How should I get my exposure right?

HBlack said:
Thanks, this is the sort of thing I'm looking for. So I'll try to light it and adjust the camera settings so that skin is at 70 and as little as possible is at 100. Is this a good way of going about it?
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While this may work, I would say you are better going with the auto iris trick and use it to check the settings. The reason why is because the zebras wont tell you if something is above 100. They will tell you what is 100. You could iris down until you get no zebras and slowly open the iris until you get zebras and check the setting, but this doesn't help you for shadows, it just keeps you from blowing the shot out. If the skin is at 70, that may be good, but you may have too hot of a light, or too dark of a shadow somewhere else. Primarily the shadows will cause a problem because you don't have a way of reading the low areas.

Working for the news, I had to deal with the run and gun situation a lot. We would always blow out the highs. But I always wanted my footage to look great. We didn't have someone color correcting our stuff either, so it would always come straight off the camera.

What I did was push the auto iris on and check the low setting, then I would go to the highs. Then I would pick a spot somewhere in the middle, usually on the high side. BUT this was for news when the lights were uncontrolled.

If you are using lights, try and keep the highs and the lows within two stops of each other and fix it in post IF you don't have a way of getting a waveform monitor and a gray card!

I recommend forking out the extra money for the gray card and waveform monitor though!
 
The reason why is because the zebras wont tell you if something is above 100. They will tell you what is 100
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? Zebras tell you what is at or above the predetermined threshhold. So if your zebras are set to 100, it'll put zebra stripes over anything from 100 to 109.

If your zebras are set at 70, it'll put zebra stripes over anything from 70 to 109.
 
I've always been confused about the zebra stripes too. Does it make sense that if I have a scene where there could be hot spots that I set the Z to 100 expose until I get stripes and then backoff? But, if I have arelatively dark scene, set the Z to 0, bring exposure down to where I have no stripes in my blacks and then open exposure a bit until I have all stripes?

If this is wrong, could someone explain the proper Zebra workflow for various situations? Thanks.
 
I think I'll just be switching back and forth between 70 and 100 to try to get a balance of 70 exposure on the skin tones, with as little at 100 as possible. It's a good thing the camera I'm shooting on for this has a dedicated switch for this, finding it in my HV20's menus would be a pain.
 
HBlack has got it; you use the zebras at 70 to set your skin tones, then you spot-check with 100 or 105 to make sure there's no clipping going on.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Well I guess I am a young man living for the days of the old guard.

I absolutely hate relying on post production for something I could do in camera. I am a director of photography and if I am in principal photography without knowing my 'look', I am considerably unprepared. I like to get as much of my look in camera as I possibly can. Forgivable, are effects which are only possible in post.

This may just be me, but color correction is to finesse the look and film. I choose my filters, camera settings, and exposure in advance. I decide my creative choice regarding the look of the film and then I film it. I have lots of respect and admiration of older directors of photography who had to do almost all of the film look in camera.

Shooting 'safe' can sometimes get the desired effect, but sometimes cannot do the same job as in camera work. I also feel that shooting this way is a crutch for dp's who do not wish to commit to a creative decision.

I am not trying to sound condescending but I guess I feel that the magic and creative freedom the DoP has is being lost due to post production. There was once a magic, a very special magic, when a DP used glass filters, gelled lights, and used creative gags to create the on screen magic we all experienced.

The shooting safe method seems like a way to not commit to a creative vision and letting the magic develop on an NLE in a SFX house.

To end what will just continue to grow as a rant: Shoot safe if you do not know what you are doing or if you do not yet know what your desired look is. If you do know, do as much in camera as you can. You save money and time in post.
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Since when was color correction NOT an integral part of cinematography, or even still photography?

Last time I checked, it always has been and always will be. Do you really think truly pro formats let you finish the look in camera? Red One is a great digital example of this, post processing is needed. Your blacks won't just instantly look rich and dark with that camera. Film is also a good example. You can print to different stocks, which in turn affect the look of your original camera negative. Some stocks will make your blacks look deeper than others. Thats a post choice, hopefully one the DP lights and exposes for correctly on set, because they anticipate what will happen in post. A DP who shoots for post, because they realize that the image will change in post, is a smart DP. As for becoming a colorist, its not a bad idea. I actually do colorist work as well as DP work. On almost all of my DP gigs, I'm usually the colorist as well. I think it's important for a DP to have a strong understanding of the post processing their footage will undergo.

I suggest reading up on some of Ansel Adams exposure and post techniques. He never finished a single image in camera.

I do understand that non-raw cameras can do some image adjustments in camera, but once you step up to a camera like Red One, you might feel really lost, because its like film, it HAS to be post processed.

As for how you set exposure, everyone has their own method, I'm known around this forum as that "spot meter guy", which is fine with me...
 
All true, but there is a lot to say in this subject. RED can bring you the same as RAW in photography, a lot of headroom to play with, other cams like HDV do have more compression in the signal and therefore a little harder to CC afterwards. But with intermediates it remains possible to CC in post.

The original question was: do I need to set exposure to make a technical great image? -no blown outs, and no crunched blacks? Can I trust the monitor or zebra settings? I think that If you shoot with zebra in different circumstances you learn how it behaves, and later you see the results on the monitor. This rule is more for outdoor shootings, documentary style, fast, no time, etc.

That is why setting zebra to 95 or 100% and looking at a very bright section in the sky is helpful for. You know the rest is not blown out. But if you always and only shoot for maximal result (technical result) the end result -even after CC- is not that beautiful as the shoot were you had a result in mind during recording...

So I would suggest to shoot with an idea in mind but with the knowledge of the color correction in post, the time it costs, and the bandwidth of possibilities. For me that is to have no blown outs, and no crushed blacks, and some 'air' in the whites.

But all what is gone during recording is gone in post, we can return noise instead. So I like a high knee and a middle or stretched black to start with. Give some room for post production, if you alter color to much during recording it costs you much to change that later on.
 
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Doh I screwed up and Barry Caught it of course. Yet another reason I don't use zebras! Because I didn't take the time to understand them. This makes sense though. I was told to use zebras to check the evenness of a greenscreen, so I assumed they only show a really small range, like 100-102, or 70 - 72% Oh well, we learn something new every day!
 
So you learned something? > How great this forum can be!!.
Zebra's is not for checking green screen. (only)

btw: Who is Barry Cought?
 
I'm using a computer monitor for monitoring some indoor stuff I'm shooting. It seems to be noticeably brighter than the camera's LCD. Without having to buy anything new, what's the best way to ensure I'm monitoring accurately?
 
see if you can beg borrow or steal a broadcast monitor and try and calibrate your computer monitor to it (after calibrating the broadcast monitor of course). This might help some. Write down your monitor settings and then at least you have something close for free. I did this with my computer monitors on my computer and it makes life a little easier and now I can have at least a clue as to what things actually look like when I'm not using an actual monitor.
 
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