Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Shooting lower ISO in bright Daylight

Chris Adams

Chris Adams

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 28, 2009
Messages
69
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Nashville, TN
Website
www.chrisadamsfilms.com
Hey guys, I'm shooting a commercial Saturday with a lot of exterior shots with noon day sun. I typically shoot ISO 800 on the scarlet and protect the highlights, but I am wanting to shoot this lower ISO in order to not have to stack ND's.

Would there be any downside to shooting at 400 or 320 ISO as long as I am still not clipping the highlights?

Thanks for the advice!
 
The roll-off to overexposure isn't as pretty necessarily, but its a fine line. I usually shoot 800 for exteriors beyond my control and 320 when I've control of the lighting. If processing without a rocket, DRX can rescue some of the uglier ISO 320 roll-off to highlight.
 
Ok I think I get it, you shoot 800 on exteriors you can't control because of the smoother roll off and 320 when you can brighten up the subject to match closer to the highlights?

Also if we are silking the tighter shots, would you recommend going back and forth between ISO's or stay at 800?

Thanks!
 
I usually shoot higher iso's in daylight to protect the highlights. see if you can get a hold of a schneider platinum 1.5 or 1.8 nd. rather than stacking filters. As long as you can control the highlights, you should be ok though shooting at a lower iso.
But remember that by changing the iso you are not really doing anything in a way, just changing how it looks on the monitor.
 
ISO on the RED is just metadata and applied as a factor, technically your mid-grey point, to your exposure curve. Setting to a lower ISO does nothing to affect the actual data acquired by the sensor, so it doesn't relieve you of using an ND or proper light control to get the optimal exposure. It's common practice in situations where over-exposure is likely, to set the ISO higher to offer extra highlight protection in your monitoring path. You're going to see clipping in your highlights sooner at ISO 1000 than at 800, obviously, so it's a safeguard of sorts. IMO, with the current level of exposure tools on the camera, this is not necessary, even counter-productive. I recommend switching into RAW view and Exposure Check mode regularly to monitor your exposure, I pretty much shoot in RAW view all the time anyway.

The only time I tend to turn ISO up is when shooting is if we're doing available light night shooting or something and I know I'll be pulling the image up in post anyway and need to see what I'm doing. Likewise, the only time I set ISO to a value lower than 800 is if when shooting tungsten. Especially true if no CTB filtration is present. Typically I choose how for below 800 to set it by watching for noise present in the monitor in the lower 1/3rd of the exposure / IRE range. If you have to dial down below ISO 320 to smooth out the noise on the monitor/evf, you don't have enough light. period.

When you turn down your ISO below 800 you start to affect your highlight roll-off. The sensor itself still has acceptable ISO range from about 320 to 1000. When you push outside of that range, you start to compress either the low or high end of your exposure range and sacrifice potential DR. In bright sunlight situations, the best solution is always to use proper filtration. Stacking ND's is acceptable, but don't stack more than two. I also make it a habit to [almost] never place more than three pieces of glass in front of a lens. Never more than two if one of those pieces of glass are a polarizer, IR / mirror filter, or something with reflective components like glimmer glass. IMO, when it comes to filters and stuff in front of your lens, less is more... usually. But keep in mind they make ND's in strengths like 1.5, 1.8, 2.4, etc.. for a reason.
 
I would expose at 800 ISO, with proper ND's, and ETTR without clipping any raw highlights. Then in RCX, you can pull it down to lower ISO so to balance the histogram. That's what I do and it works out well.
 
What I always say to every one in both Photography and Cinematography is this:

Never touch your ISO, leave it at 800 on EPIC which is the Native, adjust lighting and or add ND filters to allow you to get the perfect exposure.

DON'T lower or put the ISO higher just to get the exposure right, Because you are now introducing Artifacts.

DON'T change the Aperture on your lens just in off to be able to get more light in to the sensor because now you are getting a shallower Depth of Field then your shot was meant for.

DON'T change the aperture on your lens just in off to be able to get the image ot be dark in off, because now you are placing everything in Focus with NO DOF and make your image look as if it was acquired by a HD cam.

Know, what aperture you need to shoot at, know that your ISO is set at 800, then test the exposure to see what lights or ND's you need to get you there.

Always control the environment off the lens, not in camera to get the right exposure, unless of course you just can't and you have no other choice, then ando only then do what ever necessary to get that shot, but don't be suprise and don't complain if you get Paparazzi like shots... ;)
 
Given that when you switch between Raw view and 320 ISO the effective brightness doesn't change but that at 800ISO it does change... The only real conclusion that I can come to is that this indicates to me that the sensor is really running at 320ISO, but that the noise floor is so low at 800 that it makes more sense to generally run it at 800 for a good balance of low light performance AND highlight protection.

So I fail to see how the highlights will fare worse on the roll off at 320 iso if nothing is over exposed and clipping as you are exposed properly (this is especially the case for night scenes).

For night or dark scenes i generally tend to pull down the ISO slightly to 640, or even 500 and expose for that, just to get a lower (perceived) noise floor and for silky smooth blacks. By day I shoot at 800 ISO. I don't really see the point of going higher than that in daylight.

Somebody correct me if my thinking is wrong here wrong here, please, but I have gotten stellar results shooting this way.

Chau from Tokyo,

Ivan
 
The senor is native 320 but the recommendation is to shoot at 800 as I understand it. I suspect this is oppositionally similar to Kodak's system whereby they used to slightly overclock (or underrate) their stocks - as I always felt they rated the ASA a little high to prevent underexposure by DoP's who went too far (a technical inducement to shoot for the shadows / print for the highlights if you will). I can see extra noise on the Epic / MX exposed normally at 800 - whether you like this depends on your taste and lighting style. I personally shoot at the camera rated at 320 (native) and closely monitor my highlights - keeping them inside the range of the camera.
 
I'm with James and Ivan in the way I think about Red exposure - but really it's all different ways of describing the same thing. In the end, if you haven't clipped the RAW highlights, then their rolloff is recoverable ( if you choose to protect them, or some of them ).
 
James T Mather said:
The senor is native 320 but the recommendation is to shoot at 800 as I understand it.
Click to expand...

No, it's been said time and again. The Red Epic is native 800. Only a few brains have been made at 320 native on request by a certain famous director.

The guys at RED try to make this clear and it still is debated over.
 
Will Keir said:
No, it's been said time and again. The Red Epic is native 800. Only a few brains have been made at 320 native on request by a certain famous director.

The guys at RED try to make this clear and it still is debated over.
Click to expand...

no, I can't agree with that. 800 may be the recommended shooting iso but It natively seems to be closer to 320. I personally, shoot mostly at 640, expose to the right and watch my traffic lights. Works for me every time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top