Red In-Camera Settings

[Cody Cuellar]

So I just finished my first Red project, a short film in which I was Producer and DP. I spent a good day with the camera getting to know all the menus and features and felt fairly comfortable with it by shoot day. Now that I'm finished with editing and color-correction, I just have a few questions about the shooting side.

First question is about the ISO settings. I had a few problematic shots when I got to post, and one of them was a daytime shot in which I changed the ISO in camera to 100. What exactly does that do? it seemed to expose properly but when I got it to post, it looked more like I had overexposed and then pulled the gain down, so everything in the highlight range was washy and had lost a bit of detail. Maybe I actually over-exposed, and didn't realize it, but is there a difference between changing the ISO before shooting and after shooting? I know that the camera only has a little play with over/under exposure, so I'm a little confused about the ISO settings and the differences of pre and post shooting.

The other question I have is the monitoring options. What's the best way to monitor, Redspace or RAW? Redspace seemed to look more like I would want it to in the end, but what would be the benefits of monitoring in RAW?

[Cail Young]

it looked more like I had overexposed and then pulled the gain down

This is exactly what you have done. ISO in camera should be thought of as a push or pull instruction for post rather than changing film stock. If you're shooting a bright sunny day you need to either stop down or use NDs or shorten the shutter time. ISO will not help you.

Redspace shows a nice bright image that makes clients happy but it's a very aggressive curve; RAW shows you exactly what highlight information you're getting. Both are useful.

[Cody Cuellar]

I figured that's what it was doing when I saw the dailies of some of those outdoor shots. So during shooting, if my monitoring LCD is displaying RAW output, I'll be able to see exactly how much information is being captured in the highlights? Meaning if it goes white on the monitor, there's absolutely no getting any more information out of them in post? Where as with Redspace monitoring, there was a slight margin for error where you could salvage some lost detail from slight overexposure.

[Rich Schaefer]

My 2 cents is: the sensor is sorta like a film stock, it has an native speed. It is not like a video camera that adds voltage to the chip when you add gain. With the Red1 at 100iso (320 is normal) the sensor is still exposing your scene exactly the same way but now the metadata is going to tell the postproduction software to darken it over all! So ya basically overexposed your scene in the camera and pulled it down later, (and maybe that works for your show) but it will probably reduce the total DR or range of light to dark that the camera can do.

All the best,
Rich

[Thomas Wright]

What I don't understand about this is that the metedata is darkening what you have in RAW so if there is detail when set at 100 then there should be detail in the RAW image just that when you bump it back up it looks overexposed but you should still be able to get that detail back... no?

[Tyler Black]

If you didn't over expose it, then you should be able to get the information back. But you can just set the ISO in post to 100 and your problem is solved. There's no reason to set it to 320 in post and then try to pull it back down. Or maybe I'm not understanding what's happening.

[Cody Cuellar]

See this is confusing to me because I understand what it is doing in post, so if it is doing the exact same thing in camera, then I understand what happened - but if there is a difference between changing ISO before shooting vs in post, then I am lost. It confuses me because changing the ISO on DSLRs or still cameras in general actually adjusts the sensitivity of the sensor, where as adjusting the exposure on the RED file appears to be more or less adjusting the apparent exposure for whichever LUT curve you are viewing in post... So basically during shooting I "pulled" the exposure down, but although in-camera, it is still a post-capture effect. Rather than exposing properly, I overexposed, clipped the highlights, then the camera said to pull the exposure down so it did (fixing the mid-range values) but just dropping the brightness of my already clipped highlights. This is so confusing, and I don't see the point of being able to change the ISO since its not like a DSLR where it is actually changing the sensitivity of the sensor, rather than being a post-process. So what I'm gathering is the exposure slider in post does the EXACT same thing as changing the ISO?? What is the point of that then?

Someone please correct me if I'm way off on this...

And I apologize if none of that made sense, I'm not really sure what's happening.

[Michael Romano]

You can change ISO all day long on set but it will not effect the recorded image. This is because, unlike many DLSR, the RED has a native ISO in which it delivers the best dynamic range. Someone else might correct me, but I believe the exposure slider in your post software is the same thing as ISO, with more fine increments. I rarely, if ever, use it though. It really is kind of pointless to have both if they truly are the same.

I think the best way to shoot is to METER at 320ISO, monitor RAW and pay attention to your histogram. You'll find that very little in the way of exposure needs to be touched later if you stick to that. I also zero out all the Contrast and Color settings in camera because the first thing I do is wipe them all away upon ingest to Post.