| Backlight and TRV-900
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 | Backlight and TRV-900
by Charles on Nov 18, 2003 at 4:30:57 pm |
I've been shooting some hockey matches with both the TRV-900 and JVC DV500. I've found that in auto exposure mode both cameras produce a picture thats too dark because of the ice being too bright. I turn on the backlight feature on both cams. The JVC now has the correct brightness but the TRV-900 is too bright. On the TRV-900 LCD screen the picture looks only slightly brighter when switching to backlight (doesn't look excessively bright). But when brought home and viewed on tv and/or dvd the picture is too bright. Unfortunately its not possible to view the F-stop number in backlight mode. Otherwise I would just manually dial the f-stop to somewhere between the auto exposure f-stop and backlight f-stop. Short of bringing a t.v. to the hockey match how can I set the right exposure.
Aside from the descriptions in the users manual does anyone know what the backlight feature actually does? In terms of increasing gain or changing F-stop?? I think I might be seeing a little more grain (on dvd) when using the backlight. Especially in the dark background areas when panning.
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• | | | |  | Re: Backlight and TRV-900
by nancy on Nov 18, 2003 at 6:12:17 pm |
Forget the backlight mode--its kind of a gimmick--In this case you need to go totally manual---expose for the player (or whatever you want to expose for) and let the ice burn out a bit---
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• | | | |  | Re: Backlight and TRV-900
by blast1 on Nov 19, 2003 at 1:13:11 am |
Another to try along with manual like Nancy says is record on tape or feed from your computer a smpte test pattern with a pluge and set the lcd brightness on 900, it wouldn't be totally accurate but will give you a better idea of what you are recording.
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• | | | |  | Re: Backlight and TRV-900
by jim on Nov 20, 2003 at 10:30:32 pm |
...ahhh the TRV900 viewfinder.... I wish my video was as good as it always looks on my TRV900 viewfinder! Sony did a good job with the finder because almost everything looks great on that viewfinder.
You're probably at an arena that was designed for playing hockey as opposed to one specifically lit for video. That means the light is mostly high overhead and aimed straight down.
In any case, I'd suggest you abandon any sort of automatic mode and learn to use manual. (I say learn, because the Sony manual mode is not the world's most intuitive.) Turn on the zebra stripes and use them to adjust shutter or aperature. If you adjust it so the ice has zebra-stripes and the skin-tones do not, then you'll be about right. You'll almost have to blow-out the detail on the ice in order to get correct exposure for everything else.
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• | | | | | Re: Backlight and TRV-900
by R Carr on Nov 21, 2003 at 6:55:26 pm |
Charles, in my experience the TRV-900 always underexposes when confronted with a bright foreground area (any camera will, for that matter, but the consumer Sonys REALLY play it safe!) I find it always underexposes on bright, sunny days, too. (Living in England that's not much of an issue though!)
The best advice is to play with the manual exposure and learn how far you can push it without blowing out your subject.
I have to say that my experience with the viewfinder has been totally different to that of Jim's. I generally find that if shots look good in the VF, they'll look good on TV.
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