MX Exposure and Curve

[Matthew Riggieri]

Hello All

I am starting work on a very look stylized feature next week and have some questions in regards to MX exposure and in camera look setup.

My understanding is that the chip is still natively 320ASA but it is recommended to shoot at 800ASA to have 1.3 stops of highlight protection. You still need to process the files at 320 thought and apply a shoulder and toe curve to get the full benefits of the extended dynamic range, correct?

The DP and I on this shoot have been discussing building looks for certain setups, i.e., night EXT, Day EXT Cloudy, Day EXT Sunny, Day INT, and Night INT, is where we will start.

Should I recommend setting the camera to 320ASA and applying a toe curve, in essence bringing up the underexposed 1.3 stops to a visible level. or should i recommend he shoot at 800ASA and apply a shoulder curve to bring down the highlights. I know the main goal is to never clip highlights, or understand what you are clipping and have it be a creative choice. Since this is a stylized look we are going for, we would like to see the look on monitor, so he can adjust lighting for the look.

Any Thoughts?

Cheers
Matt Riggieri
IATSE 600 DIT

 

[Graeme Nattress]

with B30 and FLUT there's a smooth rolloff curve on the ISO, so that they don't hard clip. I'd shoot at 800 on M-X and see what it looks like. As always, you're recording raw, so the key thing is to ensure you get a good raw exposure.

For stylized look - take some test shots into REDCine-X and play with the basic controls that will go back into a camera look and see what you can achieve.

Graeme

 

[Matthew Riggieri]

Graeme

Thanks for the reply back.

So Flut is actually pushing exposure while adding a shoulder curve? what is the difference in having the camera at 800 with 0 flut and the camera at 320 with 1.3 flut?

also, excuse me if this has been covered before, but do the meters now represent the actual hard clipping in raw, or do they still represent clipping at the selected ISO, when viewing in REDColor?

We have 2 days of testing next week, so of course, we will be trying many different combinations.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

ISO and FLUT both have the nice shoulder curve. They're just two ways of expressing the same thing - one in traditional numbers, the other in fine control.

Goal posts and clip lights show raw clipping, histogram is RGB. Also, new red / purple raw clipping / potentially noisy false colour mode is superb for this too.

Graeme

 

[Matthew Riggieri]

Grame

Thanks again. Information that is incredibly informative.