RED TECH Low Light

[Jarred Land]

Best practices for shooting a dark scene by taking a deeper look at RED’s exposure tools, when to target a specific ISO, and how to manage to exposure extremes. This RED TECH explains both types of exposure tools, RAW and IRE, that are built in to the RED camera.

 

[Juan Francisco Calero]

Precious info.
Thanks!!

 

[Eric Lange]

Super nice... LOVE IT!

Very clever to do that in a "Dark Room"... Takes me back lol.

YAY.

 

[Aaron Lochert]

Did the skin tone video get pulled?

 

[rand thompson]

There was a skin tone video??I sure would have liked to have seen that one. Excellent, lowlight tutorial!!

 

[Audy Erel]

GIOScope is my best friend in any lighting situation especially in the non controlled one (like documentary), it never fail to protect me from highlights clipping and I can always see the amount of texture in the shadows.

 

[Owen Rennie]

I'd like that hoodie....

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

Did the skin tone video get pulled?

It's still online, just Unlisted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUNVH0cwFsE

 

[Montgomery Sutton]

This is great! Thanks!

 

[Nicholas Teixeira]

skin tone was removed...

 

[RJ_Ortiz]

I'd like that hoodie....

I still want that black on black weapon shirt from this video. https://youtu.be/pD2fjMGcHqw

 

[Alexander Thomson]

Skin tone is getting reuploaded after some minor tweaks, no worries gents.

With any content on YouTube, you want to get it 100% right, as you have no idea who the audience will be. I’m cool with RED “sneak peeking” the RED Tech videos to us before they get made public. Gives us a chance to chime in and give our collective feedback before they flip the switch to Public.

 

[Rui Guerra]

There is always something that I find a bit strange with the advice of "lighting up more" a low light scene. Of course, it's possible in studio or controlled environments. But not in some documentary conditions .
In low light it's advised to lower the ISO more (to have less noise) which only makes things more difficult (light wise) in non controllable situations. So the only real solution will be to open more the iris, right? But what do you do if you are already at the widest aperture of your lens or if you don't want the shallower DOF?

In the photography world, with good high end DSLR cameras, one can comfortably rise the ISO to shoot in low light situations. But RED's advice is to lower it even more so a dark scene will become even more darker, right?

I know that ISO is just metadata in RED, and lowering ISO in RED cameras increases the DR available in the shadows (which is obviously good) and lowers the noise floor, but it also turns out a dark situation even darker...!

Am I missing something here?

 

[Rui Guerra]

GIOScope is my best friend in any lighting situation especially in the non controlled one (like documentary), it never fail to protect me from highlights clipping and I can always see the amount of texture in the shadows.

Hi Audy,

Can you elaborate a bit about the way you use GioScope in documentary shooting, to avoid clipping and see the shadow texture?
Thanks

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

There is always something that I find a bit strange with the advice of "lighting up more" a low light scene. Of course, it's possible in studio or controlled environments. But not in some documentary conditions .
In low light it's advised to lower the ISO more (to have less noise) which only makes things more difficult (light wise) in non controllable situations. So the only real solution will be to open more the iris, right? But what do you do if you are already at the widest aperture of your lens or if you don't want the shallower DOF?

In the photography world, with good high end DSLR cameras, one can comfortably rise the ISO to shoot in low light situations. But RED's advice is to lower it even more so a dark scene will become even more darker, right?

I know that ISO is just metadata in RED, and lowering ISO in RED cameras increases the DR available in the shadows (which is obviously good) and lowers the noise floor, but it also turns out a dark situation even darker...!

Am I missing something here?

that advice is based on the assumption that you have access to artificial light - that you can light the scene at a lower ISO - which, as you say is not always the case in all doc environments. if you're lighting an interview in a dark location, on the other hand, it is exactly the right advice. light it at a lower ISO to the way you want it, get as much data as you can on the histogram, without clipping - "fat negative" - and then you have the most data available to push in post.

but you're right there are some doc conditions where you just need to have the lowlight OLPF, bring a fast lens, open up the iris, and hammer the ISO as a last resort - a good denoising plug-in will help, too.

but the video is predicated upon the idea that you are lighting your scene or location with more than just available light....

 

[Ben Scott]

There is always something that I find a bit strange with the advice of "lighting up more" a low light scene. Of course, it's possible in studio or controlled environments. But not in some documentary conditions .
In low light it's advised to lower the ISO more (to have less noise) which only makes things more difficult (light wise) in non controllable situations. So the only real solution will be to open more the iris, right? But what do you do if you are already at the widest aperture of your lens or if you don't want the shallower DOF?

In the photography world, with good high end DSLR cameras, one can comfortably rise the ISO to shoot in low light situations. But RED's advice is to lower it even more so a dark scene will become even more darker, right?

I know that ISO is just metadata in RED, and lowering ISO in RED cameras increases the DR available in the shadows (which is obviously good) and lowers the noise floor, but it also turns out a dark situation even darker...!

Am I missing something here?

You need to have enough light to expose your scene. All the talk of shadows/highlights/iso etc is besides the point.

Have enough light to light your scene and use iso to select where you want the camera to maximise DR.

There is no magic bullet or magic wand that lets you shoot without light.

 

[Daniel Stilling]

There are only 2 ways to physically control how much light hit the sensor:
Optically, with the lenses aperture or putting filters in front of the lens and
Shutter speed.
Only these 2 things will change the amount of light you capture. So, if you are in a situation where its dark and you don't have any additional way of lighting the scene, then the first thing you do is to deal with these 2 elements.
Like with most of things in life, there's a trade off: Open the iris wide and you get more light in, and a shallow depth of field as a bi-product. If you don't want to have shallow focus, then it becomes a choice between that and noise.
Go to a wider angle(or longer exposure) on your shutter speed and you get more light in, and a different motion blur. Same thing here. Trade off.
Once you made your peace with how much (or little) you want to compromise other aspects of your picture, then you dial in the desired ISO and all the other elements.

 

[Heinrich_Lindmayr]

so at around 40 seconds he says that the exposure tools don't change when you change for example ISO.. doesn't he?
when i change ISO every exposure tool adapts... (no, not shooting prores).. only when i have raw overlayed it sticks - but that is clean cause i can't change the ISO from 800 anyway..

where is the mistake?? is it my misunderstanding of what he's saying or do i have settings wrong or just a camera error??

 

[Rui Guerra]

Sorry fellow members, but I still didn't understand the point of this video, because it's not about exposure at low light situations, but more about general advice (RAW vs IRE tools, expose to the right, etc.)

I see no advantage about advising to add light and expose to the right because then it's not a low light situation anymore. It's like saying that the best way to solve a problem is not having it in the first place! We all know that, but what if we have the problem (a low light situation that we need to shoot) and need a noise-free image at the end? What is the best practice, tricks and tips (besides the obvious wide open aperture and 360º shutter speed)?

It's interesting that in a video about low light shooting, the author talks about traffic lights (that are only useful when there is the risk of too much light - never happens in a low light situation) but doesn't give any advice on the left goal post (the most useful regarding noise). Also he talks about the exposure tool, but only refers that with it he can see exactly where the exposure levels are (again, general advice applicable to all levels of light) but nothing else. Not a single word about Low Light OLPF (maybe it's not that useful?).

And then in the middle, he sort of changes subject to a low contrast scene, which is not the same as a low light scene. Yes, sure, it's better to error to the side of too much light, but, really? How can that happen in a low light scene?

We all know about small and much less expensive cameras that can shoot a noise-free image in very low light. Since we have invested in a RED camera, it will be nice to have some real advice on how to deal with this situations to achieve similar results, or near.

With this video, it looks like the message may be understood as one of the following:

1 - With RED cameras, if you have a low light, just light it up and then expose as usual (in other words, don't use them in low light situations)

or

2 - There is are some secret procedures that we don't want to tell you in this video. For that you need to apply for a RED Learn program (expensive and not available in all countries).

I really hope there is a third option...
Altought the video is interesting and funny to watch, I personally would prefer to have a spot-on detailed video that explains in detail how we, clients that have spent thousands of dollars in a RED camera, can take the most advantage of it in demanding low light situations, from shooting time to the post-produced end result.

 

[RJ_Ortiz]

Sorry fellow members, but I still didn't understand the point of this video, because it's not about exposure at low light situations, but more about general advice (RAW vs IRE tools, expose to the right, etc.)

I see no advantage about advising to add light and expose to the right because then it's not a low light situation anymore. It's like saying that the best way to solve a problem is not having it in the first place! We all know that, but what if we have the problem (a low light situation that we need to shoot) and need a noise-free image at the end? What is the best practice, tricks and tips (besides the obvious wide open aperture and 360º shutter speed)?

It's interesting that in a video about low light shooting, the author talks about traffic lights (that are only useful when there is the risk of too much light - never happens in a low light situation) but doesn't give any advice on the left goal post (the most useful regarding noise). Also he talks about the exposure tool, but only refers that with it he can see exactly where the exposure levels are (again, general advice applicable to all levels of light) but nothing else. Not a single word about Low Light OLPF (maybe it's not that useful?).

And then in the middle, he sort of changes subject to a low contrast scene, which is not the same as a low light scene. Yes, sure, it's better to error to the side of too much light, but, really? How can that happen in a low light scene?

We all know about small and much less expensive cameras that can shoot a noise-free image in very low light. Since we have invested in a RED camera, it will be nice to have some real advice on how to deal with this situations to achieve similar results, or near.

With this video, it looks like the message may be understood as one of the following:

1 - With RED cameras, if you have a low light, just light it up and then expose as usual (in other words, don't use them in low light situations)

or

2 - There is are some secret procedures that we don't want to tell you in this video. For that you need to apply for a RED Learn program (expensive and not available in all countries).

I really hope there is a third option...
Altought the video is interesting and funny to watch, I personally would prefer to have a spot-on detailed video that explains in detail how we, clients that have spent thousands of dollars in a RED camera, can take the most advantage of it in demanding low light situations, from shooting time to the post-produced end result.

I can agree to a certain degree. In a situation where you artificially light, it's not low-light shooting. It's shooting to get a low-light look. So you throw up enough lights and shaping to ensure you get your look and hit exposure levels based on other constraints.

As for the light light OLPF, I believe it only changes the allowed light transmission by ~3%. Can someone confirm this? So, it may help in some situations, but at only 3% it's possible that it's not the answer for documentarians. I'd assume in that world, you'd want any bit of help with light that you can get. So, 3% may just be worth it for you.

Sorry I can't really chime in on your other questions/points, so I'll leave those to the experts around here.