hiding by the bins.

I wrote this a few years ago as a quick guide for somebody who'd been thrown into running racks to cover for someone who'd been taken ill at short notice. I revised it earlier this year, and then somebody asked about it this week so I'm sticking it on the blog.

do not panic! here's my five minute cheat sheet:

MAKE SURE YOU'VE HIT PANEL ENABLE SO THE RACKS WORK TO CONTROL THE CAMERA!

1) Iris fully closed (that's the joystick, pull it all the way towards you) 
2) Pedestal (that's the twisty bit at the bottom of the joystick) to so the luma hits the black ref line on the waveform monitor
3) run auto black balance
4) verify auto black on vector, make sure you have no colour cast
5) open iris, get camera op to find a white thing (or use a chip chart/white card/the other side of your backfocus target if you're lucky)
6) iris to hit 70% video luminance on the scope
7) auto white
8) verify white on vector, again make sure no colour cast

now all your cameras look the same, which is 80% of the battle when you're inexperienced.

target about 70% luma for faces etc, expose with the iris and mostly leave the ped alone to start with

other important things: if the camera has dead pixel compensation, run it every time you set the cameras up (with a bunch of cameras, this happens automatically when you auto black)