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Prepping for First RED Shoot...Looking for Seasoned Advice

Matt Dufilho

Matt Dufilho

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Hey everyone,

I've been watching and minimally commenting for years, and I'm excited to finally join RED's production/post community with my first Scarlet production coming up later this month.

I've played with the cameras at NAB, read the operations manuals, and I'll have a solid day to shoot and test before I'm on set. What I could really use are some nuggets of advice and potential pitfalls to avoid as I get into my first Scarlet shoot.

I'll be shooting 3K/4K (depending on overcranking needs) with a 23.98 timebase--finishing in 1080 and 720 29.97 for broadcast. Post will be done in Premiere CC.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can throw my way.


-Matt Dufilho
 
Woot! Depending on how your powering, make sure you have your battery rotation down (i.e. if your on red volts, how many do you have, and if you don't have over 6, need to be continuously charging with a battery order). Same goes on SSD(if you have two 64 gig redmags, you need to be continously rotating those as they fill) - my opinion is I think it's best to be transcoding during the shoot and make sure you have everything before a breakdown. I have noticed a lot of people don't shot a quick color chart before new location, I think it really saves time to have a chart shot especially if your new to grading with red.
 
Also worth noting is that obtaining proper exposure can become a problem if you are unfamiliar with MX and RAW.

Do not fall into the trap I see a lot of RED newbies fall into. Do not ISO up and down like you would with an RGB camera. (Meaning higher ISO in low light and lower ISO in daylight) With MX you often actually do the opposite. ISO 800 in direct sunlight and possibly down to ISO 320 in low light (low contrast) scenes.

It took me a while to get my head around the concept. To get the most DR you are better off thinking of ISO as more of a LUT.

A simpler rule of thumb is to just set the camera at ISO 800 and leave it alone.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks, Patrick. You're making me glad I went for the quad charger and red volts. I'll make sure I'm constantly charging and copying/transcoding.

Much appreciated.
 
Excellent point, Troy, as this is more than likely exactly what I would have defaulted to. I'll try to fight the urge.

Thanks for the great advice.
 
The single biggest thing you need to know is how to look at your histogram in raw mode. THIS IS MEGA IMPORTANT. If you know how to do this, you will know how your exposure is no matter what ISO you are set to.
 
Thanks, Jake. Just to make sure I understand correctly, the histogram is always reading the RAW data, even if your display mode is in video mode, right?

I may need to revisit the operations manual. Either way, this will be where I do the mainstay of my testing.

Thanks again.
 
This is a very cool thread as I am in the same boat, but with an Epic. In fact, in our entire state there there has been only one scarlet as far as I know. Ours is the first Epic. So learning it will be new to a whole bunch of us. I'll be watching this thread.
 
The histogram is NOT raw!

I think what Jake is saying is that if you switch to RAW view (via a speed key) then your histogram will be showing you RAW.

Another good rule of thumb is to always try to expose to the right of the histogram without clippng. That's why ISO is more like a LUT.

For example.

Say you have a scene with relatively low contrast. Your ISO is set to 800. You open up the iris to where you begin to see clipping and then close it down just a bit. But your picture apears over exposed.

This is one of those situations where I would lower the ISO a bit. Perhaps at ISO 500 the histogram looks good? Perhaps as low as 320 even.

The key is to always avoid clipping but give the sensor enough light to reduce noise. In this situation looking at the RAW histogram would achieve the same result.

IMO it's always a good idea to leave it at ISO 800 when in high contrast situations however. Helps protect your highlights.

:)
 
When I work with DPs on the REDs, i try to make them "see" the camera at flat settings first. That way they avoid the pitfalls involved with in-cam grading and how that can mess up exposure.

Get used to how the cam responds at daylight/800 in all different conditions first.

If you have a good image at those settings, post will be bliss.
 
Thanks for the correction, Troy. I should be looking at the color stack and traffic lights for RAW clipping, right?
 
Will do, Gunleik. I'll make sure to test like crazy.
 
I've been shooting in different conditions with my Scarlet.

Even when you think you've got it locked in, variables change and you learn it all over again.

I love this craft :)
 
A few people mentioned using the histogram in RAW view mode. There is no RAW histogram or real RAW view, "RAW" view is just ISO320 5000K, which doesn't tell you much. Just watch your RAW clipping traffic lights.

I agree with the idea that you should shoot lower ISO in low light and higher ISO in high key bright scenes where possible. Generally, my approach is expose as high as possible but just under where your RAW clipping traffic lights light up and then adjust ISO to taste from ~ISO320-1250 to set your midtones where you want them. If you are still finding your subject/midtones too dark at ISO1250 you probably need to add more light to reduce scene contrast, or you can ISO up more if you can handle the noisy shadows. And if you find yourself shooting under ISO500 with this method, especially at ISO250, close down a little extra to avoid RAW clipping since the ugly pink highlights become significantly more pronounced as your ISO decreases.

For night exteriors or any really low key scene, however, I always light for ISO500 or lower to minimize noise.
 
Great examples, Noah. Thanks. I'll use that exact methodology as I test.

Thanks again for contributing.
 
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