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Topic: why don't the lights "burn out" on TV? (Read 9417 times)
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emanresu
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I was watching some TV show broadcast in HD over the holiday and noticed that the lights don't "burn out". Normally with digital photography, light sources tend to "burn out" to pure white, which is acceptable. For example, I took a test shot of my stereo system the other day, and a blue LED with rather low intensity turned out to be pure white in the middle on the image. But on TV, lights don't burn out like that - the most intense parts of the red and blue of a flashing policy car showed up as yellow and light blue, and even the headlights of cars show up as some kind of pleasant milky white instead of annoying the pure white.
So I was a bit intrigued by that. Sure, these HD cameras are state of the art, but I am still wondering what technique(s) could they possibly employ so the images would be so pleasant?
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Bob Atkins
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Probably some sort of combination dynamic range compression and careful exposure. I'm sure they could blow the highlights if they wanted to!
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KeithB
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Simple, they use fill lighting to squash the dynamic range. Even when shooting out doors they use lots of reflectors and lights to lighten out shadows.
That is one nice thing about living in Southern California. I get to see movie and TV shoots all the time. "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Beverly Hills 90210" were filmed at the high school a few blocks from where I work.
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Tallyther
Junior Member
Posts: 27
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The simplest answer is intensity per unit of time. The indicator light is brighter and continuous, unlike those creating a TV screen matrix.
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KeithB
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Just saw an interesting "Making of" about Rick Steve's travel shows. They have a three man crew: Rick Steve, a producer and cameraman. Several times I saw the producer holding one of those little foldable gold reflectors to bounce some light on Steve's face to reduce shadows.
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klindup
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The article by Ken Rockwell was very interesting and full of valuable information. It reinforces the opinion I have seen on postings on this forum, namely get it right in the camera, every time.
Ken Lindup
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emanresu
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Thanks Keith!. Yup, I read it too, and the FARTing article as well... now I need to FART every time before I press the shutter. and no HDR... |
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KeithB
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I passed the Fart article on to TOP, but for some reason Mike passed on it... 8^) (For those that are curious - and want to punch up their artistic photo skills: http://kenrockwell.com/tech/fart.htm) |
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