On Thu, 08 Nov 2001 18:40:32 -0500, "François Arsenault" wrote:

>I'm starting a little home business that involves producing videos. My
>camcorder is a Sony DCR-TRV900, definitely not the cheapest camcorder
>out there. Unfortunately, I'm an amateur videographer, with little
>technical knowledge, and I don't know how to correct a lighting problem
>that's ruining my footage. I hope someone can help.
>
>I need to work with actual models. When I film them, the skin tends to
>look too bright, whited-out, overexposed, or whatever it's called. It
>depends on the zoom level, but detail is generally lost in the white or
>reddish hues that I get.
>
>I suppose it may be the result of too much contrast. The skin of the
>models is usually pale, and a lot of what's around the models, including
>the background, is dark, like dark brown and black. I can imagine that
>this is a challenge for the camcorder. I especially have problems with
>hands and feet (palms and soles), which appear regularly in the videos I
>produce. They're often next to dark objects. The darker elements look
>fine, but the paler ones, like hands, feet and skin in general, look
>very bad. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice but to work with these
>darker elements.

As with any auto-exposure system, the camera cannot
tell what is before it, and it averages whatever is before it
to a medium-tone average (assuming all else is properly
calibrated, an unfortunately rare occurence...). Best
(for "quick, dirty, and non-technical"): connect the camera
directly to a calibrated monitor (this can be a normal TV,
adjusted to look good with the majority of broadcast
material), adjust both the panel finder and eyepiece
finders for exposure and color saturation to best
approximate what you see on the TV when aiming at things
in the same room - then go out and shoot footage and see
if the general exposures resulting are mostly correct,
using AE-bias, and the "lock-and-shift" manual-exposure
controls with the finders (only the eyepiece one,
outside...) as guides (you may need to adjust their
characteristics again, if the footage is mostly too
dark or light). Alternatively, learn to use the zebras...
(less reliable, for my work, but maybe better for
yours...). In a calibrated finder (keeping in mind its
errors relative to the reference monitor...), you should
be able to judge exposure well, and color fairly well.

>For light, I'm using a rather inexpensive kit of two Opus brand lights
>on stands with either 250W or 500W bulbs. I can't use diffusers, so I
>have the light bounce off the white ceiling. The walls are of an
>intermediate darkness (dull red and puke green, if you can imagine such
>a combination). I place the stands a little distance in front of the
>subject, one on each side (about 45 degrees to each side, really).

This is unwise - whatever is lit will have red and green
casts at the very least. You may need to light directly.
Cheap "hot-lights" with 12" reflectors (and maybe cheap
plastic diffusers **made for these** [to prevent
melting/fire]) placed close (softens the shadows, and
reduces the wattage needed). Sometimes I use the
large white 100-watt globe bulbs instead of small bulbs
in the reflectors.

>My question is, what setting(s) should I adjust on the TRV900 to
>compensate for this overexposure problem? I'm not very familiar with the
>thing quite yet, and my technical knowledge of videography and lighting
>are very much lacking to begin with. I've tried messing with a few
>manual controls, but while they do change the appearance of the picture,
>I can't seem to correct my main problem. I wouldn't mind a relatively
>dark picture or some other minor problem if the skin could finally look
>right.

You may also need to use the tungsten white-balance
preset, or manually white-balance, since the skin
colors are subtle, and the dark backgrounds may not
auto-white well (you are presenting the camera
subject matter of little value for auto-selecting
both white-balance and exposure...). The TRV-900 is
capable of very good skin-tone, but you are in a
difficult situation for getting it on tape... Keep
trying, and the experience will eventually lead you
to solutions to these problems, which exist for all
of us (getting correct white-balance, exposure [and
focus]).

>I hope to get some advice from people who know more about this than I
>do, and I thank in advance everyone who helps me. Thank you.