F55: F55 on Insidious: Chapter 3

It is interesting 'getting clean blacks' - surely it is simple to chainsaw off the bottom end from any digital camera for completely clean pure black.

In the recent DPing that I have done Ive shot a lot of dark scenes that were dark.. 2000ISO at 2 or 4000 ISO at 2 and really the 'negs' were a bit thin.. not much on the WFM above 60.

Ive made a mental note to self to learn to be able to shoot a 'dark' scene at 200ISO 5.6 if I want - ie bright.. but crushed later

This seems to run a little contrary to him using 'actual dark'.. which Im not convinced is the correct approach.

The only upside is that practicals do not need supplementing which speeds up life on set and may read better?

I wonder if C Papert has an opinion?
 
Here is a shot 'as shot' and how it is looking in the grade.. there is of course little noise in the shadows after such a crush..

dark_1.401.3.jpg
dark_1.401.4.jpg
 
Interesting. I thought morgans above approach would be better suited for higher budgets, and that most considered the F55 to be an ISO640 camera.
 
I'm not too sure what he meant by having cleaner blacks and that the Sony was better for it than Alexa or RED. I mean theoretically most camera's if shooting near the noise floor, well has some noise. Rating your camera lower 1-2 stops is the only way around this. It took me years to realize that if you want a dark scene you shoot it "normal" and lower exposure in post.

Here's my go at your frame Sam but simply using the built in tools in FCP X. I was too lazy this morning to fire up Davinci Resolve.


samnight_zpsqtdu3tud.png
 
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To be honest that clip in the OP wasn't doing it for me. Looked like a spoof or an infomercial but I don't think it was to do with the camera.


EDIT: The movie trailer, to be specific...
 
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Another benefit of shooting up and bringing down after is that you naturally kill any base/reflected ambience. So long as you can increase the modelling light you need, then it can produce great results. There's nothing worse than someone doing dark for dark and then having really flat ambience around.

Most digital cameras are very, very ropey in the bottom stops, on step wedges you can see 'detail', but there's very little of any use there...

Needs careful monitoring, though. I've balls'ed up plenty of times monitoring in log.

cheers
Paul
 
I would agree with Sam's approach. I prefer to expose for a "fat" negative and work with a darkened LUT giving more flexibility for later. If some aspect of the frame needs a shaping in the grade, you have room to do so rather than having the look fully baked in. In Sam's example, it would be reasonable for the director to say "I can't see the gun and I need to" and you can lay in a window that would simulate a little gradation across the wall, picking out the gun. If the image had been exposed in a way that was close to the final grade, there would be no room to do so. I'd give it anywhere between a half stop to a stop of extra exposure.

If I don't have a DIT on set to create a custom LUT, I'll light to darker stop and then open up before we shoot.
 
I've got a night time bedroom scene coming up in a film at the end of the month. In my tests so far, I think lighting the scene for a better exposure and more modeling, as Paul said, and bringing it down in post is the right way to get good detail and limit noise in the shadows.
 
It definitely seems somewhat counter-intuitive in many ways, but it looks like the best way.

Hi Charles, I have this frame you shot with the F3 in the gallery section of the website ShotOnF3.com, and do you recall if it was the same approach? ie. light brighter and lower expose later?

P.S. If you can find the video from this frame please post.

cheers,

thebite.jpg
 
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Hi Dennis, yes that was this:

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It's been three or four years so it's hard to remember but I'm pretty sure I exposed hotter and we pulled it down in the LUT.
 
Charles.. I had planned a window for the gun.. or at least thought about it :)

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So we agree that this DPs methodology seems a little confused?

S
 
No, "confused" isn't a term I would use. He's being ballsy and locking in exactly the look he wants. Many brilliant films have been shot that way. I generally choose not to ride that line for a myriad of reasons, few of which are based in creativity.
 
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