Posted by Martin Heffels on 01/22/08 06:43

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:52:25 -0500, Mike Kujbida <kXuXjXfXaXm@xplornet.com>
wrote:

>peter wrote:
>> When shooting shows where background is darker than foreground subject,
>> cheaper cameras have a darker background than the more professional ones,
>> even though the foreground subject is at the same brightness.
>>
>> This seems to imply they have different gamma response. But shouldn't all
>> video cameras have the same standard gamma, whatever it may be? Or do the
>> makers of cheaper camera lower the gamma to hide the video noise in darker
>> area?
>>
>> The effect is particularly noticeable when editing together clips from the
>> same shoot from a consumer camera and a pro camera.
>
>
>Pro cameras are capable of handling a higher contrast ratio (the
>difference in light levels between the darkest scene in the video and
>the brightest scene) than cheap cameras.

As Mike already says, the dynamic range of a high-end camera is higher than
that of a consumer model. This means that the consumer model can not look
as deep into the shadows and highlights, as the high-end can. The
videosignal is used all the way nevertheless, but the shadows will be
crushed on the consumer model, making the picture looks darker, but there
are no details in the shadows. Only thing you could do in this case, is to
crush the blacks on the better camera, to make it look like a consumer
camera.

cheers

-martin-
--
Official website "Jonah's Quid" http://www.jonahsquids.co.uk

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