RED GEMINI 5K S35 - STANDARD VS LL MODE

[Clint Owens]

Hello,

I have a shoot coming up that I'll be shooting on the RED Gemini, and I had a question I wanted to run by the group.

I'm shooting in some dark environments. Primarily night interiors lit from the outside with HMIs through windows + interior tungsten practicals. Some exterior work.

Typically when shooting dark scenes on the RED Dragon, I put my ISO at 320, in order to shift the camera's dynamic range more into the shadow areas, and then light accordingly.

Given that the Gemini has a dual native ISO, with 3200 in LL mode being the base, I'm curious about people's experience using LL mode and how it compares to standard.


My thought is to just use standard mode at 320 ISO and light accordingly, as opposed to moving to LL mode at 3200. Thoughts?

 

[Andrew Reese]

I have found on my Gemini that 1600 LL mode is cleaner than say 320 ISO standard mode while both situations you properly light the scene. IMO LL mode is better than standard mode for any frame dominated by shadows but it will reduce your dynamic range in the highlights as you most already know. If doing super dark scenes with minimal highlights I do resort to low-light mode as it will give your blacks a couple more stops of latitude and keep them relatively a little more free of noise. I do however not push ISO while in LL mode and do not use 3200 ISO preferably as "base" and typically use 1600 ISO LL for best results. You still will need to light your talent/scene for best results but that goes for any low-light scene.