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Shooting with Scarlet help?

D

Donnie King

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Hey I just received my Scarlet and coming from the Canon 5dmarkII it's a whole different animal. I just wanted some advice on shooting in daylight situations. I've heard the native ISO on the Scarlet is 800 and that's where you get the cleanest picture, is this true? If so, when shooting in bright daylight situations would it be best to stay at ISO 800 and use Nd filters with my lens or should I lower the ISO and go up on F-stop? For example 2.8 instead of 1.4? I just want the cleanest picture I can get. Any advice is greatly appreciated guys thanks for helping a newbie to shooting RAW.
 
This is an enormous oversimplification, but a good starting point.

Day: ISO 800 + ND
Night: ISO 320

It seems backwards, but its not :)
 
Hi Donnie - welcome to the club of Scarlet! As i understand it (and i have been putting it into practice with great results) shooting at 800asa esp in bright exterior situations helps you protect the highlights so yes definitely use ND filters to get the stop that you want and remember to pay close attention to your histogram,goalposts and traffic light tools and you cant go wrong - check out http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/red-camera-exposure-tools - happy shooting
 
I am under the impression that the camera has the best Dynamic Range at ISO 800, but the cleanest noise-free image at ISO 320. RED 'rates' the camera at 800 because it is the best possible compromise of Noise Reduction and DR.
 
Coming from a 5Dii myself, my interpretation is that regardless of the set ISO, the Scarlet will always record images at its native ISO? The set ISO is only there as a reference to judge the shadows and the highlights?
 
Correct sir. Mostly. The camera is always recording the RAW file which has a set native iso (which looks like 320). Then there is also basically a Look applied to the camera, which records user set information such as White Balance, ISO, Shadow, Contrast, Brightness etc. Those user settings you may always change in post. (Just like when shooting RAW with you 5dm2, only but with more options ;)) When you open a clip in REDCINE-X, you have the option of looking at the user set presets or at the RAW, or making up your own modified metadata look.
 
Clint has a hunch... :-)

There are many ways to Rome...

Or basically, depending on how youprefer to work, there are many ways to the same exposure, depending on how you prefer to work.

If I was to recomend anything at all, it was to shoot a lot with flat settings under many different conditions, to really learn how the camera responds (you'll kinda really learn that by developing the different images)...

Do that for a while before starting to change the settings when you shoot.

Then... Maybe... You'll learn to recognize what image "hooks" in the preview can lead to what results...

General advice:
This camera loves some contrast, even under low light.
 
ISO, WB, etc recorded as meta

ISO, WB, etc recorded as meta

JIm is right, shooting at 800 ISO will help protect your highlights, but not necessarily because of a greater DR. The data is recorded is raw sensor data, not image data. There are all sorts of reasons why this is smart, but one of the best reasons is that it allows you to adjust and control a number of parameters in post that would be baked in when using " other formats" that do the raw-to-image data conversion in the camera.

The reason for using 800 ISO is that you will have a greater range to adjust exposure in post. You are making exposure decisions based on what looks correct at 800iso, but if you are clipping highlights, you can drop the ISO in post and recover that part of the image. If you shoot at 320iso you are making exposure decisions based on that number and you don't have as much (or really any) room to bring that information back, because it is outside the range of captured information. 800ISO (on the camera) displays an image that is closer to the center of the range of information that is actually recorded by the sensor.

This is explained much more clearly in #22 and #23 of FXGuideTV

I hope this helps
 
Donnie King said:
Hey I just received my Scarlet and coming from the Canon 5dmarkII it's a whole different animal. I just wanted some advice on shooting in daylight situations. I've heard the native ISO on the Scarlet is 800 and that's where you get the cleanest picture, is this true? If so, when shooting in bright daylight situations would it be best to stay at ISO 800 and use Nd filters with my lens or should I lower the ISO and go up on F-stop? For example 2.8 instead of 1.4? I just want the cleanest picture I can get. Any advice is greatly appreciated guys thanks for helping a newbie to shooting RAW.
Click to expand...

The Scarlet sensor does not adjust its sensitivity like the 5dii's sensor does. Cranking the ISO up on a 5dii will actually change the sensor sensitivity, and will capture a different image compared to a lower setting.

The Scarlet sensor only captures ISO 800, period. You can "adjust" it as a guide to see how other aspects of exposure will interact with the captured data (f stop, shutter angle, lighting, etc).

If you crank Scarlet's ISO down to 320 on the camera, that's the exact same thing as shooting at 800 and then cranking it down in cine-x later. But doing so in-camera may give you more exposure info so you can make other decisions about other aspects of exposure.

I'm a beginner too, and I've found it simpler to just shoot at 800 1/48th 100% of the time, and pay more attention to the histogram and goal posts, and then work the aperture and filters and lighting to dial in the right exposure. You're going to have to throw away some of your exposure experience from the 5dii, and experiment and learn.
 
Ok Neil thanks! Everyone one on this site has been more than helpful, unlike most canon forums I use to be a part of. I've only had my Scarlet for a little over a week and I'm already getting better image results than what I started out with on the first day I received my camera. This is good stuff and very useful information. I'm proud to be a Red Owner I think I might shed a tear or two!! LOL Thanks again!
 
Donnie King said:
Hey Clint I totally get the concept of ISO800 +ND filters in the daytime but why ISO 320 at night?
Click to expand...

ISO 320 = less noisy
ISO 800 = better highlights

Since night scenes are generally darker, you want to keep an eye on noise. Since day scenes usually have lots of bright highlights you want to protect them. I don't think this should be the "rule" to shoot by. More like a nice place to start. I highly suggest you stray from these guidelines and experiment with different ISO settings under various lighting conditions. You get some lovely images from the extreme ends of this sensor. Check out some of Gunleik's threads for some lovely examples. Good luck and test the shit out of that camera. Nothing beats personal experience working with a camera system. Let us know what you find.
 
There is a gotcha with 320 and tungsten and whiteballancing, though. If you plan to go tungsten lit scenes, it can be smart to start at 800 to have headroom in the red channel for the whitebalancing cap off...
 
You can not change sensitivity of any sensor after it has been made and put in a camera - 5D including. Changing the ISO on such a cameras will boost the electronic amplification of the sensor's signal - it will not change its sensitivity. But because the boost is done by HW - it is "baked" into the Canon's RAW stills (never mind the video part). Unlike that - RED ISO does not trigger any HW electronic boost - it simply amplifies the signal in the monitoring path for the view on the monitor. Changing the ISO on RED will not change the RAW data you are recording in any way shape or form. The camera native ISO is 800 - I have explained this in the other thread complaining about dark footage from Scarlet being frequently posted online...

I shoot 99% of my stuff at ISO 800 and have never had issues with noise. Make sure you use good lenses and your scene is properly lit. Do not expect to get noise-free images if you shoot on f/5.6 lens aperture in the evening with available light only. There is a simple formula for getting amazing imagery from the Scarlet: Properly lit scene (or adequate available light) + Good quality lenses (I use 90% of the time my f/2.8 zooms) with appropriate optical filtration + using your RAW exposure metering tools (RTFM if you don't know what that is) = beautiful images...

A002_C004_1125MS_1K.jpg
 
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