Best settings for Zebras?

I always have my zebras at 65 and 100. I may be wrong but as long as I step it off from the 100 I think your still safe by 5 ire.
 
811productions said:
I always have my zebras at 65 and 100. I may be wrong but as long as I step it off from the 100 I think your still safe by 5 ire.
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I agree with having one of them set at 100%

It is very important to know where THE WHITE is sitting and that provides you with exposure as well as clipping control.
 
I tested zebra's at 100% on a textured white wall and everything I played the clip back on clipped a hair above it. Also tested Caucasian skin tones and 70% looked good, I'll try it at 65% as well.
 
I roll with 70 and 100. And my goal is to rarely ever see zebras of any type. 70 for caucasian skin tones; I only want to see the tiniest hint of them on the brightest part of their faces. And then 100 for everything else, and I don't want to see any 100 at all. Unless it's on something like a lightbulb, which it's okay to let blow out.
 
Hey Barry, didn't you say in another thread that it was a hard cut off for clipping at 100? Maybe it was someone else. So because of that I set mine at 70 (for the same reason as you) and 95 so I avoid an chance of clipping important detail at all, and give myself some room for boosting contrast in color correction.
 
I set our HD cameras at 65% for flesh tones. Highlight setting can vary depending upon gamma used. Cine gammas could have zebra settings lower than 100%, depending upon gamma curves, highlight compression.
 
Mike@AF said:
Hey Barry, didn't you say in another thread that it was a hard cut off for clipping at 100?
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I don't think so. I said that in the GH2, when using its flashing exposure guide, that yeah, that's 100% guaranteed clipping if you see it. But on the AF100 there's a little tiny bit of headroom. You don't really want to go into it though because you might clip one color channel or the other, and end up with odd-colored highlights.
 
Mike@AF said:
Hey Barry, didn't you say in another thread that it was a hard cut off for clipping at 100? Maybe it was someone else. So because of that I set mine at 70 (for the same reason as you) and 95 so I avoid an chance of clipping important detail at all, and give myself some room for boosting contrast in color correction.
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Ya know come to think of it, that's not a bad idea keeping it at 95. A little wiggle room for post.
 
Barry_Green said:
I roll with 70 and 100. And my goal is to rarely ever see zebras of any type. 70 for caucasian skin tones; I only want to see the tiniest hint of them on the brightest part of their faces. And then 100 for everything else, and I don't want to see any 100 at all. Unless it's on something like a lightbulb, which it's okay to let blow out.
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With my HPX170's, if I don't get as close to 100 as possible with the brightest areas of exposure, I tend to find skin tones too poorly lit. Maybe I'm not properly lighting scenes as well as I should, but i find boosting mids and whites in post with HPX170 footage noisy and touchy.
 
I will check, because right now with my marshall monitor i use false color ( i think that's the name of the feature ) where it turns every layer of tonality and exposure into a color. Pink/green/light gray is where you want it for skin tones, i'll have to see what that reflects in terms of zebra.

But i keep my highlight protection at 95%
 
TheReverend said:
With my HPX170's, if I don't get as close to 100 as possible with the brightest areas of exposure, I tend to find skin tones too poorly lit. Maybe I'm not properly lighting scenes as well as I should, but i find boosting mids and whites in post with HPX170 footage noisy and touchy.
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I agree with you. You are not lighting and exposing correctly because you should not be boosting mids and whites in post to compensate for the fact.

If you want to discuss it ... I am happy to chip in over in the Cinematography section if you start a thread and let us know.
 
I don't have an AF100 yet. But, in general, I use 100 so that I know exactly what is clipping. Setting it lower is just a mind trick you play on yourself - not to mention more annoying zebra lines dancing around your image.
 
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