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RED MX shot @ ISO 100

Von Thomas

Von Thomas

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This has possibly been discussed, but I have a tough time finding things in the search.

Has anyone shot RED MX at 100 ISO, and lived to tell about it? What was your experience?


Von
 
I shoot at 320 often. No worries. I haven't tried 100 though.
 
100. 320. 800. 1600. It's all the same thing to the camera. It's just metadata. Just monitor in RAW and look at the image as you change ISO settings. It never changes because it doesn't affect the camera's operation.

Now, what you choose in post depends upon a lot of decisions. Odds are, if you need to get down to 100 ISO to get a decent image, you should probably have stopped down the lens or put an ND or two on the front end. . . unless you were going for some sort of silhouette effect.

Stephen
 
What are you trying to accomplish by shooting at this ISO?
If it's a max clean image then lighting to 320, with histogram to the right, without any stop lights on and with no red vertical levels showing is as clean as it gets during acquisition
 
Shooting at 100 ISO when the camera is native 800, is a full 3 stops over exposed, and the RED's do not handle that well in most situations. During REDucation #1 back in the olds days, we learned through class assignments, at going more than 1.5 stops over, is a very risky venture. You mention the ISO setting being meta data, true, but the aperture you choose is not.

As a DIT I'm also on set in an advisory position, but not being next to camera in most situations has it's drawbacks. Settings can be changed or adjusted in the most dangerous ways, and I will not know about it, until I receive the footage to backup. In this case, it was the first shot of the day. Camera crew seemed in control, but the histogram and the little goal posts were ignored. When I discovered that camera was not in control, and actually were on a path of destruction, I pointed out the little goal post to the right of the histogram, and how it was almost pegged to the top, which means clipping of the highest order. Go out and rent ND's as quickly as possible, in the meantime, set camera at 800, and stop down.

The result of grossly overexposed digital files, will scare you. If your image is contrasty, with lots of highlights that are blown, when you attempt to bring back those blown highlights, you will discover color shifting toward the magenta zone, and it's not pretty.

Moral of the story, well there is not moral, people will do what they think they can do, until they foul up. This is why REDucation and programs like I teach are so important. You learn by doing in a classroom environment, so there's not guessing on the job.

Von
 
First off, Von, the RED One MX is not a native ISO 800. It is a native ISO 320 sensor. Secondly, the right histogram goal post can be pegged with only a single exposed light bulb in the frame. It simply does NOT accurately show the percentage of clipping pixels in the frame. (If you don't believe me, try this for yourself. Put a single bulb in an otherwise black shot, taking, maybe, 5% of the frame. Blow it out. Now watch the right goal post. It will likely show 50% or more blown pixels, which simply is not true. It should be reading 5%!) Third, the problem is that the camera crew was watching the CLR monitor image rather than the RAW image, which looks washed out and dark, but will always show you what the camera is seeing. Fourth, and I don't know how to make this any clearer, but the ISO setting has NO impact whatsoever on the recorded image. None. It is strictly a monitoring path setting. You are correct that aperture DOES impact the image (of course), but so long as people ETTR and avoiding blow/noise in the goal posts, your crew can't help but get a well-exposed image out of the One (MX or not). The RED is a VERY forgiving camera. And if it gets too noisy in the blacks, there is always shadow to crush it and/or Neat Video to clean it up. Just don't blow the highlights and manage the range with proper lighting/lighting control.

I appreciate your concerns, of course, but messing with the ISO isn't going to cure them so long as they are watching the correct monitoring signal (RAW). If they were watching the CLR image and blowing the heck out of the highlights, then they weren't very good at their jobs anyway. My recommendation? Just have them set the monitor on the EXPOSURE setting and forget looking at the color at all. Tell them when they see red or purple, they are either too hot or too dim (or both). They'll quickly find a way to avoid looking at that ugly red in the picture.

:-)

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
First off, Von, the RED One MX is not a native ISO 800. It is a native ISO 320 sensor. Secondly, the right histogram goal post can be pegged with only a single exposed light bulb in the frame. It simply does NOT accurately show the percentage of clipping pixels in the frame. (If you don't believe me, try this for yourself. Put a single bulb in an otherwise black shot, taking, maybe, 5% of the frame. Blow it out. Now watch the right goal post. It will likely show 50% or more blown pixels, which simply is not true. It should be reading 5%!) Third, the problem is that the camera crew was watching the CLR monitor image rather than the RAW image, which looks washed out and dark, but will always show you what the camera is seeing. Fourth, and I don't know how to make this any clearer, but the ISO setting has NO impact whatsoever on the recorded image. None. It is strictly a monitoring path setting. You are correct that aperture DOES impact the image (of course), but so long as people ETTR and avoiding blow/noise in the goal posts, your crew can't help but get a well-exposed image out of the One (MX or not). The RED is a VERY forgiving camera. And if it gets too noisy in the blacks, there is always shadow to crush it and/or Neat Video to clean it up. Just don't blow the highlights and manage the range with proper lighting/lighting control.

I appreciate your concerns, of course, but messing with the ISO isn't going to cure them so long as they are watching the correct monitoring signal (RAW). If they were watching the CLR image and blowing the heck out of the highlights, then they weren't very good at their jobs anyway. My recommendation? Just have them set the monitor on the EXPOSURE setting and forget looking at the color at all. Tell them when they see red or purple, they are either too hot or too dim (or both). They'll quickly find a way to avoid looking at that ugly red in the picture.

:-)

Stephen
Click to expand...

Let me put it like this, the DEFAULT ISO FOR RED MX IS 800 ISO. Working at 320 is acceptable, if you watch your RAW data closely.

In the case of my crew shooting at 100, the scene was very contrasty (with lots of highlights), and in 100 ISO viewing in CLR, the image to them, looked fine. The RAW view showed a different story.

I'm not saying you can't shoot at 100ISO, but it's not like buying a roll of 100 ISO roll of film, because the RED MX sensor, is more sensitive than that.

RED is more forgiving in the toe, than in the highlights, so watch your RAW View, understand your histogram (understand your traffic lights, and goal posts), and you'll know the difference when specular highlights are effecting your goal post and whether you are just out right over exposed.

Here is my final thought, I'd rather scare the living daylights out of someone shooting at ISO 100, than to have them end up with footage that might be hard to repair. If you are shooting in that territory, you'd better know your camera well.

Oh, my shoot, the first roll was hard to repair, but I did. The AC now knows a bit more about his RED MX.

Von
 
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100 iso will just mean your highlights are gonna clip out insanely fast. if that's what you are exposing for, and locked into that, when you set and bake it in at 100 iso, your mid point moves way up. if you got your exposure at a 100 iso it means ur using a ton more light. so you'll have cleaner image overall and more shadow detail. but the highlight roll off unless you are a miracle worker with lighting ratios, is gonna be terrible.

all people end up with at shooting and exposing at 100 iso is over exposing the sensor. expose for 320 and lose your extra stops in the highlights or expose for 800 and get some more noise but a more filmic looking image. I kind of find shooting that if you just try to simplify everything and just treat it like it can only do this iso and work to make it look good for that sensitivity. you'll have a better picture overall. I feel like there are way too many people out there these days who just throw their iso up and down to get their exposure instead of using aperture and lighting.
 
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Try to avoid using ISO100 in your monitoring path. It will most likely lead to problems. There are plenty of tried and true methods out there. This is certainly not one of them.
 
Von,

I was up in a plane with the doors off shooting skydivers jumping out of a DC3. The plane was shiny stainless steel and the white clouds and bright sky left me no choice. I had a ND6 or 9 can't remember taped to the front of the lens. No mattebox because we were hanging out of a plane and it would have been ripped off and sent plummeting to the ground. I believe we were about a f22 ish. If I can get the OK i'll post. I'll bet i can post a still with no problem.

Here's a JPEG. Some funny stuff in the clouds but I think it held up pretty well.
 

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Von . . . back away from the 100iso button . . . just back away
 
Not sure what shooting at such a low ASA would give you. A look for video village, more light for a better key, whats the reason for playing the exposure game with low ASA? Seems like you would be moving the histogram in a way that really risks your highlights and misses the mark on an optimal placement of the histogram on the sensor.
 
unless its a kid trying to shoot his first movie on a red and has never touched another camera.. i don't know how people overexpose the camera...
YET... I've worked with a few DPs who are constantly asking me to monitor the exposure.. WTF MAN..
 
this a a great example of confusion around RAW. The Sensor is native 320ISO. At 320 ISO, you can get a full range image that covers the spectrum from 0 to 100 IRE across your histogram. The sensor can see and record its full range range of X stops of exposure. When you rate any lower than that, you can't get full range on your image. When you have something on the screen that should be up in the highlights at 90 - 100 IRE range. it's going to blow out and clip before it reaches that point. You have narrowed the range that the sensor can record and are over exposed. Do this, set the camera to 100 ISO, take it outside and find some bright shiny elements that clips, and then look at both your exposure view and histogram. Highlights should clip all the way to the right of the histogram, but you are going to notice they are going to clip sooner before they get to the right of the histogram. That gap between where they clip and the far right of the histogram is the range you are giving up on the sensor due to under rating it (over exposing). I would recommend that you shoot at 320, stop down (but be careful of diffraction beyond T11 or so), and use the exposure view, do NOT depend on the goal posts, I find them unreliable. Get some NDa!
 
I started my RedMX but no image showing. My ISO is 1000 but no image at all
 
Check to make sure you're not misreading shutter speed for ISO. ISO is buried in the camera settings. If you have gone into the menus to change ISO and your shutter speed is 1/48 then you should be seeing something at least, could be some kind of problem but without knowing more it's hard to tell.
 
"the RED One MX is not a native ISO 800. It is a native ISO 320 sensor"
"Let me put it like this, the DEFAULT ISO FOR RED MX IS 800 ISO"

Confused, so which iso setting is the sensor at 0dB ?
 
AFAIK, the native ISO is 320, but... this post by David Mullen is worth thinking about:

BASIC ISO RATING RED MX

For most of you, what is your base ISO rating for the Red One MX? Also when shooting in dark under lit conditions, how would you rate the ISO? I see DP's all over the place, and want to know what you find as your comfort level. Von
reduser.net

So, I guess there are two 'correct' answers.
 
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