Canyon-Monahan State Park Shoot

I am doing an experiment with my AG DVX 100 and am planning a shoot at the Grand Canyon National Park and on the way at Monahan State park in Texas.
I will be using a tripod and would be shooting in bright days preferably sunny days. I plan on doing 60 progessive and 24PA modes only. I will take VISTA shots with a slow panning with out any jerks. Controlled in all respects except exposure and iris. Focus will be at infinity. Want to shoot close to five minutes, with 35 sec. Sunrise and Sunsets. Help me to understand how I should use the settings to the best advantage..Thanks :) I need to know how to adjust soft or Harsh exposure? I may be able to take 10 minutes and edit it to 5 minutes.
 
With the Panasonic 24P miniDV camera, you should consider a few technical details for later on down the road. It does no good to shoot in the 24frame mode unless you plan on converting the footage to HiDef or printing to film. The camera records at 29.97frames(NTSC) at the back end, and converts the 24P into that. The only difference is that it is recorded "temporally correct", meaning line 2 comes after line 1, instead of after line 525 (1/60 of a second after line 1). I may have just gone over your head, but that's the difference between progressive and interlace scanning.

Back to the technical\aesthetics of your question, your exposure will not control the quality (hard\soft) of the light, but can help you have more control over the highlight and shadow areas later. Start with autoexposure and see what that gets you, but then lock it off on manual while you're shooting so it doesn't drift. An old cinematographer's trick is to use the 2nd "Ring" of sky away from the sun for exposure to middle gray in order to nail the sunset exposure that will best balance the sky and the foreground. You have the advantage in video to see what it looks like as it's happening, but don't overexpose. If you're doing time lapse with the sunset\sunrise, you will need to make subtle exposure adjustments as the sky changes, which may be difficult. Try to spread them out evenly.


Beyond that, I'm not sure what your question is. Good luck!
-Graham
 
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