? Would you ever suggest using it past the 1st setting? But you have to be careful if you're making quick movements because of ghosting.

2) I'm using Steve's preset and I'm loving it, anymore anyone thinks I must have? I've tried all the ones here, but yet to find one I like as much.

3) Zebra! I believe i read i should use a 70% zebra and when it appears on the cheeks of a white skin person that's the right exposure? 100% outdoors and if you get any zebra then you're overexposing?

4) Gain, -3 for indoors, low light and low contrast, 0 for lifelike scenes under artificial light, and 3+ for lowlight, etc. How do I know which one to use? I've noticed it can produce quite a bit of noise and really ruins the shot, are there any rules or suggestions I can get?

5) Apeture controls, in shooting weddings and the such, do i need to adjust this? Besides trying to change the field of depth?

Any other advice for how to get a good shot with a Canon XH A1, i'm going for a warm feeling in my shots.

(ps. POSTED this in dvinfo as well lol)

[HankCastello]

1) ND filter, what I can find out it's Noise Deduction? So this would be helpful if in low light and you crank the gain up to 12db? Would you ever suggest using it past the 1st setting? But you have to be careful if you're making quick movements because of ghosting.

Jordan, sounds like that manual needs to be written better.

ND is "Neutral Density".  It is used to reduce the amount of light entering the lens.  This can be helpful when your smallest aperature setting and current speed setting are still overexposing.  It can also be helpful in situations where you want to force a smaller aperature (like for greater depth of field) or where you want to use a slow shutter speed to introduce a hint of blur, etc.

With cameras offering ND1 & ND2 settings - in bright sunlight, it is normal to use ND2 and on bright but overcast days, ND1 usually suffices.  Generally speaking, the camera will "tell" you when you need to use a neutral density filter.

[Jordan Berry]

Alright ND is for light, and yes it will tell me.

The noise reduction is only controlled by a preset, so i have to edit the preset.

Thanks for the advice,
Jordan

[HankCastello]

3) Zebra! I believe i read i should use a 70% zebra and when it appears on the cheeks of a white skin person that's the right exposure? 100% outdoors and if you get any zebra then you're overexposing?

(Remember, camera settings can vary somewhat model to model and even camera to camera) In general, the hotter spots of a caucasian face (generally cheek tops and/or forehead) will have some 70% zebra.  These will not be there if you are much over or under exposed.

100% zebra indicates areas that are overexposed (blown out).  But be careful - since the digital medium has much less lattitude than film, nearly every "properly exposed" image will have some blown out areas.  Therefore, the presence of a few zebras at 100% does not necessarily mean your image is over exposed.  You, as the videographer must decide which areas of your image are most important and (when lattitude is insuficient) which areas can be over/under exposed.

The best thing is to experiment and learn your camera.  You may want to carry a small notebook and try different shots, noting what sort of zebra stripes you got, then play back on a well-set TV and see what you think.

Note that zebras are intended to indicate IRE and what will or will not be considered "legal" for NTSC broadcast.

[Jordan Berry]

Thanks Hank,

Good suggestion with the notebook, i'll do that!

[HankCastello]

4) Gain, -3 for indoors, low light and low contrast, 0 for lifelike scenes under artificial light, and 3+ for lowlight, etc. How do I know which one to use? I've noticed it can produce quite a bit of noise and really ruins the shot, are there any rules or suggestions I can get?

Gain increases exposure like a wider aperature does, but without decreasing depth of field.  Worse than shallow depth of field, you get grain and begin losing color saturation at some point.  It's good to know just how much gain you can add without hurting your image, so again - experiment.  Don't put too much stock in what the manual says for gain settings.  Take your camera into different environments and experiment while you carefully watch your LCD and/or take notes and watch later on the TV.

[HankCastello]

5) Aperature controls, in shooting weddings and the such, do i need to adjust this? Besides trying to change the field of depth?

Jordan, different cameras may have different equations for determining exposure when in the "auto" mode, but in genera, when you have a white or bright background, your camera will tend to underexpose your subject.  When you have a dark background, your camera will tend to overexpose your subject.

During ceremonies, I'll have Jean stand where the bride will be standing, zoom in on her face and lock down exposure for her camera and any static cams that will have that shot.  This means she may be somewhat underexposed on the processional, but better that than being off for the whole ceremony.

Besides, I am the one who moves to the center to catch the main part of the processional.  I manually adjust my camera's focus and exposure as needed.  My fingers know where the controls are and I've practiced so that I can change them without jiggling the camera or unduly diverting my attention.  Jean can do this also, but she is not confident enough (even after four years) to do this during a ceremony.

You can often get away with automatic focus/exposure controls, but sometimes you just cannot.  My feeling is that a true professional takes total control over his images, leaving little to chance.

(By the way, depth of field is usually the least of my concerns!)

[Jordan Berry]

So adjusting white balance, and gain, and noise reduction won't be enough?

I'll need to adjust exposure as well? Eek

[HankCastello]

Exposure is a function of aperature/gain/shutter speed/neutral density.

Assuming your shutter speed is nailed down (usually 60fps), and nd is zero, you generally want to handle all exposure settings by aperture changes.  Only when your aperature is fully open would you usualy want to increase gain.  Then, once you've hit the limit of your gain to where loss of saturation and increased grain is begining to get unacceptable, you might consider reducing shutter speed to 1/30 sec.

Noise reduction, color and sharpness controls are generally things you'll set once for a particular project, then leave alone.  My cameras handle white balance pretty well and only in unusual circumstances or quickly changing circumstances, must I take control over wt bal.