Cinegamma at Night

[Erick Stoll]

What cinegamma is recommended at night for exterior shooting without an on camera light? Anything picture profile changes that improve the look of high gain shots?

A few others, if anyone can answer quickly:

Best way to use zebra to expose skin tones for cinegamma 1 and 3?
Benefits/negatives to shooting at -3db?
25p or 24p?

My interest is the cleanest possible images for significant grading later, I'm not interested in "baking in" a look.

Thanks.

 

[ZumaDog]

My interest is the cleanest possible images for significant grading later, I'm not interested in "baking in" a look.

Picture Profiles always "bake in" a look. The only way around this is to shoot RAW which only the Red One, Arri D21, and a few other cameras do now. It's very similar to RAW shooting on a stills camera like Canon 5D, 7D or Nikon D3 etc. On set/location you are really just outputting a LUT/Look for monitoring purposes and camera record output is adjusted primarily via exposure, focus and framing. This is not to say one can't bake in a different look on a RAW recording, but it's not really advisable.

On the other hand, processes like Picture Profile gamma/knee adjustment curves fall into the S-Log type of recording where the aim is to capture as much of the data as the CMOS/CCD sensor can accurately gather by adjusting the gamma/knee circuit according to each camera angle's specific requirements. The aim usually being to suppress highlights without sacrificing shadow areas.

Sony has an excellent white paper here: http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/mkt/cinema/solutions/slog_manual.pdf
which explains the S-Log dynamic pretty thoroughly. When you use a Sony EX1/3, F900R, SRW9000, F23 or F35 and you are making these types of S-Log / gamma curve adjustments, they are definitely "baked in". However, proper usage of these curves will yield a film-like "negative" quality to the footage that is very robust and maleable in post grading.

To understand RAW vs S-Log is to really understand the two main ways we have at our disposal to photograph motion digital with the maximum amount of flexibility. Choose your weapons carefully.