From the course: Pro Video Tips

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Using waveforms

Using waveforms

From the course: Pro Video Tips

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Using waveforms

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A waveform monitor is a scope that shows you the brightness or luminance of your image. It's essentially a graph that goes from zero to 100, with zero at the bottom being pure black and 100 at the top being pure white. So, from top to bottom, this graph measures all the tones of brightness in your image, from the darkest, all the way to the brightest. Anything above this 100 IRE line, on this graph, is over exposed. Blown out. It's beyond 100% of the brightness level that the camera can handle, so those over exposed details are lost forever, and there ain't much you can do to reclaim them. This is a rare case in film making where it's actually a bad thing to be above the line. Now, this shifting mass of what looks like ecto-plasm here as I adjust the monitor right here, is actually the wave form. That tells us what the luminance is. Now, notice that on my camera it's actually green and over here it's white. It doesn't matter, green or white. On some cameras, it's one color or the…

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