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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 16, 2017 at 5:08pm

Never heard of it, I'll have to look on the Dragonframe site. My Canons (40d and 7d) don't need it.

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 16, 2017 at 8:57pm

Ok, I see what it is.  I just take a test shot (in the Cinematography window) to view the actual hi res image and get the exposure right, then adjust the slider for live view compensation - usually to +3 or +4 - to get the live view bright enough to see what I'm doing, and approximately at a similar exposure.  I don't really care if the live view exactly matches the actual shot, as long as I can see the puppet well enough. Live View will look grainier - from using gain to brighten the view up -  and lower res anyway.  I can always go over to Cinematography to view an actual frame to see if it is still looking good, then go back to animating with the live view.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on January 17, 2017 at 11:32am

That's what I've been doing, but I am shooting in some really low light and get a little scared I will shoot a few dozen frames only to see that it doesn't look good. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for looking into it.

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Permalink Reply by John Lewis on January 17, 2017 at 2:48pm

If you start Dragon using an electronic lens and set the apature - and then disconnect the lens and pop on your manual lens - the live views brightness will be different depending on what the last electronic apature was. I think the camera rembers the apature you last told it (on my 7D). So if the live view is coming out super dark, try using an electronic lens to set the apature close to what the manual apature is. You might be able to trick it to go even brighter. You can use the compensation in addition to this trick.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on January 20, 2017 at 4:24pm

Unfortunately, the electric lens adjusting didn't work. It changed it slightly, but not enough to make a big enough difference. 

Looking back to what you posted, Nick... are you adjusting the gain on your monitor or inside the software? I'm not able to see a way to edit the settings for the brightness of the LV inside DragonFrame. Am I missing it? Any adjustments I make to the camera, it affects the Hi-Res.

Thanks again for any help.

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 20, 2017 at 4:29pm

I adjust the brightness in Dragonframe.  Just a minute while I go and get a camera to attach - my frame grabbing computer is in the house instead of the studio at the moment - and I can do a couple of screen grabs.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on January 20, 2017 at 4:34pm

Thanks a ton!

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 20, 2017 at 5:34pm

Ok, here's Dragonframe with the live view at default setting of 0, and adjusted to +3.  First image shows the actual test shot, with a small piece of the default exposure offset overlaid on the left. Second image shows the live view adjusted to +3, with a small patch of the live view at default 0 setting on the left, and a patch of the actual test frame where the devil face is.  Not the exact exposure, but similar enough.

Actual exposure was determined by taking a few test shots in the Cinematography window, until it looked ok.  (in my office under fluorescent light, so not great, but for the purpose of showing the exposure offset it should do.)  Then I clicked over to the animation window so it would display the live view, and back to the cinematography window to adjust the offset.  It is in the lower right, just above the test shot button.  I slid it up to +2, which was not enough, then +3, and left it there.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on January 20, 2017 at 7:57pm

That's kind of a total DUH moment for me. It is close enough to make it work. I like the idea of seeing it exactly, but that is close enough to make certain it's good animating.

Thanks a TON!

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 20, 2017 at 8:24pm

Love the custom thanks sign!  

By the way, your puppet looks great!

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Permalink Reply by Adam Taylor on January 20, 2017 at 9:36pm

I agree Nick. Really nice puppet Andrew.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Rowley on January 21, 2017 at 9:53pm

Hey, a bit late to the party, but the work around I'm going with is that I find using Video Mode on my camera seems to get the exposure in the live preview to look correct.

Alternatively there are camera adapters with confirmation chips, you can set the settings using them to get the liveview to look correct, granted they tend to be a bit more expensive and if you plan to use the adapter with confirm chip when shooting they can potentially throw up errors when taking pictures with live view up.

I find that setting the camera to video mode still allows me to take pictures through Dragonframe with a working liveview, compatible lens confirm chip or not.

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