Wetlook World Forum

FYI....you can brighten up and enhance the video by just clicking on the "color correction" button in your video toolbar, and that will brighten and enhance the footage for online displays by about 20%.

Unfortunately, the most difficult aspect about public pool parties...is an issue that myself, Liquid Ladies, Leonmoomin and Akuna video are often debating about....i.e. public events pool parties are ALWAYS too dark to make out good details, cos there is no direct lighting on the subjects or the pool...only ambient lighting around the pool. Leon, Hans from Akuna, myself, Weinerking etc has wrestled with this problem a lot....and the only options you have are to:

a) if you are in charge of the pool party....make sure you rig up several floodlights across the pool for any night time pool parties...cos ambient lighting is no good for wetlook effects. Leonmoomin arranges this for his pool party and dunk tank events, and last year Weinerking and I set up special lighting for his pool party in Tennessee. Some folks like Wet Brian (Apex video) have a video light attached to their camcorder and a bag of long life batteries....cos a video light direct on the subjects will work. However...this may be considered "intrusive" if this is not your event....and so when Hans from Akuna films the german pool parties he just has to get the best he can....given that the lighting in the german night clubs and pool parties is always bad (the Natrix pool parties are the worst...for having bad light....cos bad lighting = grainy looking video).

b) the best option is.....to use camcorder models that work best in low light (i.e. zero lux camcorders). Leon and I have done much research and testing on different camcorders in low light conditions....and the irony is...the old format Hi-8 camcorders made back in the 1990's...work much better in low light than today's digital camcorders work in low light. I have 3 chip camcorders for professional shoots...and 3ccd camcorders are awesome in daylight or studio light...but they cannot flm in low light. All 3ccd camcorders are lousy in low light...there is only one 3ccd camcorder that works well in low light...thats the Sony VX2100 (around $2600) which Nigel uses. The BEST little camcorders these days for low light filming are the little Sony HC series camcorders. I was very impressed when Bob from REG Productions showed me his Sony HC camcorder....so I bought one for $300 especially for low light film shoots...and that works very nicely....much better than my 3ccd professional cameras do.

Low light pool parties are very difficult to turn into video streams on the web....unless the pool party is properly lit or you have a video light on the camcorder or you have a camcorder that is a zero lux model and can shoot well in the dark...there is not much else you can do. You can enhance the brightness of the video via Pinnacle color correction tool by about 20%....but if you brighten things too much then it just looks more and more grainy and lacking definition.

Thats the dichotomy.....unless you are the organizer of the pool party (as Leon and Weinerking normally are) then you cannot put flood lights on people or direct a video light at them....cos if you do, then that becomes intrusive. All that can be done is to use a camcorder that works best in low light....and for that...the Sony HC series camcorders work best....and some of the Digital8 models work quite well too.

The best thing may be...for folks to just watch the DVD instead....cos you can see things better on a dvd than a videostream anyway.

Good luck with your productions

MK