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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 :)

In Post, is it BETTER to raise ISO or Increase EXPOSURE ??

George D.

George D.

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This is in a Windows7 PC:

When working with a R3D sequence in either Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 or RedCineX, and you want to bring the exposure up, is it better to use the ISO or "Exposure" option to do this?

In other words, if I want to increase the exposure a little, should I raise the ISO or use the Exposure slider to accomplish this? In RedCineX I could do it directly or use the "Source" option in CS5.5.

Will one or the other deteriorate the image quality or degrade it in any way?

.
 
From testing....i seem to get better results by adding flut or a bit of ISO/flut combination. When a shot is a bit too bright, then i like to use the reverse and in some cases drop exposure. BUT for most part my workflow rarely uses the exposure tab. why: after testing i find it just does not work like we would expect it to...and i find far better results with Flut/ISO. And when i do use exposure tab, it's usually only to drop exposure/brightness a small bit. As for degradation: no idea, but image looks much better after adjusting and with a proper monitor you should see when you have gone too far one way or the other.
 
In my understanding exposure and ISO do two different things. As Bob suggests, the ISO setting lifts the gamme curve as a whole (in the say way as what happened when you changed the film stock in the past) whereas the exposure just lifts everything on the selected curve (as if you adjusted the exposure with the iris while shooting). Consequently, there is no answer to the question which one is better. It all depends on what you want to gain, and where you want to locate your mid grays.
 
Very true Lauri. It would definitely depend on how the original clip was exposed. I would guess that 95% of the time you will adjust ISO/FLUT before the exposure attribute.


Lauri Kettunen said:
In my understanding exposure and ISO do two different things. As Bob suggests, the ISO setting lifts the gamme curve as a whole (in the say way as what happened when you changed the film stock in the past) whereas the exposure just lifts everything on the selected curve (as if you adjusted the exposure with the iris while shooting). Consequently, there is no answer to the question which one is better. It all depends on what you want to gain, and where you want to locate your mid grays.
Click to expand...
 
OK, let's throw a new curve into this:

Let's say I "purposely" underexposed so we could use a smaller f-stop to increase our depth of field. Then in post, I want to bring the exposure back up to where it should have been.

If I do it that way, we get the correct exposure while STILL keeping a large DOF.

Is THAT a good idea, and would it cause problems with the curves, etc, etc?

Thanks.

.
 
George D. said:
OK, let's throw a new curve into this:

Let's say I "purposely" underexposed so we could use a smaller f-stop to increase our depth of field. Then in post, I want to bring the exposure back up to where it should have been.

If I do it that way, we get the correct exposure while STILL keeping a large DOF.

Is THAT a good idea, and would it cause problems with the curves, etc, etc?

Thanks.

.
Click to expand...
If you're happy with the increased noise as a result, then go ahead and do it...
 
jake blackstone said:
For the tenth billions time- ISO and FLUT are exactly the same, with FLUt adjustable in .1 steps and ISO in .33.
Click to expand...

and this is the reason i adjust first ISO and fine tune with Flut....hard to make fine adjustments with ISO
 
Matthew Riggieri said:
George

Not at all. I have done this before. I wanted to shoot at 200mm at a f16/f22 for the shot i wanted. Shot on a RED mx outside during the day and shot at 1600 ASA. Looked great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjwGDVjlX8o

It is the opening shot. All shot at 1600, long lens, deep stop.
Click to expand...

Are you answering my answer? Again, if you're happy with increased electronic noise, then go ahead. There is no free lunch. If you could just manipulate metadata and not worry about proper exposure, then why even bother with exposing anything correctly?
 
George D. said:
OK, let's throw a new curve into this:

Let's say I "purposely" underexposed so we could use a smaller f-stop to increase our depth of field. Then in post, I want to bring the exposure back up to where it should have been.

If I do it that way, we get the correct exposure while STILL keeping a large DOF.

Is THAT a good idea, and would it cause problems with the curves, etc, etc?

Thanks.

.
Click to expand...

Only you can be the judge George. If you are happy with the increased noise fine. In underwater we are forced to do this a lot...shoot f8 or f11 and then bring up the ISO/Flut later (no need to reply jake) and adjust lift/gamma/gain and curves all as necessary to make footage to our liking. In some cases we see increased noise, but the downside is ok vs. underexposed footage.
 
Johnny Friday said:
Only you can be the judge George. If you are happy with the increased noise fine. In underwater we are forced to do this a lot...shoot f8 or f11 and then bring up the ISO/Flut later (no need to reply jake) and adjust lift/gamma/gain and curves all as necessary to make footage to our liking. In some cases we see increased noise, but the downside is ok vs. underexposed footage.
Click to expand...

The important word here is "forced". I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about choice to expose correctly or not...
 
jake blackstone said:
The important word here is "forced". I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about choice to expose correctly or not...
Click to expand...

In many cases you cannot expose properly in wildlife settings (and much so underwater) and especially so in 3d underwater where we want much DOF....so there are in fact times when one makes a decision or is forced to make a choice....but c'mon your mincing words here...thanks for the technical evaluation of my wording, but i think it's understood what i'm suggesting.
 
Johnny Friday said:
and this is the reason i adjust first ISO and fine tune with Flut....hard to make fine adjustments with ISO
Click to expand...

If you adjust FLUT +1, it is equal to one F-stop. So, adjusting ISO from 250 to 500 and then moving FLUT .15 is the same as moving FLUT 1.15. No need to adjust both. What's so difficult to understand?
 
Jake, so essentially we are talking about the same thing only i take the left fork in the road and you take the right fork. I do my initial pass using ISO and then fine tune with Flut...what's hard to understand that i don't use your same path? In essence it all works out thanks and i don't believe this confuses anyone.
 
Johnny Friday said:
Jake, so essentially we are talking about the same thing only i take the left fork in the road and you take the right fork. I do my initial pass using ISO and then fine tune with Flut...what's hard to understand that i don't use your same path? In essence it all works out thanks and i don't believe this confuses anyone.
Click to expand...

It does confuse people, when there is FLUT set at .6 and ISO also adjusted a third of a stop too. There is no reason to do that. Just move FLUT .9 and be done with it. People down the road from you in post will thank you.
 
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