Exposure question

[Sttratos]

It may be a "dumb" question, but if you can see your image just fine on your monitor and several of them at that, can it still be underexposed?

The reason I'm asking is because I shot a music video in a tunnel type of place which was pretty dark. It had practical lights and they were 500w construction types of light fixed to the ceiling but it couldn't really bright the place enough for the EX1. So we had to add some lights but we only had a couple of babies and a couple of juniors, plus a 2k softbox and a tweenie. The place was pretty big, but we got the look we wanted on the monitor, which was that low-key type of feeling with lots of darkness and shadows. Kind of like a film noir look. The motive was as if the band playing in the sewers. In any case, it looks great on my set monitor, on FCP monitor, on Color monitor etc. But looking at the scope in Color, most of it is falling between 20 and 30 IRE with the skin at around 40 IRE, although we do have some brighter areas at 60-80 IRE, which are small high light parts that complement the high contrast low-key look.
So should I be worried here? It was the first time I have to shoot with the EX1 in such a dark place and my laptop crapped up on me and I couldn't use the scope on set to check.
It looks fine to the eye. I guess I may be just nervous because I like shooting it brighter and get the look in post while this seems like a in camera look.
I shot with cine4 and black -3 and black gamma at 0.
Thanks.

[Chadfish]

If it looks good. It's good.

[adamr316]

The EX1's built in LCD screen (I assume that's what you're referring to, not an external production monitor) is one of the better ones out of the prosumer cams. I find it's color rendition straight from the factory to be very close to what I get on a Sony consumer HDTV, if not the same.

The key is that it needs to be setup properly. If you have the LCD or backlight brightness set too high, for example, your going to end up underexposing by accident. So for indoor shoots it's simply a matter of sending color bars to the monitor and calibrating.

My setup for indoor shoots is LCD brightness at +10, others at zero and the backlight to 50%., which is close to factory settings. As time roles on I'll be needing to bump the backlight and backlight no doubt but for now I'm settled on that.

Outdoors...it depends and I for the most part rely on the histogram, spot meter and zebras to get a good exposure.

[thxdave]

Adam is right. If it "looks good" on an improperly set up monitor, it is NOT good.

[Barry_Green]

If it looks good. It's good.
If it looks good ON A PROPERLY-CALIBRATED MONITOR, then it's good.

And that's a much bigger question than it sounds. The monitor has to be properly calibrated for the current lighting conditions it's being used under! Sometimes folks think that they can calibrate their monitor once and then it's "good to go", and that is very, very far from the truth. The monitor has to have different settings for a dark room than it would need for broad daylight!

A waveform monitor is an incredibly useful tool because it displays exactly what's happening with the signal, removing the variability of different display monitors from the equation.

[DEPTH OF PHIL]

Oh so true Barry!
Cheers

[morgan_moore]

err

with a stills background - we alsway expose for the histogram

one of the decent features of the EX1 is histogram

i have it on all the time ..

S

[Iudex]

Be careful with the histogram, remember it counts ALL the pixels in the signal, not just the ones you consider should be properly exposed.

If your lighting is very high-key then the histogram should be very friendly, otherwise be careful.

What I'm trying to say is that the histogram should be carefuly interpretated and not just processed like auto exposure/gain do.

[Chadfish]

If it looks good ON A PROPERLY-CALIBRATED MONITOR, then it's good.

And that's a much bigger question than it sounds. The monitor has to be properly calibrated for the current lighting conditions it's being used under! Sometimes folks think that they can calibrate their monitor once and then it's "good to go", and that is very, very far from the truth. The monitor has to have different settings for a dark room than it would need for broad daylight!

A waveform monitor is an incredibly useful tool because it displays exactly what's happening with the signal, removing the variability of different display monitors from the equation.

Fair enough!

I guess I was thinking like an audio engineer. If it SOUNDs good - It's good.

[morgan_moore]

Be careful with the histogram, remember it counts ALL the pixels in the signal, not just the ones you consider should be properly exposed.

If your lighting is very high-key then the histogram should be very friendly, otherwise be careful.

What I'm trying to say is that the histogram should be carefuly interpretated and not just processed like auto exposure/gain do.

indeed but the OP should have seen a spike (the faces) and seen that this was sitting too low

of course one can 'spot meter' by zooming in to the area of interest (before the shot)

S

[Iudex]

But also be careful with the zoom, the EX1 has ramping :D.

[Sttratos]

Yes, the monitors are properly calibrated. But I just hate relying only on monitors.
I agree that the histogram is pretty useless unless you are shooting corporate and well lit weddings. For low key work it will always be to the extreme left no matter what.
I'm thinking it will be fine. I have checked it on a high end monitor and it looks spot on. Not much wiggle room but then again it came out the exact look we were after. Besides, I think even if the monitor is not exactly spot on, the fact it looks good and bright enough where it should be bright and not noisy in the dark parts on a monitor means even if this is not how the original signal looks, I should be able to color correct it and bring it up to that look without seeing noise too.
About the skin tones being at 40-50 IRE this is a good range when using the cine4 gamma. If you expose to 70IRE in cine4 you get very ugly and unnatural skin tones.

[Sttratos]

But also be careful with the zoom, the EX1 has ramping :D.


???

[Iudex]

When you go very tele on the zoom, some light is lost because of the optics of the lens.

I don't remember at which Z this starts to happen, just try it yourself.

[Sttratos]

Oh, I see. I guess this is bad news for 35mm adapters users. You normally have to zoom to at least Z75 .