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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 :)

setting exposure

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Rainer Fritz

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Hi Everybody !

We are shooting next week a musicvideo on RED. I think we will rate the cam to ISO200, because of the noise in the blacks (the cam isn't retrofitted yet).
So my question is: Has anybody an idea how much stops the highlights can be over normal exposure, measured by the lightmeter. I don't want overexposed
highlights when I am going down to ISO200. We are shooting one part of the video interior with much blacks and highlights.....

thx for your help....

regards, rainer
 
The clipping indicator (false color) is .4 stops under the actual clipping point. For highly contrasty scenes where you want to protect your highlights above all else, using the false color feature is going to be your best on set tool (perhaps a spot meter might be useful too). Remember, that the in camera ISO setting has no effect on the data captured at all. Rather it is the starting point for your post workflow (which can be overridden) and for on set monitoring. As always, I recommend that you test first (all the way through) to avoid any on set surprises.

Best of luck on your shoot.
 
thx khmuse for the hints and wishes. I know that it takes no effect of the captured image, so we do it like with good old film. we will do it like a 320ASA film exposed at 200ASA and we will let the post know that we took a lower sensitivity.
But anyway. Can somebody tell me how much stops we can go above the working aperture in the highlights?

thx at all

rainer
 
Hi Rainer

IMHO you are going the wrong way with your exposure setting base ASA. If it was for the big screen I could see you wanting less noise in the blacks. Thing is it's a music video which means exclusively TV. By the time it is seen at home on HD or SD the little bit of noise in the blacks will be very minimal. If you don't care about blowing out whites that you can't get back then go for it and learn for yourself how far you can push highlights and still bring back picture. Better yet test it beforehand with the look you are going for. Thing is no one can really tell you how far you can go above highlights and still get a look YOU like. It is all personal preference and you will get different answers from many. A 200 ASA setting for red is quite slow though and from what I have done I would say you are messing with fire. Key with digital is always watch out on your highlights.

All this said it is a music video and you can get away with anything you want, just call it art.

Have fun.
 
rainer said:
320ASA film exposed at 200ASA and we will let the post know that we took a lower sensitivity.
Click to expand...

Finner's right - you're going the wrong direction.

You'll probably lose highlights and not reduce noise. RED's minimum ASA is 320 and there is no advantage to reducing it to 200. Worse, the sensor can't be fooled into being less sensitive than it is so you'll probably overexpose and lose data.

Rate it at 320 or 400... that's where you're going to get your minimum noise.

Regardless, test your ideas all the way through post first before you begin production.
 
joelnet said:
Finner's right - you're going the wrong direction.

You'll probably lose highlights and not reduce noise. RED's minimum ASA is 320 and there is no advantage to reducing it to 200. Worse, the sensor can't be fooled into being less sensitive than it is so you'll probably overexpose and lose data.

Rate it at 320 or 400... that's where you're going to get your minimum noise.

Regardless, test your ideas all the way through post first before you begin production.
Click to expand...

Not true, there is value in shooting ASA 200 in some scenarios. For low contrast studio, 200 looks beautiful and is noticeably cleaner than 320. You really can't recover much of your highlights when you shoot below 320 which is why it should only be used in low con scenes with careful lighting. That said, for studio beauty shots, 200 is fantastic.
 
Whatever you set the camera to, 320, 200, 1000 or whatever makes no odds. It's how much light you put in the scene and how you control contrast. The ISO is "just" metadata.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
Whatever you set the camera to, 320, 200, 1000 or whatever makes no odds. It's how much light you put in the scene and how you control contrast. The ISO is "just" metadata.

Graeme
Click to expand...

Course but for accurately metering/monitoring you will need to decide your ASA rating. You are making a creative choice when you choose your ASA, principally how much noise you can tolerate. If you have the ability to carefully light and expose for a metadata setting of ASA 200 you will get a very pleasing and unbelievably clean image. If you had shot the scene at 320 you may have made different lighting/iris choices.

For me the ASA rating is extremely relevant but I also know that I have room to back out of some of the choices that were made on set. ASA 200 gives you the least amount of room to back out in post but the cleanest image.
 
Emery said:
Course but for accurately metering/monitoring you will need to decide your ASA rating. You are making a creative choice when you choose your ASA, principally how much noise you can tolerate. If you have the ability to carefully light and expose for a metadata setting of ASA 200 you will get a very pleasing and unbelievably clean image. If you had shot the scene at 320 you may have made different lighting/iris choices.

For me the ASA rating is extremely relevant but I also know that I have room to back out of some of the choices that were made on set. ASA 200 gives you the least amount of room to back out in post but the cleanest image.
Click to expand...

Emery,

I would like to see your room 2K RED ASA-test shot examples (tiffs or jpegs) if it's possible.
 
Ah, but what I was getting at is shooting at 320 with a -0.4 exposure shows you "everything" - but you could choose to rate and light and iris at 200, even though the camera is at the above setting.....

Graeme
 
Everything within film or digital shooting is about artificial lighting and daylight.

You can choose a different film stock or various ISO/ASA settings in digital camera like RED but all is about lighting/daylight.

I mean a quality of a shot is equal a quality of your lighting/daylight.

You can have in a future super sensor with dynamic range that is more sensitive than any film stock but at the end in photo/cinematography everything is about ART of lighting.

For example take your DSLR, shoot in various situation at daylight, night, artificial lighting, etc.

Then work with your RAW files in a computer, play and LEARN how you could achieve the best result with artificial lighting or to choose time in a day and a place (on Earth) to get the best from daylight shooting.
 
so thx all for the posts. So we will do it like graeme it described to rate at ISO320 with a -0.4. That sounds not bad. But nevertheless it would be interesting to test rating different and set lighting for the choosen sensitivity. want to simulate pulling or pushing like at film. we will make the video also for testing purposes. after finishing we will have also a 35mm filmout and we will look at the theatre to a 2k displayed picture and the filmout. i am very interested on the difference.
my question goes also to b/w. because there it is necessary to light very contrasty. but we will see it next week. shooting tuesday and wednesday on the evenings i can post some of the QTref files....

wish you all the best

regards, rainer
 
rainer said:
so thx all for the posts. So we will do it like graeme it described to rate at ISO320 with a -0.4. That sounds not bad. But nevertheless it would be interesting to test rating different and set lighting for the choosen sensitivity. want to simulate pulling or pushing like at film. we will make the video also for testing purposes. after finishing we will have also a 35mm filmout and we will look at the theatre to a 2k displayed picture and the filmout. i am very interested on the difference.
my question goes also to b/w. because there it is necessary to light very contrasty. but we will see it next week. shooting tuesday and wednesday on the evenings i can post some of the QTref files....

wish you all the best

regards, rainer
Click to expand...

When you are using RedAlert! and you change the "ISO" setting and then export your footage, you are in essence "...pulling or pushing..." the results. Changing them in camera, has the same results as it just changes the starting point (not the actual data recorded) and can be overridden without any effect at all.

I have recently found out that you can change the "ISO" equivalent to EV. This is a much better unit of measure as it better represents what you are really accomplishing (pushing or pulling). Use the false color indicators on set to calibrate your metering so that you can light with a meter, but make your final decisions based upon the camera's clipping indication. When you get to post, then you can push or pull as you desire.

Have a great shoot!
 
khmuse said:
When you are using RedAlert! and you change the "ISO" setting and then export your footage, you are in essence "...pulling or pushing..." the results. Changing them in camera, has the same results as it just changes the starting point (not the actual data recorded) and can be overridden without any effect at all.

I have recently found out that you can change the "ISO" equivalent to EV. This is a much better unit of measure as it better represents what you are really accomplishing (pushing or pulling). Use the false color indicators on set to calibrate your metering so that you can light with a meter, but make your final decisions based upon the camera's clipping indication. When you get to post, then you can push or pull as you desire.

Have a great shoot!
Click to expand...

This post really helped me bring things into focus as well... Thank you as always.

Thanks for the great thread rainer and good luck to you on your shoot as well.

Cheers,

Andrew
 
Emery said:
ASA 200 gives you the least amount of room to back out in post but the cleanest image.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I've never seen anyone say that before so I assumed the actual sensitivity of the sensor was faster. Which is why I added "but test for sure" because it's not totally clear.

The thing is, if I can rate the camera at ISO 200 outside now I can use that to open up a stop if I want to. Which begs the question does 100 work? How about 50?

Somewhere in there you're overexposing the sensor and the software can't pull it back in. Where is that point?

I'll be testing.

(just read the rest of the thread and see Graeme mentions 320 -0.4) hmmm...

I guess it comes down to how much you are willing to underexpose certain parts of a scene in order to hold highlights in other parts... or let the highlights blow because the range is too great.
 
when you only closing a stop measured from meter, the problem of the noise in the blacks will not be better i think. will be interesting when we are pulling some takes and then comparing it. the most interesting thing would be to have 3 reds recording the same picture in different exposure... you know what i mean... gg

can't sleep till shooting...
 
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