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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 :)

Learning proper exposure!!!

J

Jeffrey Dimanche

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Take a look at this video presentation by Ted Schilowitz on how to properly expose for the RED ONE camera. He shows the pitfalls many videographers (including the host ) make when exposing for RED ONE(more like exposing for film). This video is very informative for those coming from the video world.

This link is the second part (Ted corrects the Host, Rick Young) :

http://www.macvideo.tv/camera-technology/features/index.cfm?articleId=106112

This link is the first part ( w/o Ted, overexposed shots ):

http://www.macvideo.tv/camera-technology/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=103680
 
I think he mentioned showing a color-corrected shot in the near future but never got around to showing it.
 
Jeffrey Dimanche said:
I think he mentioned showing a color-corrected shot in the near future but never got around to showing it.
Click to expand...

Then that video gets a FAIL from me. He's only presented half the story. Ted was at pains to mention post processing, the least he should have done was ended with a couple of finished shots, otherwise it simply looks like Ted is underexposing.
 
When I was watching that I was thinking, "Holy moly, the Red One can seriously pull that off???" because on my laptop monitor those shadows were almost straight up BLACK. Right now it's 3:15am where I am and I'm all antsy to see the magic. SOMEONE POST UP THE END RESULTS (or something similar to what you can alledgedely achieve)!!!
 
Liam Hall said:
Then that video gets a FAIL from me. He's only presented half the story. Ted was at pains to mention post processing, the least he should have done was ended with a couple of finished shots, otherwise it simply looks like Ted is underexposing.
Click to expand...

The video fails to show the end result, but how to get the best result is there. The video is good, less the shots looking like crap thats being shown in post. You can tell something weird is going on because the shots look pretty straight up right in the LCD, its a little hard for them at least not to come out close to that, if you know what your doing. Same here most of the shots came up mostly black, but thats no way the Ted's fault or the RED ONE's.
 
I think they should do another myth busters type episode on exposure and then post the end results...be nice...I like this video but I wanted to see more of the ways to use all the exposure tools to get the right exposure points...

Don't need another video but hey it would be nice for a very concise video showing results and potential methods (not obviously ALL just the usual suspects) ...

Either way I found this video informative...still agree with everyone that I want to see end results...
 
To be honest I think this is a great little video for first time users. You can clearly see Rick's images were a touch overexposed, and everything Ted said made complete sense.

Great post, really useful.
 
WOW. That is absolutely stunning how well the Red holds up. Thank you!

Do you happen to remember how many stops you pushed it each time in post? And what is the advantage of such low light capability in a high contrast scene such as that? Are you able to somehow hold onto the highlights and save the shadows with RedCine? OR if a situation was so extreme as that you would just try to somehow blend two renders of different "exposures" during the pan?

Thanx, again!
 
The first video isn't really anything special, it's just a glimpse of a bloke using the RED for the first time. But I think it's a good video for beginners to watch as a primer leading to the second video. The one with Ted is a great review of exposing on the RED, great beginner video. Ted is all too right in that so many people fall into the trap of shooting the RED One as if it were an HD camera. These are great introductory videos and I'm going to keep the links handy to show to first-time users of the camera that I'll be working with.

As others have commented, it would be nice to see some final results. I think what is needed is a third video that discusses post processing on an introductory level and makes comparisons between the footage shot by the host and the footage shot later with Ted. Show basic color correction on some of the clips and demonstrate how flexible the properly exposed footage can be.

The best thing to keep in mind when exposing your image on the RED One is to shoot a "full histogram". Always be mindful of the right side of the histogram, expose to the right, but stop just before you clip, watch for the RGB "traffic lights".
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
The first video isn't really anything special, it's just a glimpse of a bloke using the RED for the first time. But I think it's a good video for beginners to watch as a primer leading to the second video. The one with Ted is a great review of exposing on the RED, great beginner video. Ted is all too right in that so many people fall into the trap of shooting the RED One as if it were an HD camera. These are great introductory videos and I'm going to keep the links handy to show to first-time users of the camera that I'll be working with.

The best thing to keep in mind when exposing your image on the RED One is to shoot a "full histogram". Always be mindful of the right side of the histogram, expose to the right, but stop just before you clip, watch for the RGB "traffic lights".
Click to expand...

I agree with you here. It was really helpful for someone like myself who is shooting for the first time with Red in a few months.
 
I was confused by the analogy that "shooting on the Red is more like shooting film than video". My experience is the opposite. I have much more over-exposure latitude shooting 35mm film than when shooting Red. Likewise, I have much more UNDER-exposure latitude when shooting Red than film. All that said, I have shot film for 24 years and Red for 1 year and in that one year I have never screwed my exposure. Test folks. TEST.
 
Definitely test and test some more! You're right that you have more exposure latitude on the high end with film and more on the low end with the RED. Most of that is just due to sensor technology as that's how CMOS sensors behave. Other than the exposure range difference, RED is still a lot closer to shooting film than a typical HD video camera due to the RAW image abilities and flexibility in post. RED is like shooting a DSLR that can shoot at high frame rates. Typical HD video cameras, when compared to still photo cameras, would be more equivalent to the point and shoot crowd that mostly shoot internally processed JPEGs or similar formats that leave little room for serious adjustments in post.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Definitely test and test some more! You're right that you have more exposure latitude on the high end with film and more on the low end with the RED. Most of that is just due to sensor technology as that's how CMOS sensors behave. Other than the exposure range difference, RED is still a lot closer to shooting film than a typical HD video camera due to the RAW image abilities and flexibility in post. RED is like shooting a DSLR that can shoot at high frame rates. Typical HD video cameras, when compared to still photo cameras, would be more equivalent to the point and shoot crowd that mostly shoot internally processed JPEGs or similar formats that leave little room for serious adjustments in post.
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AGREED. Post process is MUCH more film-like. Exposure however (IMHO) is more video-like. Difference is you can pull so much more out of the underexposed areas of the RAW Red images than you can with a typical video cam.
 
John Nguyen said:
WOW. That is absolutely stunning how well the Red holds up. Thank you!

Do you happen to remember how many stops you pushed it each time in post?
Click to expand...

I recall the color correction setting was more or less similar to using ISO 320 for the exterior, ISO 2000 for the interior. The ISO 2000 version (the one where the exterior was burnt to white) was pretty noisy, not really usable at full resolution. For SD TV, it would have been borderline usable corrected like that.

The test was done more than a year ago, so one should get much better results with current firm- and software.

And what is the advantage of such low light capability in a high contrast scene such as that? Are you able to somehow hold onto the highlights and save the shadows with RedCine? OR if a situation was so extreme as that you would just try to somehow blend two renders of different "exposures" during the pan?
Click to expand...

It would depend on what was the goal - if i wanted to show both exterior and interior, i'd probably go with something like the middle, "compromise" color correction, where the ext. is slightly washed out and the int. was pretty dark, but you can still see what's going on in both. Or, adjust the settings mid shot, or, use some kind of a matte to blend two separate color corrections.

The proper way to do it would of course have been to add some light for the interior, if this was not a test but a real production... this was deliberately pushed a bit too far to see how the camera performs.
 
Thanx, Eki! I'm surprised that was actually less than 3 stops of pushing. It looked like almost 3.5/4 stops to me.

And yeah, I didn't get what Ted meant by shooting the Red like film by protecting the highlights. But I don't know much about film for motion picture, just negative film shooting for still imagery, where I normally overexpose the highlights by half a stop or so. I don't even know if motion picture stock is normally negative or positive film, heh.
 
danbrazda said:
I was confused by the analogy that "shooting on the Red is more like shooting film than video". My experience is the opposite. I have much more over-exposure latitude shooting 35mm film than when shooting Red. Likewise, I have much more UNDER-exposure latitude when shooting Red than film. All that said, I have shot film for 24 years and Red for 1 year and in that one year I have never screwed my exposure. Test folks. TEST.
Click to expand...

As you say there is a great deal of image that can be pulled out of Red footage in the low end. If you shot a left heavy histogram like the one he produces in the video and record it into a non RAW format, most of those blacks will be useless. When Ted makes the comparison, I think that is what he is talking about. They always stress the need to protect the highlights.
 
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