Hi--

Thanks so much for you thoughts and help.

The biggest problem was that I was using someone elses PD 150 and it was
handed to me once we were already on the shoot and we had no decent
monitor
as a reference.

Kinda hopeless situation, then...
I forget whether or not the brightness control on the 150 is the same
as the one on the 2000 - if so, select the less bright of the two
choices,
and match the panel to that (also two-selection, but with variable
selection on top of that...) best you can, in low light...

Two questions

Tell me one thing about the zebras, though my understanding is that
when
zebras are set at 100 it means that things that SHOULD be 100% (like
white)
are okay registering 100%...but only JUST at 100, not over. Meaning if
someone is wearing a tee shirt that is white, it is okay to have it
shown in
the scene with (some) zebras. Obviously, since TV can't "legally" take
anything over 100%, one should avoid scenes like this... but given that
there's no choice, wouldn't it be correct to close down the aperture
until
that tee shirt just sort of had zebras but wasn't covered with them? I
can
tell intensity of the white (hot) light be starting closed way down and
slowly opening up the lens until zebras begin to come in and then I
might
open a bit more because the viewfinder suggests that the image seems
dark.
In this way I'm sort of using the zebras and also comparing it to the
viewfinder?

I do not use zebras, so I'm not familiar enough to advise - though
your approach seems logical. As I pointed out before, it is unlikely
to be a problem if the over-100 area is small, especially if brief.
Unless you are close to the white T-shirt, I would not worry much
about it (windows, the sun, light sources, etc., are likely to be
far higher in value (but still OK, if small...).

Is it true that with digital imagry, one should expose on the underside
rather than on the over side. I shot something in HD and was warned to
underexpose as much as 2 stops. I'm not sure if these things are
comparable
or not... but now I'm worried that I may have underexposed much of what
I
shot by too much... is it valid to think that there is some latitude in
the
image that would allow it to be brought out given that the exposure was,
say, under by a stop or two (versus over by two?).

Yes - under is better than over. I have recovered good images from
rather
dark footage - but 2 stops is a LOT underexposed. If the footage looks a
bit
dark on viewing, it is easily recovered; if fairly dark, but most things
of interest are visible, it is probably recoverable; if important parts
look
black, it is unlikely you can recover a good image - if the camera has
good,
clean low-light ability (the 150 does) it is easier to recover a good,
smooth image than if high gain would have been needed to produce a good
image
in the first place (no free lunch, alas...;-). I mistakenly overexposed
some footage that I am about to try to correct - wish me well...! ;-)


Again, thanks so much for taking the time to help. Are you a
cameraman/producer? Do you live in Ithaca NY?


I'm in Ithaca, and produce videos once in a while...;-)