Quote:

PD 12 Ultra

The subject line is probably misleading. I know how to adjust Brightness when editing. But I'm having a lot of trouble maintaining constant brightness while I shoot a video with my Canon 70D camera. Whenever the subject moves, whenever somebody moves in front of the subject I'm video'ing, whenever the light changes, whenever I zoom in or out even slightly, the brightness of the video changes. I know that's to be expected, but it leads to near-constant splitting of video clips, dozens of "keyframes" and lots of time lost.

There has to be a better way than the one I'm using, which is to use either Manual exposure or Aperture priority, and then try to maintain constant brightness as I shoot. It's not working well enough. Is there a tutorial, or a place in the user's manual, which I need to review?

Second question, somewhat related to the above - am I correct that when editing in PD12 Ultra adjusting Exposure moves the lower value tones more, and adjusting Brightness moves the higher value tones more? There's quite an overlap, and I'm not always sure which to adjust.

Thanks - Bill Hansen

Although this is not really a Powerdirector question.

Does your Canon 70D have a "Program Mode"? Not the Automatic mode. Full auto does not allow you to change any settings.

In Program mode you should be able to use the cameras auto exposure to maintain the same brightness levels.
I am looking at this Manual:
http://pdisp01.c-wss.com/gdl/WWUFORedirectTarget.do?id=MDMwMDAxMTk2NTAy&cmp=ABR&lang=EN
eos70d-im2-en.pdf

In your PDF instruction Manual look at page 24 "Mode Dial" use the Program AE.
Page 158 has the full description of the Program AE mode.

Movie mode is described on Page 252.
It says in part:
"When the shooting mode is set to other than <M>, autoexposure control will take effect to suit the scene's current brightness."

I use several Canon cameras, two Video cameras and one Point and Shoot G12. All of my cameras have Program mode that allows you to set the settings you want to control and allow automatic setting for the rest.

On the G12, it is the "P" setting on the mode dial.

On your second question, you seem to have that correct.
From a photography standpoint, Brightness affects the White level while Contrast affects the Black level.
Yes, they do interact.

You can get the digital values out of range with either adjustment.

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Carl thanks for bending the forum rules a little and allowing this non-PowerDirector question (though I didn't know it was non-PD when I asked it). I don't think I would have "found" the P option myself, since I never use P for stills. But for videos, it's a tremendous help! I shot about 5 short clips in the last light of the afternoon as dogs wandered in and out of shadow, backlit, then front lit and so forth. I needed only a couple of brightness adjustments in the middle of clips. Bill Bill Hansen

Quote: Carl thanks for bending the forum rules a little and allowing this non-PowerDirector question (though I didn't know it was non-PD when I asked it). I don't think I would have "found" the P option myself, since I never use P for stills. But for videos, it's a tremendous help! I shot about 5 short clips in the last light of the afternoon as dogs wandered in and out of shadow, backlit, then front lit and so forth. I needed only a couple of brightness adjustments in the middle of clips. Bill

You are Welcome.

Amazing what computers can do for cameras!
The electronics in today's cameras are really great.

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.