On Sun, 26 May 2002 06:39:56 -0400, jasper wrote:

> I need some advise on a camera setting.
>I'm using a camera that has aperture and gain control.
>I was wondering if 5.6 aperture setting is a good setting while using
>gain to get the exposure right ?
> Is their a really good aperture setting that you prefer for non
>interview type shots ?
> One other question. When setting the zebra pattern to 100 ire
>should i try to get all of the zebra pattern out of basically just look
>through the view finder and judge it from that perspective ?
>Thank you for any information about this topic.
>Jasper

Ummmm, where to begin.........?
Camcorders have aperture, shutter speed, and gain settings.
The last is like film speed with stills, and selecting
values above "0" are like selecting films that are "faster"
(more sensitive) than the higher-quality slow films ("grain"
increases, color gets worse), so this is generally avoided
unless there are no more available shutter speeds above
1/60th (NTSC) or apertures wide enough to maintain proper
exposure. As for shutter speeds, the "normal" 1/60th permits
enough blurring with motion to avoid "strobing" (though
phosphors in displays are generally "slow" enough to make
this not a problem until maybe 1/250th - and strobing
generally shows with much faster speeds only under certain
conditions anyway, so particular shutter speed settings are
generally not critical for good results). Speeds below
normal, though, drop alternate scan lines, and may
show excessive motion smearing, so these are generally
avoided. As for aperture, lenses generally show most
optical flaws at the widest stop, with the exception of
diffraction, which shows most at the smallest stop. As
a result, most lenses improve at least some with stopping
down, until the ill effects of diffraction become more
important. There is generally an "optimum stop" for
a lens for best image quality, but this stop can vary
considerably with the part of the frame examined, with
the focus distance, and with the FL selected with a zoom.
With the best lenses, these variations can be minimal
(though other optical and imaging problems can also
affect choices made - see:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/vid_pict_characts.htm), and
wide-vs.-small lens apertures may also be selected for
desired "depth-of-field" [range of apparent good focus
before and behind the true focus] considerations.
DOF at particular stops also depends on the imager size
and focus distance, so no particular stop can be
recommended for a particular kind of work without MANY
other variables (including preferences) also being
specified...
As for getting "correct" exposure, I don't have the
space here to write the book on that, tempting as it
is...;-)