Camera Tech

[wrxkidid]

Well I have some videos of AutoX on saturday but they are all really really washed out. What would I need to adjust to make the picture outside the car not so whited out?

Inside the car is cyrstal clear but outside you can barley see.

[skrphoto]

i honestly can't tell u the answer to the question, but i can tell you why its washed out.

the camera was mainly focusing on the inside of the car, where it is darker. so the lens's aperture is opened up alot, therefore letting in alot of light to properly record the inside of your car. so with the lens being opened that much it doesn't properly adjust for the lighting outside, which is why your outside portion is completely washed out.

with varying conditions like that, (dark in the cabin and light outside) i think your best bet would be to focus the camera to the outside and have it properly expose there instead of the cabin.

hope this helps,
Scott

[bxracer69]

couldnt you also throw a filter on the camera lens if you didnt care about the inside of the car.

[wrxkidid]

Originally Posted by skrphoto

i honestly can't tell u the answer to the question, but i can tell you why its washed out.

the camera was mainly focusing on the inside of the car, where it is darker. so the lens's aperture is opened up alot, therefore letting in alot of light to properly record the inside of your car. so with the lens being opened that much it doesn't properly adjust for the lighting outside, which is why your outside portion is completely washed out.

with varying conditions like that, (dark in the cabin and light outside) i think your best bet would be to focus the camera to the outside and have it properly expose there instead of the cabin.

hope this helps,
Scott

That is what I was thinking. How would I get it to focus out side though? Just zoom a bit to cut out most of the interior?

[Dean]

It often depends on where you have your camera pointed when you hit record.

Read your manual about exposure, automatic exposure, exposure lock, and it is also remotely possible it is a white balance issue.

Depending on how you have those set determines exposure and if it changes durring a shot.

Unless you have an ultra wide angle, as long as over 50% of the frame and especially the center is pointed outside, the exposure should be OK. My guess is that you had it set wrong or you had it pointed at something inside teh car when you hit the red button.

[sperry]

For my in-car, I use manual exposure and manual focus settings so I can explicitly set the aperture on the camera. Every camcorder I've had has a spot focus and spot exposure function (the Sony's are really nice since it's just a matter of touching on the screen what you want to focus on). You just have to set it up before you get in the car.

What sucks is that many cameras will reset their settings between power cycles, so you have to leave the camera on all day or keep resetting the exposure before each run. I ended up putting an inverter in the car so the camera's plugged in and not running off the battery so I can leave it on all day long and only worry about setting it up once in the morning.

[Kavid]

Originally Posted by skrphoto

i honestly can't tell u the answer to the question, but i can tell you why its washed out.

the camera was mainly focusing on the inside of the car, where it is darker. so the lens's aperture is opened up alot, therefore letting in alot of light to properly record the inside of your car. so with the lens being opened that much it doesn't properly adjust for the lighting outside, which is why your outside portion is completely washed out.

with varying conditions like that, (dark in the cabin and light outside) i think your best bet would be to focus the camera to the outside and have it properly expose there instead of the cabin.

hope this helps,
Scott

I agree. Also check your white balance and fool around with that until it darkens it a bit if your camera has it, and maybe just maybe check your depth of field (F-Stop or simply "F" followed by a decimal number on some cameras). Incorrect depth of field can also wash out an image (You will see the wash in your image via Zebra stripes on the light colors in the viewfinder). Try to go to the smallest number you can WITHOUT MAKING ZEBRA STRIPES in your view finder. Also, If you have a nice camera, when you get your white balance corrected from focusing on something very white, your white colors should have a slight blue tint to them. Most cameras have 3 or 4 settings for that. If all else fails check the manual, sometimes cameras have funny settings in them that you may have triggered by accident and not known you did. Also look at what sperry said above me. He speaks the truth and it does suck to set your camera up with all the settings several times a day. Although you should be setting your white balance and other settings as the lighting changes anyway for optimal quality though. I use the manual settings everytime also. Try using Manual settings instead of automatic maybe. They also make something called a neutral density filter that we use when we film in extreme sunlight. It is really an over-hyped piece of half tinted glass that slides on the front of your camera lens. They are pretty spendy depending, but may be what you might need also. Trial and error I guess. Hope it helps! Good Luck!