I always shoot with the Zebras set to 100. The iris is adjusted so that only the brightest parts of the scene have a hint of zebras.

There is a misconception about zebras that causes some people some problems. In Sony cameras, and I guess others as well, if your Zebra setting is 70, then anything in the range of 65-75 will show zebras. Anything over 75 will not zebra.

Likewise , a zebra setting of 100 will start showing zebras at 95.

I noticed the if I have the preview window large and then slide the window smaller to see the audio tracks (without moving the cusor on the timeline, in other words, the same frame) the B&W settings change.

I've never seen that behaviour. What preview settings are you using (draft/preview/good/best and audo/full/half/quarter)? Also what settings if you right click on the preview window (simulate.../scale.../adjust...)?

I shoot a lot of "just-in-time" delivery projects (which drives me crazy sometimes, but it's a living).

My rule of thumb is set zebra for 70, and then use that on the cheeks and forehead (hedging more toward the cheeks since they're close to the eyes, and you want the best exposure for what the viewer is going to be looking at).

It works for me, since it gives you that little bit of room to work with. Because of the nature of digital cameras, clipping video is just bad news. I tend to play it safe since you can cheat a little to recover dark video, but over exposed video is just gone (just like any digital audio over 0db is just crunchy bits).

"I noticed the if I have the preview window large and then slide the window smaller to see the audio tracks (without moving the cusor on the timeline, in other words, the same frame) the B&W settings change."Any chance of posting two screen prints (before and after) to show us what you're seeing?

...Jerry

Jerry - I make files with two .jpg screen shots but I don't see how to post them here. Any ideas?

Dave

Marc & Steve:

I see what you're saying, but I have one other concern. If I set the skin tones to 70 and there are other bright elements in the picture, will they be burned out?

Dave

Nick:

The preview window is set to Preview (auto). When I right click and go to 'Video Preview Preferences', I don't see the info you asked about.

Dave

D. Collins,

I suspect Nick is sleeping right now. Forgive me for butting in. A best practice is to always take your levels at best(full) as the video scopes sample the preview display.

The discussion I recall on this is here: Survey: What min/max levels does your cam shoot? There are probably others.

...Jerry

btw: Here's how to post images to this forum:

The short answer is: [img=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/Jazzy4.jpg]

The longer, better answer is in the sticky

The best answer is:



You can use the windows Snipping Tool instead of SnagIt & the web service of you choice instead of the free Dropbox service.

Dave, they could be burned out it just depends on the scene. If you have control over the lighting your goal would be to light the skin tones properly and then the background accordingly. If you have no control over lighting you might need to let the background burn out a bit to get proper skin tone levels. I had to that yesterday on some man on the street interviews. Sometimes you sacrifice certain elements of the picture that are not important.

How do they look to you on your monitor? Good color correction is a blend of scopes and looking at a properly calibrated monitor.

"If I set the skin tones to 70 and there are other bright elements in the picture, will they be burned out?"

Depends how the scene is lit. Things mostly likely to blow out are specular highlights (from refelective things) and pure white fabrics.

Even when you have control over the lighting you can still have issues. A couple of tips:

1) Specular highlights can be dealt with by a light spray with hairspray.
2) Washing powder can make "whites whiter than white". You can fix them by soaking the fabric in strong tea, don't rinse and hang out to dry. It will wash out.This nocks the brightness down just enough If the fabric is pure cotton you can boil it in tea. Probably a useless tip on 100% synthetics. Really shiny fabrics can be rubbed with beeswax to dull them down.

Bob.

Jerry:

The quickest and easy method for me is to give you a link to a page on my site for the screen grabs, it's:
http://www.mwnews.net/html/video_screen_grab.html

Thanks to everyone for your helpful tips. I think I get it for the zebra setting question, but I'm still puzzeled by setting the luminance shown in the screen grab, if it's depend on window size.

Dave

Okay, as mentioned above - always use your scopes at Best(Full). When doing this make sure you right-click uncheck "Adjust size and quality..." (you can reset those guys after you measure your levels).



...Jerry

Edit: I think this is the reason why you're getting different readings:

Large Image:

Small Image:


They should both read Preview:1440x1080

Jerry:

Bingo! That's did it. Now the settings don't change with picture size, and with the higher quality, it will be easier to adjust as well.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help. I don't know what I'd do without this Forum. Thanks to everyone!

Dave

Thanks for explaining that Jerry :)

As Jerry says, do critical grading and video scope stuff at Best (Full).

What's interesting here with HDV 1080i in VP10.0e is that Best (Full), Good (Full) and Preview (Full) are all absolutely identical. The scopes don't change at all. I don't know if that applies to AVCHD though.

EDIT: So I found a .mts file from a Panasonic GH2 and notice that Best (Full) and Good (Full) are the same, but Preview (Full) isn't. Slight change in the scopes.

"If I set the skin tones to 70 and there are other bright elements in the picture, will they be burned out?"

Yes, and you would never know it because in most cameras, at least in all my Sony cameras, anything in the image over 75 will not zebra. That's why I always use 100 for my zebra setting. If I see zebras, it's blown out.

You can always apply correction in post if you need to brighten an underexposed event, but you can never recover blown out data from overexposure.

Steve:

Good advice. Maybe a using both settings, skin tones at 70 and then changing to 100 to see if the lighting is right overall. Although I guess that's what light meters are for, but I don't have one and Zebras work really well.

Thanks again,

Dave

"Although I guess that's what light meters are for, but I don't have one and Zebras work really well."

Zebras are in general better for video than a light meter. Light meters are not expensive but are tedious to use and unless you can control the lighting not much use for video.
You can use a grey card and zebras as a light meter. Set zebras to 50%, adjust exposure so card reads 50% and job done. Problem is you are just setting exposure for the amount of light falling on that part of the scene.
The dual zebras in my EX1 are great, I set zebra 2 to 65%, zebra 1 is fixed at 100%.
I can still face an unresolvable problem when talent are in shadows and full sun and wearing lots of white. Some cameras now have a choice of gamma curves and / or dynamic range control to help with this kind of problem. Unfortunately they can introduce another problem that needs to be considered. If you ignore that as I did recently you will get nasty outcomes.

Bob.

Bob:

Very interesting and good info. Light bulbs are going off in my head now.

Thanks,

Dave

Sorry for newbie question, but how do you set "zebra". The word "zebra" never appears in the Sony 500 page user manual. I know you can set Video Scopes to 7.5IRE or Studio RGB, but I see nothing about setting Zebra setting.

thanks in advance,
Rich

Rich,

The zebra settings are in the camera itself. Some have them some don't.

Regards, Marc

"Although I guess that's what light meters are for, but I don't have one and Zebras work really well."

Most of my lighting work was for video people and I found that I rarely used a meter with them, but there are times when a meter is the only option:

-when doing a prelight
-when lighting a stage and you want to walk though people's positions
-Any complex situation where people will be in various locations on set and your DP wants to be able to shoot continuously.
--when walking through people's blocking
--when standing near camera and directing the lighting crew while using a spot meter.

But for most video work where there's no planning ahead, the DP or camera operator can direct the lighting based on zebras and the general look of a well calibrated monitor.

Rob

Steve Mann wrote: ...That's why I always use 100 for my zebra setting. If I see zebras, it's blown out.

But, as we discussed recently in Jerry's Big Honkin' camera thread, 100% zebras refer to 235 not 255 (I checked this on my Sony Z1), so if you see zebras but the luminance is still between 235 and 255 and not over 255, you can retrieve it in post.