Novice question ahead.......
 

I shot a 2nd line two weeks ago after a wedding in New Orleans. I feel that all of the footage looked great except for one thing. The sky is blown out. This is probably a dumb question, but how can I keep the sky looking good in the shot? Check out the first two scenes of this video: http://www.vimeo.com/1254625

Looks to me like you have iris on manual?? In order to see faces clearly, the iris setting will blow out a bright background like the sky. If you did not have the iris in manual, then I am not sure what is wrong.

Bruce

If you are worried about the sky being blown out and want to retain your color more accurately then make sure that you have your ND filters active.

This will bring out the color more so in the sky.
Be aware though that you will also have to increase your exposure in order to get the faces exposed properly. And as a result you sky will start blowing out again, but not nearly as bad as what you are experiencing.

Or you could attach a polarizing filter to your lens, which keep the top portion of your video (your sky) from being over exposed while still maintaining the exposure on your faces.

In camera ND filter is a good place to start though. Do some experimentation at a park or something on a clear sunny day and shoot people playing around, and see what you think.

simple fix, pour lots of money into it...

buy lots & lots & lots & lots of lights. probably somewhere between $100k-$2mil of HMIs, a few huge generators, many man hours & you can light the street to be as bright as the sky.

otherwise it is either the faces are exposed or the sky is exposed. I'd go for faces 95% of the time. 5% of the time artsy silhouette shots are a nice change of pace.

if you don't have loads of cash...

look up HDR for still photography, it doesn't work as well for video, but will give you an idea of what it takes to expose for different light levels.

but the BEST thing is probably to play around w/ the gama curves (scene settings) on the Z7. you might be able to change the highlights to your match your taste, won't be perfect, but might give you a touch more detail in the brights.

if you're on a tight budget, there is another solution to this.

since the sky is blown out, what you can do is shoot the actual event without regard to the sky and just make sure the subject area looks good. then later on, reshoot at the same spot but shoot to make sure the sky looks good. then bring it into your editing software and composite the two images together. of coruse it wont be perfect, but it may be better if done correctly. this would be easiest to do with the hlep of a tripod and use of stat shots.

also, i read about gradient filters to put on the camera and maybe that might help, but i have no experience or any further knowledge on this so dont trust me on this one all the way.

You could try a polarizing filter. You'll still need the iris down a bit but it may help. I use one a lot in my time-lapse photography but have never used one on my z7. Here is a demo-some have the filter. http://www.vimeo.com/1166130

kdbf