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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 :)

Footage looks great on LCD, Horribly dark when I view on my computer. Please Help!

John Hale said:
The histogram on the LCD looks like it could represent closer to what I get on my computers...All I can do is guess, and that is no way to professionally operate.
Click to expand...

That's it. It's pretty straight forward. If the histogram on your LCD while shooting looks like it does in RedCine then it's way underexposed. If you use the histogram, goal posts and stop lights while shooting you're not guessing.
 
Does anyone else find it strange that the OP was shooting a night EXT @ 400ISO? Even with Master primes, that's not a smart idea unless you had an incredible lighting package, even then why would you shoot 400ISO vs 800ISO? Just curious why he would choose to shoot 400ISO outside at night. From looking at the image in RCX, it's definitely under exposed. I don't feel like this is a camera problem but maybe user error?
 
Mark Phelan said:
John, looked at it in RCX and the histogram tells the story, you're not properly exposed. In the early days it was said to ETTR, expose to the right, meaning make sure you have enough latitude. Nowadays the mantra is make sure you have a fat histogram, meaning pretty much the same thing. I don't see that with this clip. It's very narrow and ETTL, meaning it's going to be very dark. What does your histogram look like on the rest of the clips? And more importantly, what does it look like while you're shooting? Forget what it looks like in your viewfinder, what is the data telling you?

Yes, it can be salvaged, but that's not the point. Need to know what was not right here and my first suspicion is a thin histogram, but that's only based on what I see here.
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I would not say this can be salvaged, no matter what you do it will look quite videoish and low detail / high noise so I would actually bite the bullet and go for a reshoot. Then to make it expose well use twice the lights, faster lens and if needed possibly also open up the shutter to all the way to 360 if there is not to much movement in the scene.
 
Greg McDonald said:
That's it. It's pretty straight forward. If the histogram on your LCD while shooting looks like it does in RedCine then it's way underexposed. If you use the histogram, goal posts and stop lights while shooting you're not guessing.
Click to expand...

This is the best advice for anyone shooting. Absolutely forget what you see in the viewfinder, what is the information telling you? It's there for a very important reason. One thing the younger generation never really had to learn since they've only operated in the world of digital cameras versus film is back then, one could not look at the image as WYSIWYG. There was no image. So like a pilot flying strictly via instruments at night in a storm, one had to rely on the data from the camera settings and the light meter. Nowadays, when was the last time you actually used a light meter? I still carry one but it's becoming less used because I can see the data on my screen. That combined with experience tells me what I'll have back in post. But if there was one item I could not be without it would be the histogram while shooting. I check it constantly to make sure it's as fat as possible, which gives me the best latitude for making decisions later on. I never trust a viewfinder, their settings can be wildly different from one to the next. A good example is when Jim mentioned a while back about how he set his monitor four bumps to the right, if I remember correctly. It would give the best approximation of what you might see in the end. But what about something like HDRX? Can't see that in a viewfinder. That's going to have to come from experience and what would make for a proper setting. Bring out the light meter!
 
Björn Benckert said:
I would not say this can be salvaged, no matter what you do it will look quite videoish and low detail / high noise so I would actually bite the bullet and go for a reshoot. Then to make it expose well use twice the lights, faster lens and if needed possibly also open up the shutter to all the way to 360 if there is not to much movement in the scene.
Click to expand...

And maybe try using 800ISO instead of 400.
 
Mark Phelan said:
This is the best advice for anyone shooting. Absolutely forget what you see in the viewfinder, what is the information telling you? It's there for a very important reason. One thing the younger generation never really had to learn since they've only operated in the world of digital cameras versus film is back then, one could not look at the image as WYSIWYG. There was no image. So like a pilot flying strictly via instruments at night in a storm, one had to rely on the data from the camera settings and the light meter. Nowadays, when was the last time you actually used a light meter? I still carry one but it's becoming less used because I can see the data on my screen. That combined with experience tells me what I'll have back in post. But if there was one item I could not be without it would be the histogram while shooting. I check it constantly to make sure it's as fat as possible, which gives me the best latitude for making decisions later on. I never trust a viewfinder, their settings can be wildly different from one to the next. A good example is when Jim mentioned a while back about how he set his monitor four bumps to the right, if I remember correctly. It would give the best approximation of what you might see in the end. But what about something like HDRX? Can't see that in a viewfinder. That's going to have to come from experience and what would make for a proper setting. Bring out the light meter!
Click to expand...


Important side note to the above: On MX cameras the histogram slides with iso. Learn how that is affecting what you do or always shoot at 800iso....

Another thing with HDRx you can use the camera to see if for example HDRx -2 stops floors out, just use the Fstop on the lens and lower it 2 stops... then you see the bottom of your histogram. then raise it back to your original Fstop and you see the peak. So even then the light meter is not really needed.
 
Right, I understand what you guys are saying. I compensated with light and ISO after this shot. The image was better after bringing it in to my computer. The problem with that is while shooting the actors on the LCD and the external monitor were almost completely blown out, very hard to watch. Because the images were so different, I'm still just guessing. That is my issue.
 
John Hale said:
Right, I understand what you guys are saying. I compensated with light and ISO after this shot. The image was better after bringing it in to my computer. The problem with that is while shooting the actors on the LCD and the external monitor were almost completely blown out, very hard to watch. Because the images were so different, I'm still just guessing. That is my issue.
Click to expand...

Ouch. Sounds like you adjusted the camera settings to compensate for what you were seeing in the viewfinder. That's backwards. Which viewfinders/monitors do you use?
 
That doesn't make sense though unless a) you have some in camera look setup that is causing it to look blown out so you are then compensating and underexposing further or b) you are not judging by histogram, stop lights, and goal posts but rather by the image on the screen. At 400ISO at night, you'd need quite a bit of light to blow anything out...

We need to see an image of your lcd while shooting or this is a user error kind of thing...
 
Björn Benckert said:
Important side note to the above: On MX cameras the histogram slides with iso. Learn how that is affecting what you do or always shoot at 800iso....

Another thing with HDRx you can use the camera to see if for example HDRx -2 stops floors out, just use the Fstop on the lens and lower it 2 stops... then you see the bottom of your histogram. then raise it back to your original Fstop and you see the peak. So even then the light meter is not really needed.
Click to expand...

True.
 
Strange conclusion you get to, folks...

- Exposing for 400 asa wouldn't got him an underexpose image.
- Shooting this picture viewing at 400 asa, he shouldn't have seen anything (nor monitored anything) because it's dark and 3 stops underexposed.
- He could have made a exposure error if he would have made his stops decisions based on a light meter (with wrong filtering/iso/stops/shutter speed/knowledge settings...)

John can you reproduce the same error?

Pat
 
Like I said after this shot I started using the tools and not the RED LCD. Better results but not seeing the results til the end is unsettling. I'm still having the issue with what I see in the monitors being drastically different from what I get. I will post a photo of my LCD what I get after bringing into RCX after my shoot tonight.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Strange conclusion you get to, folks...

- Exposing for 400 asa wouldn't got him an underexpose image.
- Shooting this picture viewing at 400 asa, he shouldn't have seen anything (nor monitored anything) because it's dark and 3 stops underexposed.
- He could have made a exposure error if he would have made his stops decisions based on a light meter (with wrong filtering/iso/stops/shutter speed/knowledge settings...)
Click to expand...

Agreed, shooting at 400 ASA should have produced a dark monitor, but it didn't, it was so bright he apparently adjusted the camera even more (my guess) which exacerbated the issue. So the question we have been raising is what did the histogram show? That should have been the beginning and ending of the mystery. But since we weren't there, we are Monday morning quaterbacking it here from what John has told us. As for getting it wrong using a light meter, anything is possible, but that depends on one knowing how to properly set a light meter and use it.
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Strange conclusion you get to, folks...

- Exposing for 400 asa wouldn't got him an underexpose image.
- Shooting this picture viewing at 400 asa, he shouldn't have seen anything (nor monitored anything) because it's dark and 3 stops underexposed.
- He could have made a exposure error if he would have made his stops decisions based on a light meter (with wrong filtering/iso/stops/shutter speed/knowledge settings...)

John can you reproduce the same error?

Pat
Click to expand...


But as John states that the histogram of the camera looked like the one in red cine. which = pretty severe underexposure as the left goal post to the left is completely out of scale.

So a relevant question is, how does the monitor look when you expose correctly, are the screens then completely burned out and if so what is the touch monitor setting set to?
 
Again, I understand 4ooISO is low for a night shoot, I was going for a lower contrast and the LCD looked great. I'm obviously rethinking that logic but there is a bigger issue here. When I expose to the histogram my RED LCD and the external SDI monitor is extremely blown out (Really Bright) My RED LCD is set to 2 notches above the darkest it can be.
 
John Hale said:
Again, I understand 4ooISO is low for a night shoot, I was going for a lower contrast and the LCD looked great. I'm obviously rethinking that logic but there is a bigger issue here. When I expose to the histogram my RED LCD and the external SDI monitor is extremely blown out (Really Bright) My RED LCD is set to 2 notches above the darkest it can be.
Click to expand...


Ok, yes then thats odd and it seams like you got some sort of monitoring error. As it is on both the touch and the SDI out it's likely to be camera related. but to make sure I would first test it with another touch.
 
I recently had a similar situation. Not as bad, but I was doing a night shoot, everything looked fine on both the LCD and the directors monitor. When it went into redcine it was a stop and a half under. I assumed at first that It was dark, and my eyes were foolled by the monitor, but we had a gaffer a Dit, and a director as well as me watching the monitor and we all thought it looked good. A monitoring error bug may exist. This is the first time I ever ran across this situation so I would be surprised if it was me. I actually stopped down to like a 4 because it looked way to bright.

Nick
 
John Hale said:
I set my RED LCD to the lowest brightness setting and recorded a random frame. This is what it looked like on set.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/68517772@N06/9807394295/


THIS IS AN .R3D SNAPSHOT

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mdv8nggtztaxl1r/3hbdh6yfEX

Not as extreme as the previous photos but I think that is because my LCD brightness was set to the lowest possible. Still a very noticeable difference.
Click to expand...


Yes your histogram shows that you got no good exposure but your screen looks rather bright no doubt. I would contact red about this something I have not seen before. Have you tested to reinstall firmware, redo blackshade etc?
 
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