Serena Steuart |
October 16th, 2007 09:07 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vaughan Wood
(Post 760039)
"Brightening Reality" is not a technical term Serena.
The old VX2000/PD 150 could see into a dark corner better than the human eye, wonderful for capturing intimate moments at weddings etc., and is what many of us have been wanting again.
The EX did manage to look as though it could achieve this to a small degree in the 1 minute play some of us had with it in Melbourne, when we took it off the tripod and pointed it to the opposite corner of the room and took a tight shot of a Pakistani? gentlemen who had no direct light on him at all.
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Thanks Vaughan for explaining what you were all meaning by the term and I can understand its usefulness when assessment time is short. However I'd be wondering how the brightness of the LCD was set, and do never myself set exposure by the appearance of that display. The addition of histogram and centre brightness reading on the EX in addition to zebras are very valuable facilities and much more reliable.
I expect your subject was Noel from Tasman AV (Indian). I noticed the group of you using it handheld. I think that was after I set it to Cinegamma 4 and wound up black stretch, but I can't really remember the sequence of events or whether I fully reset black stretch. Winding black stretch as far as 50 impressively brought up detail in shadows, but I could assess the quality of image only on the monitor and without time to be critical.
The easiest way to broadly assess low light capability (before you have the camera) is to check out lighting based on 800-1000 ISO. That will give good images without risk of artifacts. 2 stops more sensitive than the Z1/FX1 at 0 dB, or 1 stop less sensitive than the Z1 set at 18dB. Increasing gain to 18dB on the EX gives you an extra 3.5 stops, or 2.5 better than the Z1. So if you have given away your exposure meter you can use your Z1 to check out the appraisal you made on the day. In addition, on the EX, you can play with gamma and black stretch to push it further, but without testing I've no idea how far one can go without introducing unacceptable noise or the artifacts Bob mentioned. These will be important if you have to shoot under such conditions.
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