The Importance of Camera Testing

cinematography, color, chart, testing, Black Magic Design, Rokinon, LED, LUMU
This is the color chart we used for this test.
Hey Blog!

Today we are going to discuss a recent camera test we conducted in our studio.  The purpose of the test was to explore the differences between under and over exposure on the Black Magic Cinema Camera.  Mastering your film and video tools is a vital part of the filmmaking process.

Why Test?

Testing is an important part of learning your craft.  Knowing how to get the best performance out of your film and video equipment is crucial to the final product

Tools

Let's start with the filmmaking tools we used create this test.  It includes:
  1. Black Magic Cinema Camera on a tripod.
  2. Rokinon Cine-DS 50mm T1.5 lens.
  3. A color chart - We used THIS one.
  4. LED Light Panel.
  5. LUMU light and color meter.
A shot of the back of the camera.

How We Did It

First we set up our camera to frame the chart out, like this.  We lit this with an LED light panel from over camera.  Be sure to put the light high enough that you don't get a refection on the chart.  This will distort the top of the chart and affect your test.  The light was dimmed to exactly f/2.8 on our LUMU Power light meter.  We also adjusted the color temperature to a 3210 with the LUMU and put the camera at 3200.

Next, we ran through a series of exposures from ev-4 to ev+1.  We controlled the exposure with the shutter angle of the camera instead of the aperture.  This left the only variable the time the sensor was open to receiving light.

For post-production, we selected the black and white points from the chart.  Check out this video to see the final results of the test.

Black Magic, cinematography, lighting, color, video, editing
The final results of the test.

Conclusion

Overall, we found that for this limited exposure test, the camera handled it pretty well.  There is a slight difference in the contrast of the underexposed images.  The really surprising take-away was the difference in the chomatic aberration of the lens between the ev-4 and the ev+1.  The slight over exposure reduces the aberration significantly.

This pretty much goes along with most digital filmmaking cameras.  The mantra of 'expose to the right' on the histogram is going to give you the most out of your sensor.   It's interesting to note that in this case it also gives you the best out out of the lens.

I hope you enjoyed this overview.  Let us know what testing you have done in the comments below!  Happy shooting!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using Colored Gels in Beauty Photography

Image
Colors on Tish In this post, we are going to discuss how to set up a fashion and beauty shot like this one. There are a lot of moving parts, and I will try to cover them all.  If you have any questions, comment below and I'll do my best to clarify anything that was left out. Tools Let's start with the tools need to create this image.  Here is a picture of all the 'out of the ordinary' equipment we used.  It includes: Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 50 Optic A decent size piece of glass Cling wrap Color gels (we used Steel Blue and Amber from Rosco. How We Did It First thing we did was use THIS  color calculater and find a color combination we liked.  After we had the colors, we searched through our collection of gels to find the closest colors.  We had on hand Rosco Apricot and Rosco Steel Blue  gels, so we went with those.  From these colors we created 'gel-packs', layers of gels put together so as to be easier to use.  There is noth
Read more

Making the Shot

Image
 Hey Blog! Making great content is not about the equipment you have.  It's about how to maximize what you have to get the most out of is.  Today we are going to discuss how we created a national product campaign, in the studio, with only two lights. The Project The Ad agency came to us about this project with only 10 days to get it shot and delivered.  By the time we had the signed agreement, we were left with only 6 days.  This project was to highlight the collaboration between Delonghi and Nespresso on a series of three coffee makers.  Nothing like big-brand pressure! Pre-Production We were lucky to find a day at a studio with a huge kitchen set and a great gear list on such short notice.  The client provided the products, food stylist, and props.  We provided the team of myself as DP, a DIT, a gaffer, and two grips.  This was essentially a low-budget shoot, but needed big-budget results. The beautiful light through the kitchen window gives shape and depth to the
Read more