Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ASA rating and meters

All I can say is that at the speed of most narrative production, opening up shots before you actually shoot the scene on computers to check exposure levels of the RAW file is too time-consuming.

Feedback on exposure has to be immediate and live for it to be of any practical value in most shooting situations where you are doing 20, 30, 50 set-ups a day. Especially in an uncontrolled situation where you have to suddenly grab some bit of unplanned action.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
All I can say is that at the speed of most narrative production, opening up shots before you actually shoot the scene on computers to check exposure levels of the RAW file is too time-consuming.

Feedback on exposure has to be immediate and live for it to be of any practical value in most shooting situations where you are doing 20, 30, 50 set-ups a day. Especially in an uncontrolled situation where you have to suddenly grab some bit of unplanned action.
Click to expand...


Then you should have a lot of archived SET UP notes about shooting RAW with
RED to choose a right ONE for some or any sort of suddenly happen action.
 
I fully agree with David, efficiency on set is essential and having to depend upon something/someone else to get something as essential as exposure information is going to reduce that efficiency.

Knowing the exact behavior of the sensor and a way to get on camera metering to correspond is the goal of the test that I will perform today. The ability to have a 'look' that represents something near the final post workflow product is a wonderful on set tool, but as or more important is an ability to know where your exposure is in all three color channels in a quick and efficient manner. This requires either metering of the RAW data set or an in camera setup which, as closely as possible, corresponds to it.

Kevin
 
khmuse said:
I fully agree with David, efficiency on set is essential and having to depend upon something/someone else to get something as essential as exposure information is going to reduce that efficiency.

Knowing the exact behavior of the sensor and a way to get on camera metering to correspond is the goal of the test that I will perform today. The ability to have a 'look' that represents something near the final post workflow product is a wonderful on set tool, but as or more important is an ability to know where your exposure is in all three color channels in a quick and efficient manner. This requires either metering of the RAW data set or an in camera setup which, as closely as possible, corresponds to it.

Kevin
Click to expand...

Agree.

"Learning Curve" shooting with RED could be good title for a book written from a RED expert.

Waiting for RED and also a book...
 
David Mullen ASC said:
All I can say is that at the speed of most narrative production, opening up shots before you actually shoot the scene on computers to check exposure levels of the RAW file is too time-consuming.

Feedback on exposure has to be immediate and live for it to be of any practical value in most shooting situations where you are doing 20, 30, 50 set-ups a day. Especially in an uncontrolled situation where you have to suddenly grab some bit of unplanned action.
Click to expand...


Absolutely. My "best practice" is use "false color" at ISO 320. Then you have a little built in headroom. Also to be totally exact and know precisely how much headroom, I need to do more complete dynamic range tests. I would then supplement my exposure judgments by using a spot meter.
 
Jendra said:
Absolutely. My "best practice" is use "false color" at ISO 320. Then you have a little built in headroom. Also to be totally exact and know precisely how much headroom, I need to do more complete dynamic range tests. I would then supplement my exposure judgments by using a spot meter.
Click to expand...

This could be the best solution: stick to 320 ISO for good.
The reason why one would want to change the ISO setting is getting very unclear for me, to begin with it's not changing the sensor's true sensitivity, and now it's become clear that it would render the exposure tools inaccurate to what's really recorded.

Now it would be nice to know exactly what ISO setting is the most accurate, 320, 300, 250 or else. Maybe the various test could give us a clue.
Thank you all testers, much appreciated here.

Emmanuel
 
So far, ISO 250 is what I got last time (320 gives you a bit of headroom). I will be confirming this again on a different camera body, but from what I have learned, they adjust each camera for this property in non user accessible portion of the calibration setup so I expect it to be very closely matched camera to camera.

Kevin
 
I give you a new link about tethered shooting in photography before to continue.

Now I will turn to the HD video acquisition and give you photo that shows the text about "Lighting to monitor"

from the book "High Definition Cinematography" by Paul Wheeler,
Second edition 2007, Focal Press, Part 4, Chapter 16 - Lighting and exposing for HD, Page 83.

It is very important for shooters that are used to work with Cinealta, Genesis, Viper, Varicaam...etc, HD camera to get used to RED.

The idea is about to make an effective workflow and fusion between sort of tethered checking test shots with a RAW app in computer (like in photography) and

together with the HD experience of using monitor on set to adjust lighting and movie picture desired look.

It is about if REDCINE could load (???) (LIVE stream) from camera tethered to a computer using USB or FW cable.

Or to write a new little app for the RED LOOK tethered capture (equivalent to tethering possibilities in Ninkon NX, Canon's Camera Window, Capture Pro or Bible for digital photography).

A single RAW frame (RED LOOK R3D file) can be quickly brought into REDCINE, bypassing the need for a camera card.

If this is not possible then simply load RED LOOK R3D from CF or RED DRIVE for a test look to your laptop or desktop.

With that option RED cinematographer can have immediate look at the picture (what should be a real one) in a RAW app (REDCINE).

Simultaniously watching: at the first picture on set, the second picture through EVF, the third on camera LCD and the forth picture in REDCINE on computer lcd (laptop/desktop).

It could be a total control of the picture acquisition.

And the picture ADJUSTMENT could finally start:

It would be interactive and something like What You See And Adjust Is What You Get.

No surprises later in post about getting a wrong exposure, noise, highlights, shadows, etc...

She/he could fine tune simultaniously in camera (exposure/ISO/shutter angle/speed, white balance, etc...

all acquisition's basic image parameters) and then with the lens and lighting do further adjustments...

It is an INTERACTIVE way of working with camera and it would be very close to Writing with light (Storaro).

It already showed us that a lot of RED users do camera adjusting (doodling) in this direction but all with a different result, good and bad.

Also some of them are quite nervous about that present situation.

One RED expert user finally could set up and publish all parameters and then the (RED) users can use it easy.

Maybe this idea looks GREAT in theory but if it would become reality in RED praxis, all the confusion and doubts about shooting with RED could be suddenly gone with the wind.

lighting-to-monitor.jpg
 
I must say that this wohle issue is the worst news about RED ONE I got for a long time.
It simply doesn't make sense the way it's implemented. The indicators are virtually useless.

RED people, wizards and pixies! :help:

Please show us indicators based on the actual RAW data!

Please bring the RAW workflow to perfection!
 
Interesting thread.

One thing that come to my mind is the fact that I never had the chance to meter a scene and then to check immediately on a monitor the result simply because looking into the negative is impossible.

With RED this is possible. Now there is a uncertainty to the metering one does (at least I would have) that was never around. Personal habits and feelings to light metering are now put into question. The gold old self-assuredness concerning exposure is gone. Bummer.

Nevertheless I am very interested into the upcoming results, just a thought...

Hans
 
It's really not bad news at all, just an important concept to understand. I have already sent on of the RED team members a pair of ideas that could make for a really simple solution. I am sure that they have some great ideas of their own too. Nothing to worry about, really all that we need is a bit more testing and well have a configuration that can be used with high confidence.
 
khmuse said:
So far, ISO 250 is what I got last time (320 gives you a bit of headroom). I will be confirming this again on a different camera body, but from what I have learned, they adjust each camera for this property in non user accessible portion of the calibration setup so I expect it to be very closely matched camera to camera.

Kevin
Click to expand...

I concur more or less, but am trying to find a confident method of determination. What was your methodology? There are so many variables involved, especially how you post it.

Mr. Mullen, what method would you use? For my thinking, with all the variables, I want to arrive at the same results from at least two different pathways to minimize errors/oversights.
 
Hello Jendra,

I will post my findings and methodology once the confirmation testing is completed, which should be sometime this eveing. Just about to start testing again, we are getting the setup finished now, should begin in about an hour. I assume that I don't need to go to the extent of providing tracability certs on my instrumentation, just the method and results.

Kevin
 
Jendra said:
Mr. Mullen, what method would you use? For my thinking, with all the variables, I want to arrive at the same results from at least two different pathways to minimize errors/oversights.
Click to expand...

I suppose one testing idea would be to put an 18% grey card next to a white card and a deep black card, and then shoot the three cards in one-stop increments to determine when on the RAW file, there is no separation between the white and 18% grey (it's clipped) or black and 18% grey (it's crushed) so that you can know from a spot meter reading how many stops over your shooting stop can the reflectance of an object be before it goes to pure white. Assuming you want to be spot metering hot spots on the set when you shoot (it's not a habit I ever got into when shooting film, and with a normal HD camera, there are zebras in the eyepiece to tell you that info.)

The other testing method would have to determine how to get the histogram and false color reading to tell you how the RAW file is recording the information, maybe by checking it at a particular ASA like 250.
 
Thanks to Kip (RED #99) we got to do another round of testing last evening. I am processing the data now and will post the results later.

The conclusion that I have come to is that any of these would be useful solutions.

1) As soon as 'looks' are enabled, then creating a look that as closely as possible matches the raw data (no clipping headroom, linear, etc).

2) If the histogram feature (in camera) could have an option to select raw data as a source, that would be great.

3) My real wish list item is an on camera spot meter with a variable spot size (perhaps 20 photosites) that could be navigated around the image and display three corresponding numeric values (demosaiced RGB). This would allow for a really quick way of verifying every aspect of the exposure.

Kevin
 
khmuse said:
Thanks to Kip (RED #99) we got to do another round of testing last evening. I am processing the data now and will post the results later.

The conclusion that I have come to is that any of these would be useful solutions.

1) As soon as 'looks' are enabled, then creating a look that as closely as possible matches the raw data (no clipping headroom, linear, etc).

2) If the histogram feature (in camera) could have an option to select raw data as a source, that would be great.

3) My real wish list item is an on camera spot meter with a variable spot size (perhaps 20 photosites) that could be navigated around the image and display three corresponding numeric values (demosaiced RGB). This would allow for a really quick way of verifying every aspect of the exposure.

Kevin
Click to expand...


Thanks Kevin.

Great news, and if it is all like you said then SOON no more headache and nightmare for our busy RED DPs.

By the way I am a cinematographer and I do have another approach to a problem.
 
Hi Sanjin,

I am always interested to learn of different approaches that other cinematographers take, so feel free to share your idea.

Kevin
 
Kevin.

all my thoughts are pure theory (now) because of lack in praxis.

But after Jan/Feb winter time frame when I am expecting RED delivery could be more positive or negative proofs for my theories.

Go on Kevin with your work and mostly do not take me so serious because there are just my pure theories what ever I writing here.
 
khmuse said:
The conclusion that I have come to is that any of these would be useful solutions.

1) As soon as 'looks' are enabled, then creating a look that as closely as possible matches the raw data (no clipping headroom, linear, etc).

2) If the histogram feature (in camera) could have an option to select raw data as a source, that would be great.
Click to expand...

Good Idea, Kevin.

The idea of implementing looks to get an idea what the picture will look like after debayering and grading might be tempting. In real life it is much more interesting to know what actually happens in-camera.

I suppose this kind of LUT stuff on set will slow things down a lot - not a real improvement.

When clients complain about dull pictures I do some telecineing with the monitor, brightness, contrast, saturation... much easier and faster to accomplish.

Hans
 
To me, a better solution would be to be able to choose different LUT on the different monitors.
Like the DP and camera op would get the "Raw" signal while the director and the producers would get a less flat image on hdsi monitors.
I always thought it would be so, by the way.

Emmanuel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top