Need help with a strong backlight on my video clip

Given the lighting situtation, you might be asking too much 🙁

What editing software are you using? Can you post a full res frame grab on a sharing site somewhere so that we can look at it and make recommendations?

Tha's really bad backlighitng but here's a suggestion from a user on the Sony Vegas forum for dealing with situations such as this.

Put 3 filters on the event, "Invert" (at 100%), "Color Corrector", "Invert" (at 100%).
Then lift up the gamma of the color corrector in the middle.
This darkens highlights first, in the logarithmic fashion, more like a "iris closing" way.

Do this while looking at your waveform monitor so that your whites stay below 100.

Another good post on this issue is also on the Sony forum at http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=909778

Here's my attempt at using this series of FX to try and fix it. Good luck!!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/47vah6yu0aardpg/AAD-P-vmpojlTiWpkbm_nAVba?dl=0

Mike

Mike's comments are dead on; you should definitely read the discussions on the Sony editor's forum, too

The blown out portions of your video cannot be recovered — there's nothing there to recover!

The bike and rider, however, have some information there. I played with a still frame of that portion of your video in a graphics program and was able to get some decent definition to the bike and rider. It will be very tedious, but you might try creating a mask that blocks everything in the video except the bike, making corrections to enhance the bike and rider using Levels and Color Curves, then keyframing this over the bike in the original video.

Or, accept the fact that you're hosed (to use a highly technical term) and figure out how to complete your video without this sequence, or perhaps re-shoot if possible.

Good luck.

Frankly, after watching it I wouldn't do anything to the clip at all beyond conforming it using Levels and Color Curves.  I realize that perhaps from a vanity point of view you'd like to be more sharply visible, but from a dynamic point of view the clip has a great feeling: you race down the approach, rise into the sun, make your flips, which are clearly seen even though backlit, then drop out of the sunlight to complete your return to earth.

Nice work.

I agree with Jack. After watching the entire clip, I see very little that I'd want to change. Good job on the shooting!!

Mike