Finishing Epic MX at 3200iso, how to meter and light

[Tyler Besh]

Posted this in RED Discussion but hoping to get as many eyes on before Sunday:

We want to shoot at 3200iso with the Epic MX and wanted to see if anyone shot their entire short of film this way. If I can't find anything would the recommendation still be like the base 800iso where you technically light for under 800iso knowing the latitude will get the skintone etc to where you want once its finished in 800?

[Nick Gardner]

I would think the MX would be noisy as hell at 3200 iso. Is that the look you are going for?

Nick

[Justin McAleece]

Test that idea thoroughly before committing. I would not recommend it.

[Tyler Besh]

I would think the MX would be noisy as hell at 3200 iso. Is that the look you are going for?

Nick

Was the idea, yes, and I've seen that the newer RED noise reduction settings do a great job of removing color noise.

[Tyler Besh]

Test that idea thoroughly before committing. I would not recommend it.

We did a single-light 3200k test in the garage the other day and it looked great! Again, the RED noise reduction took a great amount of color noise out and left the natural looking stuff in. Just wanted to see how people shooting for 3200iso we're metering.

[Mike P.]

Set the meter a stop darker. MX AT 3200ISO is actually closer to ISO1600, so if you meter at ISO3200, and the meter says t2.8, you’ll actually have to go to ISO6400 for what you saw on set/lit for... and while 3200 might have seemed good (I presume you used high CRI daylight source, because tungsten would quickly turn to trash), 6400 is not.

[Tyler Besh]

Set the meter a stop darker. MX AT 3200ISO is actually closer to ISO1600, so if you meter at ISO3200, and the meter says t2.8, you’ll actually have to go to ISO6400 for what you saw on set/lit for... and while 3200 might have seemed good (I presume you used high CRI daylight source, because tungsten would quickly turn to trash), 6400 is not.

Appreciate the insight. We just did our third shoot with it at 3200 on the expressway at night and next to a lit sculpture at night as well. They both came out extremely well, very happy about it. Obviously needed to set the noise reduction to strong

[Mike P.]

Appreciate the insight. We just did our third shoot with it at 3200 on the expressway at night and next to a lit sculpture at night as well. They both came out extremely well, very happy about it. Obviously needed to set the noise reduction to strong

Sweet! Look forward to seeing samples!

Another tidbit is if you set the footage to 5000K, the image will be cleaner (since that's the what the sensor was designed for, and changing colour temp only amplifies the already starved blue-channel). Anecdotally, when pushing things that far (colour temp and high ISO), it might actually be cleaner to adjust the colour temperature in post as node/layer, rather than pushing raw sensor data that way. Your mileage (and taste) may vary, but it's worth trying, right?

[Enrique Blein]

I go ISO 800 when there's no way around it. I try to keep it at 320 as much as I can possibly can. Noise reduction just makes things look soft

[Alex Lubensky]

It's extreme for this sensor, but in some scenarios it's doable and will look somewhat cool. But you have to be an exposure-ninja, and it's totally not for low-light scenarios.

Try using GIOSCOPE. It's an extremely useful tool, especially if you're common with Ansel Adams "zone system". Basically MX sensor fits fine into zone system - it's 11 usable stops, and you have 5 above middle-grey and 5 below.
Gioscope shows total of 16 stops of DR, which is the whole sensor, with stop 11 set to middle grey. Stop number 16 is the last usable stop before clipping, and stop number 6 - is almost black. It's the lowest stop I usually try to utilize on MX sensors, everything lower than that shows extreme colored noise and totally lacks texture and detail.

Basically, if you GO with ISO3200 on MX sensor - you're shifting your middle-grey from stop 11 to stop 9 in GIOSCOPE. Which leaves you with stops 6,7,8 of usable shadow range. Stop number 7 can introduce some noise, stop number 6 will be noisy, but the noise is going to be monochromatic and very film-like.

I suppose you to use GIOSCOPE for exposure, just turn on stops number 6,9,16 - this will leave you with your limits in range - where it's going to highlight them with colors. And then if you look at the histogram - and if you see anything to the left of the last colored stop - you're into the badlands and have to adjust your lighting.