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iso 800 issue

AaronPicot

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I know this has been covered a lot here, but I'm on set trying to wrap my brain around this. The MX chip is rated for ISO 800, but the raw image is at 320. So there is a huge difference when viewing raw vs color. So when I get the footage, I have to constantly rock the ISO down in RCX to get the more intended look. Should I just be setting the cAmeras to 320? If I do that all I hear from the ops and ACs is that it should be at 800, but why?

Thanks.
 
ISO and RAW

ISO and RAW

No, the RAW image does not have an ISO.

What you are doing when looking at VIEW = RAW is observing a representation of RAW data using RGB w/o color correction matrix, at ISO 320.

We left VIEW = RAW in when we went to MX sensor and FLUT color science as people felt comfortable with it, but maybe it's time to take it out of the UI.

As long as your sensor clip indicators are not illuminating, there is no real reason any longer to be checking VIEW = RAW, and definitely no reason to worry about it !
 
Personally, I like setting it at 800. It's like shooting film where you can be a little over or under on exposure and know you've got the shot. It leaves room for ramping, etc.

Phil
 
Aaron, think about it like this...ISO is only metadata. When you expose using ISO 800 you are forcing yourself to stop down. Even though you are stopping down, you are not underexposing the actual RAW footage. That's because RED is awesome and they made a rad sensor that doesn't get noisy blacks even if you set your ISO to 800 which essentially gives the sensor 1.5 stops less light than the M sensor. The M sensor needed us to set our ISO to 320 in order to make us open the iris, therefore providing the sensor enough light to properly expose. Those days are gone. I hope this helps.
 
ISO doesn't have a definition of ISO for a RAW image. When we develop an image, we apply a curve to the data and we apply that curve so that if you meter a scene at ISO800 18% grey will come out at the desired brightness in the developed RGB image.

In that case there's about 5 stops above mid grey. For every stop you increase ISO, you gain a stop of highlight protection at the expense of the shadows being one stop noisier.

Graeme
 
Here is what I like to do in controlled lighting setups.

I set my meter to 320 ISO. often it's 4 or 2.8 or a 4 2.8 split.

I try to light to 5.6 320 ISO.

I set the camera to 320 ISO.

Now if I view raw or or meta there is no vast difference in the image, I have a nice wide histogram and I know that I am geting a good "negative".

This give me room in post to move up or down, or I can back the lighting off to move to 4 or 2.8 depending on the DOF I want in a scene.

Processing footage at 800 = more noise. 320 is cleaner, the way a 50 ISO film stock has less grain than a 250ISO stock.

Rating the sensor "higher" than 320, means you are giving it less light, you might be protecting the highlights , but you are also sometime not giving this CMOS sensor all the light it likes.

I pretty much treat the camera like a 320 film stock all the time.

david
 
800 is extremely clean. Rating at 320 isn't for everyone David. I could see less experienced users running into trouble in their highlights. 640 I
I find a nice sweet spot. Everybodys diff...
 
Pat,

You are right, 800 is very clean and 640 is a nice sweet spot. 800 for outdoor scenes is pretty hard, you need to introduce a lot of ND and if you want shallow DOF then rating at 320 is a must.


David
 
We left VIEW = RAW in when we went to MX sensor and FLUT color science as people felt comfortable with it, but maybe it's time to take it out of the UI.

How about an option to view REDlogFilm as an alternative to RAW? I think a lot of people would like that.
 
I am with Nick and Brook.

We would love to see "view RAW" @ 320 + RLF.


Very possible with EPIC, but not likely on the R1. The EPIC will have seperate looks assignable to different outputs.

If you did this on R1, the clients might have a (ehem) shitift! (on R1, between the 8 bit monitoring and the milky looking blacks it could be very icky, but from an operation point of view I totally understand.

David
 
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