I'll disagree with Spot and say there really isn't much you can do, been there, done that. Problem is even without auto exposure no camera has enough latitude to avoid blowing out something in a shot with that much contrast. Now that it's recorded as DV it's even a bigger task.
In this situation though you may well get away with fooling the viewer by making it look deliberate, try adding some light rays or flare and turn it down and then off as the exposure becomes correct. Give the shot an ethereal look at the start of it.
Bob.

Andy, Bob and Spot are both right, somewhat. With Digital blown-out, unlike film, you are screwed. That is, the bright areas are loss, but like Spot suggested, the darken images can be is enhance. The enhancement process can be very long. One important step is masking out the blown-out areas before attemping any adjustments. Basicly, I would suggest just concentrating on the bride's party, or just the bride and not the room. Once you removed all background and blow-out areas, you can use any of the many tutorial steps for color enhancement. Once done, place/overlay the enhanced images on a track over the orginal video. You will probably notice some noise in your enhanced images, try "smoothing out" the colors, like using a small amount of blur or run the images thru virtualdub with a noise filter.

Wolfie? If you've got a solution by now - great! If not, I've emailed you. - G

Yes, I managed that effect with my first video using a hired DVcam. The hiring firm got it to me a day later than ordered and a bit before the actual wedding ceremony, so I used it on auto. So whenever something bright, like the door, got into frame everything went dark. I was able to make amends using Sony Curves plus Sony Colour Corrector with the keyframes (because the corrections have to be time varying). I was able to pull up images that were quite satisfactory to the people concerned.

The problem is that the image you want has been crammed down into the "black end" of the CCD response curve. So you have to stretch that end using Colour Curves while severely compressing the "white end" of the image. If you do only that then the blacks (such as the groom's suit) turn into a sort of muddy noisy grey, so you put a short toe to the bottom of the curve to keep blacks. At this stage you have enough of the detail you wanted but noticable contrast and muddy colours. Working with the Colour Corrector will restore acceptable colours if you haven't had to do too big a stretch. You might need to desaturate the colours to pastel. Or even to near b&w.

Far from ideal, but when you can't shoot it again....

Wolfbass, one of the things I do is always have a light attached to the camera. When I run into a situation like this I will use the dimmer on the light to bring the level just enough to make the subject visible.
Almost like a fill in flash on a still camera.

. . .or a reflector . . .

Lighting the church and gelling the windows is ideal but I think here we're talking of the general situation of somebody working alone with a low end camera. Set the camera to manual control is the first thing.

Serena, you're right on the money :)

Thanks to all, especially Grazie, for you ideas and help, I'll spend some time and do the best I can.

Appreciate the help.

Andy

Thanks to all, especially Grazie, for you ideas and help, I'll spend some time and do the best I can
Would you like to share your thoughts Grazie? I have a situation where the Bride & Groom are back-lit by strong sun light during the celremony. I was thinking of masks. Is that the right way to go?

Mahesh, yes - I used MASKS.

"I was thinking of masks. Is that the right way to go?"

. . . was my thinking too! I don't know if it is the "right" way . .but I feel I got some success. The right way would be to go manual and force the lighting on set AND adjust the camera ... yeah? No tricks there though. Blow out the background. OR decide WHAT you want to film and go for that.

I attempted to make a complex mix of Colour Correction, 2nd CC, Masks and Chroma Keying to isolate and then "boost" the darks BUT retain the correctly exposed external areas.

Result? Grain! But THEN having given it some Glow it started to become
something "different" to the original material.

Mahesh, phone me this morning and or send me a still.

Grazie

Thanks for the input Bernard.
The exposure of the subject is fine. It's the burnt-out whites in the background that are distracting and cause unacceptable halo effect. Under normal circumstances, I would leave as it is. The ceremony room boasts 300 degree panoramic view so I suppose it was expected.

I was thinking of trying a mask so that I could reduce the background glare without affecting the subject. I have not used masks before so that might make it a good tutorial for me.
I just wondered if that is the way to go.

I have not got round to digitising the footage yet. Next project on my list.
Perhaps I could send you a still when I start editing the project. Yeh?

Sure thing Mahesh! - G

will do. Thanks G.

Grazie,

Been thinking about your process (known only by your summary). Seems that you had the backlight type of situation, where the subject is underexposed against a well lit background. Certainly the processes you describe can do a lot to rescue the subject and it would be interesting to see a couple of stills of your before & after. Apparently you didn't use curves also and I wonder why. Curves alone in the backlit situation would compress the highlights (but not necessarily wash out detail). In the case of the bright door/window driving the auto exposure I wonder that it is worth using masks? A lot more trouble, I think?

Serena

Possible way to use a mask to deal with the situation:

In the clip, you might want to split out the one part which needs correction. s for split edit, selecting the clip and making a selection at the top scrub area can split the clip fastest.

Go into the pan/crop tool.

Draw a diamond over the person. If you want, you can draw an oval. Use 4 points because everything will render faster that way.
Set the feather to about 5-30%, and set the feather type to whatever's appropriate. I find out is the easiest to use. This affects how you should draw the mask. I try to fit it around the subject right on the edges. But the feathering smooths everything out, so it's not a big deal.

Once you've drawn the mask, go to the last frame where you want the mask. Select the mask/path by right-clicking on it and "select path". Use the mouse to drag-move the mask so it fits over the subject again.

Go back to the beginning, advance several frames, and manually move the mask so it follows the subject. If Vegas had motion tracking this would be less time consuming (can we all please request this? this would be a nice feature). But for short shots, you can quickly grind through adding keyframes to the mask. Do a sloppy, quick job. Because of the feathering, it's ok to be sloppy.

Now go on the clip and add whatever filter it is you want. Color curves can work, but it'll cause slight color shifts which usually isn't a problem. It does crush highlights nicely. The color corrector's gamma control can work too (along with offset and gain).

In the bottom of the FX window, click on the little triangles so the filter gets applied BEFORE the pan/crop tool. If not, you'll get this unwanted halo effect if using color curves.

You may want to apply the filter before tracking the mask by hand.

The advantage of using a mask is that you can raise exposure in one area without affecting the rest.

Hiyah Serena!

7:00am in London here, just got outta bed and read your valuable response, thanks!

"Seems that you had the backlight type of situation, where the subject is underexposed against a well lit background. "

Correct. Not my shoot - it was Wolfbass'. I would have gone manual and blown the background, well at least a bit more! And then done more repairs in post.


"Certainly the processes you describe can do a lot to rescue the subject and it would be interesting to see a couple of stills of your before & after."

Sure, ask Wolfie, his material. The end result was that the Darks where too grainy for my liking. However I hadn't "crushed" the brights. The colours in the brights became kinda more filmy/8mm - this produced an interesting contrast between the grainy inside Darks and the external coloured Brights.


"Apparently you didn't use curves also and I wonder why. Curves alone in the backlit situation would compress the highlights (but not necessarily wash out detail)."

Well, I did "try" them, and found them to be a tad "rough", must be my ham-fisted approach - but I will now take on board what you say and have another go - THANK YOU!


"In the case of the bright door/window driving the auto exposure I wonder that it is worth using masks? A lot more trouble, I think?"

Oh yes! But I used a complex concoction of several chroma-keying and rendered mask/s. I did this to firstly experiment with this approach and secondly attempt to see if I could "gently" adjust - by the use of these "adjustment" layers/tracks - a more "real" look. The masks created themselves from the C/K-ing, this was a very fast process.

I'll have another go at the Colour Curves, and get back at yah!

Grazie

Grazie,
Have a look back at my description of adding a toe to the bottom of the curve. Of course you can add points to the curve to generate complex shapes (if you really wish to). In my wedding-instance I used a bold curve to boost the darks and compress the brights and added a toe and a shoulder to look after the blacks and whites respectively. However in this case I didn't care if the doorway or window washed out to white because they were always just a portion of the background.

Incidentally, I like your idea of adding glow and wish I'd thought of that for my "coming up the aisle" shot -- it sure needed something extra!

Serena

I have used the cookie cutter to isolate the object and with the filters on that to compensate for the back light.

Used in this years entry for IOV competition, where the bride walks down the isle and gets blown out by a ray of sunshine, was much better after the tweaking