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  • 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 :)

Correct exposure for skintones

Alexander Leeway said:
Hello team,

Can anyone educate me on the proper IRE and or false colour for skin tones (light and dark skinned), when shooting say RLF?

Is there a way to bring up waveforms when using the touch monitors?

Thank you in advance
Al
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The RED Touch monitors don't have waveforms. There are several false-color display tools you can use: Exposure (Green = IRE 41-48), Video (Green = IRE 41-48), and GIO Scope (mid-tone gray = 11 = Green). There are also zebras you can set. Your Camera's Operations Guide details all of these. Choosing to monitor RLF, instead of REC 709, is a topic unto itself. As is skin tones vs. gray cards. (Even the spelling of gray/grey is up for debate.) Phil Holland has an excellent guide for people just getting started shooting with their RED cameras. I would distill all that wisdom down to one single starting point: get comfortable with your gray card and mid-tone gray first. Get to where you can absolutely trust that what you see in your scene, your (false-color) scopes, your monitor, etc., and where all agree with what you know to be true about your gray card and its relationship to everything around it. Once you have that (and it takes more than minutes or hours to get there), then you can quickly and easily work out which IRE you want for what skin tone under what conditions in your scene.

Blackmagic make some very inexpensive monitors that offer waveform displays. ATOMOS, SmallHD, TV Logic, and FlandersScientific also make interesting monitors that include waveform displays.

There are no shortcuts to understanding the gray card and mid-tone gray, as the recent Alexa vs. Helium test published in NoFilmSchool this week so brilliantly(*) demonstrates.

(*) Sarcasm
 
There are many good web posts and discussions out there that cover this in detail. If you're a newcomer to Red, then I would look into the various Reducation seminars out there that cover all the basics. Red (the company) also has good instructions and videos on the main Red.com site.

I would also recommend Phil Holland's Red DSMC Field Ops Guide as being a good source of info for exposure and other operational issues.

And on top of all this: SHOOT TESTS. Get an idea of how low and how high the camera can go, and how hard you can push it in post before it breaks. I see a lot of newcomers who make the mistake of essentially lighting the set but not the actors in it, and as a result I have a lot of trouble just pulling out the actors' faces to the point where it sells the drama in the scene.
 
Thanks Marc, and much appreciated.

There is a particular section in the DSMC Field Ops Guide that covers the In Camera Exposure Tools that is alarmingly useful especially if RED cameras are new to you.

I've got an updated Guide coming out once IPP2 "lands", but much of what's in the current guide is valid across DSMC and DSMC2 bodies.
 
As others have said, there are lots of good educational pieces on RED.com and Phil's Guide is priceless. If you want a place to start as far as specific tools go, IMO you'd do well to acquaint yourself with the GIOSCOPE.
 
Yes, the GIOSCOPE is one of the first tools to get comfortable with for sure.
 
Phil Holland said:
There is a particular section in the DSMC Field Ops Guide that covers the In Camera Exposure Tools that is alarmingly useful especially if RED cameras are new to you.
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I have actually recommend the DSMC Field Ops Guide to colorists, just so they know what's going on in the camera and with the DPs using it. Having a good general knowledge of histograms and the various exposure options is a good thing. The more a colorist and post people know about lighting, exposure, and camera colorimetry, the better they can communicate with the crew, particularly in the event of a problem that needs to be solved. I've often told them, "the scopes will generally not lie to you, but sometimes the monitor will." In the absence of light meters these days, histograms are the next best thing and can be very, very useful, particularly on specular highlights and black detail.
 
Andrew R Lewis said:
Great question. Field Ops guide is priceless.
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Now with Gemini out, I think it's about time. Much of what's in the FOG is still relevant in the DSMC2 ecosystem, but yep, we've got new sensors and workflow stuff. I'll get cracking. That was an enormous endeavor the first time around.
 
Phil Holland said:
Now with Gemini out, I think it's about time. Much of what's in the FOG is still relevant in the DSMC2 ecosystem, but yep, we've got new sensors and workflow stuff. I'll get cracking. That was an enormous endeavor the first time around.
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Solid. Just out of curiosity, when do you project a release for it?
 
Phil Holland said:
Now with Gemini out, I think it's about time. Much of what's in the FOG is still relevant in the DSMC2 ecosystem, but yep, we've got new sensors and workflow stuff. I'll get cracking. That was an enormous endeavor the first time around.
Click to expand...

I certainly appreciate your effort!

:001_wub:
 
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