Sedona lighting caught me off guard on a drone shoot last week

I flew over Bell Rock around 6pm last Thursday and the shadows were way deeper than anything I've seen in Phoenix. My footage came out half blown out even with ND filters, and I had to re-grade everything in Resolve just to salvage it. Does anyone else struggle with that red rock glare between 4 and 7 in the summer, or is it just my camera's sensor? I'm thinking of renting a VND with more stops next time, but I'm curious what you all shoot with up there.

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river18310d ago

I’ve got about four terabytes of unusable Bell Rock footage from last summer, so you’re definitely not alone. My first attempt looked like I’d shot through a glass of orange soda, and the red glare actually blew out my histogram so bad I thought the sensor was dying. I switched to a 6-stop VND and now I just overexpose by half a stop and fix it in post, but honestly I still end up squinting at the monitor like it’s a magic eye puzzle. Maybe it’s just the rocks, maybe it’s me, but I’ve learned to treat 5pm in Sedona as a glitch in reality.