From the course: Digital Media Foundations

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How bright is fully bright?

How bright is fully bright?

From the course: Digital Media Foundations

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How bright is fully bright?

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- [Instructor] When working with digital video, there's a relationship between the brightest part of the subject and the darkest part. A lot of complex technical discussion goes into the way these two extremes are measured. But the principle is a very simple one. There's a darkest part of the picture and a brightest part. As a film viewer, you can be forgiven for thinking the brightest part would be something like a white shirt or a white wall. But actually, that's usually said to be well below the maximum brightness captured by the camera. That level is saved for specular highlights. That's gleaming car windscreens or chrome catching the sunlight. Reflections in glass of all kinds, any kind of subject that focuses light in such a way, as to make it significantly brighter than the rest of the image. Usually, it's considered acceptable for these parts of the picture to burn out. That means to have no detail in them, because they're brighter than the camera can register with its…

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