Help>exposing for this kind of scene

Hi! I'm a nooby DP from Argentina, we're making a short film for film school next month, and since we have lots of exteriors and difficult light situations we toght maybe renting a BMCC would help for getting a better if not correct exposure in order to look more natural and less "video-y" than our Canon DSLRs.

Anyways, we recently did a rehearsal with actors on location, i know this looks extremely rookie, consider that the only lens i have apart from the kit lens is a Zuiko 50 1.8, so yeah, expect large shots to look awful, but i'm planning on getting a tokina 11-16 f2.8 or a sigma 8-16 for those shots (wich, btw are a lot)

So, since i suck at english, here's some samples (just DSLR, shoulder rig, and a zuiko 50 1.8 so yeah, think CHEAP)
http://i40.tinypic.com/2vwgwu1.jpg
i think this kind of shoot looks just ok for a cheap DSLR

but shots like these are the ones that made me think of trying a BMCC and better lens (just look at the windows, the sky completely overexposed)
http://i40.tinypic.com/ri9bw6.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/dqk4qp.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/xm5y6f.jpg

last one just hurts to look at, i know, but well, that's with a 600D and kit lens at 22mm, wich pretty much sucks. Could i really expect it to look much, much better with a BMCC and, say, a 11-16 f2.8 tokina? Considering that we can't use the amount of lights that scene would require to match the sky exposure.
The thing is, i know a shot like these is extremely difficult to shoot without light to fill the interiors, but since we live in Argentina and renting is pretty expensive i considered renting the BMCC (wich is not that expensive) for dynamic range and RAW, in order to shoot the short and getting a more "natural" look


it'd be great if someone could give me some tips, like how to expose with a BMCC for RAW. I never used it (but we have a day for trying it before actually shooting) but does it handle better underexposing and bringing back shadows in post, or is it the other way around?

The most important thing for me would be preserving skin tones, but if could do that with a fill light (or just bouncing the sun) and make the sky not that over exposed (it's so freaking clipped it catches attention more than the actreccess) it'd be amaazing


ps.i forgot this: to make the shots even more difficult, there's a mix of color temps, since from one angle i've got sunset sun coming in, and in the other the sea and a more white-ish light

Luciano, you might want to read more threads here where these questions are discussed. I could summarize some items but still try to read more. Shooting raw or shooting ProRes Film (log) is going to give you a greater dynamic range than most footage from a DSLR. But there are limits to what you can achieve if your talent is only backlit and you have very bright backgrounds like those sunny days by the ocean! You need to be creative about getting light onto the actress, modelled in a way you want her to be seen. Bouncing bright light would be inexpensive and may work easily for medium close shots and carefully blocked group shots. Your light meter will help you know when you have enough light for the way you want her to be seen.

Generally with raw you have a few of exposure options. The straightforward general approach would be to set zebras at 100% or 95% and turn down the aperture until the zebras go away or where you allow zebras to remain when you would expect them to be blown highlights, such as the sun, specular reflections from water and metal, etc. That method can work for most scenes that have high dynamic range, but you can also use the Iris Button on the camera for those general scenes in which you do want want any clipping of highlights.

You can also a method where you set zebras at 90% or 85% which means you are protecting your important highlights but you give up some of the dynamic range then in the shadows. It can work well in some scenes and people have said it improves the look in shadow areas. Generally you want to feed the sensor as much light as you can so you expose to the right, meaning imagine you shift the histogram to the right as far as you can without clipping. Setting zebras at 85% means you are backing off on that approach to a degree because you want the shadows to be darker and the highlights to look their best.

The camera does a fine job on skin tones so traditional ways you expose for skin may not be required on the BMCC especially if shooting raw. Still never hurts to meter different parts of the scene so you understand the dynamic range in the scene.

As for colour balance, shooting raw gives you the ability to alter the colour balance in post to suit those areas you want to render faithfully for the look you desire. More of a challenge when mixed temperatures are involved but I've seen attractive results achieved.

Rick Lang
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Here is a stress test I shot, that should give you an idea how far you can push it.

I'll try to keep the zebras in mind, since i'll have a day to try out the camera on location i'll try different settings and see which one comes out better

thanks!