Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Separate but equal.
FX3/FX30: FX3 - did it lose slog2 with firmware update?
- Thread starter ahalpert
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cyvideo
Veteran
??? What has Caucasian white skin got to do with anything?
Talking 709 here. 70 IRE is around the generally accepted level for skin tones. Whether it be a dark, yellow, tan or white skin. 70 IRE is 70 IRE. A dark skinned subject exposed to 70 IRE may be F/2.8 a white skin subject exposed to 70 IRE may be at F/8.0 and other skin hues anywhere in between. Obviously when filming darker skinned subjects you have to be more mindful of your highlights in the frame as you are opened up further than you would be for a fair skinned subject.
If you look at the attached pic, I think you will find our darker skinned friend to be correctly exposed. And the False Color will confirm that the majority of the brightest parts of the face, the forehead and cheekbones, fall in the 59-77 IRE range. It doesn't have to be a face. If an object you are filming is within the tonal ranges of a wide range of skin tones, the correct exposure is going to fall into this sort of range.
Using what has been an industry standard exposure and color reference, DSC Labs CamBelles as an example. Using false color indicates that the lightest skin tone is sitting bang on 70 IRE, The darker skinned lass to her left has her forehead sitting between 50-60 IRE. Which is totally acceptable. If you wanted to brighten her up a bit, you could lift her exposure to 70 IRE. But in this example, I wouldn't find it necessary. I find a lot of my work turns out working at around 65 IRE as a general rule of thumb.
As with exposing anything. Evaluating what's important in your scene exposure wise along with experience should hopefully get you there. Has worked for me for years. I can't remember the last skin exposure issue I had.
Chris Young
Talking 709 here. 70 IRE is around the generally accepted level for skin tones. Whether it be a dark, yellow, tan or white skin. 70 IRE is 70 IRE. A dark skinned subject exposed to 70 IRE may be F/2.8 a white skin subject exposed to 70 IRE may be at F/8.0 and other skin hues anywhere in between. Obviously when filming darker skinned subjects you have to be more mindful of your highlights in the frame as you are opened up further than you would be for a fair skinned subject.
If you look at the attached pic, I think you will find our darker skinned friend to be correctly exposed. And the False Color will confirm that the majority of the brightest parts of the face, the forehead and cheekbones, fall in the 59-77 IRE range. It doesn't have to be a face. If an object you are filming is within the tonal ranges of a wide range of skin tones, the correct exposure is going to fall into this sort of range.
Using what has been an industry standard exposure and color reference, DSC Labs CamBelles as an example. Using false color indicates that the lightest skin tone is sitting bang on 70 IRE, The darker skinned lass to her left has her forehead sitting between 50-60 IRE. Which is totally acceptable. If you wanted to brighten her up a bit, you could lift her exposure to 70 IRE. But in this example, I wouldn't find it necessary. I find a lot of my work turns out working at around 65 IRE as a general rule of thumb.
As with exposing anything. Evaluating what's important in your scene exposure wise along with experience should hopefully get you there. Has worked for me for years. I can't remember the last skin exposure issue I had.
Chris Young
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ahalpert
Major Contributor
GROAN
My shoulder angel is telling me not to wade into this melee. But my shoulder devil is saying go for it.
I agree with Doug's exposure methodology. That being said, since skintones are usually the most important element in any shot that has them, it's not crazy to base your exposure around them. You can make an educated guess based on your experience of where to expose a particular shade. You would have to do that with white people anyway since we vary in reflectance.
But more to the point, people often seem to want to overexpose dark skin tones so they will attract more attention and have more stops devoted to their gradient. Even at the expense of the rest of the exposure.
I remember seeing an interview or podcast with Jay-Z. Can't find it now. It was in black and white and wildly overexposed. It was all black people and they were very well exposed. But the backgrounds -- windows, even walls and picture frames on the walls -- were blown out.
I remember a scene from Tyler Perry's "The Family That Preys" where I thought the white people were overexposed and the black person looked great. I can't take a screenshot from a Max stream. But you can get the idea just from the movie poster on the site:
Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates are shown at the same luma level for skin highlights:
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cyvideo
Veteran
Abe. As I said. Everyone to their own. There is no "right way". As long as "your" way gets the correct result for you, then it is as right as you can get. The one way I have never understood is exposing ETR for video, as your image is constantly changing. Okay on stills for sure but not video.
Shooting fast moving football in certain stadiums on a sunny day when you can be at F/2.8 in the deep dark shadow of the stands or F/11 in the brightest sunlight, the only way I find is to keep your player's average skin tones exposed correctly is aim for 70 IRE. Which is exactly what you do on the CCUs in the OB van. Many CCU ops only use a vision monitor for confirmation. They live off the waveform monitor's levels for accurate exposure on the cameras.
Chris Young
ahalpert
Major Contributor
To be clear, my groan was directed at the "separate but equal" joke. Funny. But also cringeworthy
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Don't blame me. YOU are the one that brought race into the discussion. Let me refresh your memory . . .
Go ahead, just keep digging a deeper hole. Your attempts to divert the conversation with hypothetical discos and football games doesn't hide the fact that YOU recommended to another DVXuser that he/she set set exposure based on skintone and zebras -- with Caucasian being the base line from with all other races are measured. I think that kind of bad advice needs to be called out every time I hear a Betacam-era dinosaur repeat it. It was lazy, ignorant and offensive 30 years ago and it's still wrong today. We have far better tools and methods for setting exposure quickly, accurately, and without offense in 2024. We should all be using them ourselves and teaching them to the less experienced whenever they need advice.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
This ain't rocket science. You hold up a white card, set the exposure, drop the card. Takes 5 seconds and no guessing needed.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
WHAT???!!!! There is no way in hell I'd be "opened up further" for a dark-skinned subject. I can't believe you are saying that is an accepted way of of exposing.
The exposure for a dark-skinned person is exactly the same for a lighter skinned person. Exactly the same. It is completely wrong (racist?) to expose dark-skinned people brighter than they really are. Please stop trying to make dark-skinned people appear lighter by purposely overexposing them.
BTW, if you're having trouble with highlights on faces, that is a problem with make-up or the lighting. Exposure cannot correct shiny highlights. You need to add makeup or change the lighting.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I'm not going to co-sign this statement
You should unless you think race-baiting would have been more appropriate.
ahalpert
Major Contributor
I don't even know what's happening anymore. Doug has a legitimate opinion. I happen to think he misses the mark of the desired self-representation of the subjects in question, which I was going to elaborate on when I had more time.
I don't think it's mainly about making people look like they have lighter skin than they have. It's about making them the focal point of the photographic medium. Sort of like what is talked about here:
Seems they would prefer the skin highlights of the subjects to pop. I don't think it makes them look like they're lighter than they are.
That being said...
Colorism -- a preference/status awarded to lighter-skinned African-Americans -- is a real thing in the African-American community. At the very least, I'd wager that most Black folks in the US don't want to be depicted as darker than they are...
You could say you don't want to participate in that. But then you're going against the wishes of the subjects themselves.
If you look at content produced by African-Americans, it seems to me that they generally prefer to be lit/graded to a higher relative level. At least in their highlights.
It reminds me of when I shot a wedding where the bride and groom both had big noses. I told the 2nd shooter to stay on telephotos for the portraits because of their noses. He asked, "isn't that racist? Because they have jewish noses?" I told him that maybe it's a racist beauty standard. But judging by how many Jews get nose jobs and also by instructions I've received on other Jewish weddings... They're not interested in looking at their shots and thinking, "wow, what a big nose I have."
(Of course, the idea that most Europeans have small noses is a myth. But no need to elaborate on that now.)
I don't really think this question of ideal exposure is about that, though. I feel like Chris is talking about shooting b-roll in a sports stadium. Some people are in sun, some are in shade. No matter how they're lit or what their complexion is, you'll want to see their faces in rich detail and gradient when you shoot CUs of individuals.
You're winging it a bit either way if you expose by skin tones or if you expose by the whites in their shirt collars (which, if I recall correctly, is Doug's methodology when he can't get a white card in the shot.)
I have no problem estimating an exposure based on skin tone, although I set different target levels for light-, medium-, and dark-skinned people.
The broader point -- that you can expose based on how you want the skin to look -- I think is totally fine, albeit more relevant when you're not lighting.
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cyvideo
Veteran
I'd love to see Doug running around the footy field with a piece of white card. The divergent tangents and tones of racism have lost me. Whether you like it or not, Zebras were developed as an exposure method with Caucasian skin in mind. If anyone considers my reference to Caucasian in the context of the Zebra question a racist remark, then I apologise if it was taken that way. Take it from someone who grew up in India and is part of a mixed Anglo-Indian family. I've said what I have to say on the matter.
Chris Young
Chris Young
ahalpert
Major Contributor
Chris, do you think that HLG3 is the closest alternative to SLOG2 in terms of available gammas? I was just looking online at charts. I might upgrade my firmware soon so I'll need to switch from SLOG2. The HLG3 curve looked somewhat similar. Then I scrolled back through this thread and saw that it's used in your WYSIWYG profile settings.
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cyvideo
Veteran
Basically yes, Abe. I find HLG 3 pretty forgiving, fast and easy to grade if you shoot in 2020 as it's very easy to bring into the 709 world. I was a big SLOG-2 fan, but now shoot a lot more in HLG3. Though a lot of people still ask for S-Cinetone. Of which I'm not a great lover.
In Resolve, I just do a CST from 2020 to 709 and do my final tweaks from there. If not grading, and I want a straight out of camera WYSIWYG for broadcast B roll to send straight back over the LiveU to the network, then I'll use the settings I posted. Which is HLG3 but set to 709 color mode along with the other setting changes I listed.
Without going into too much further detail, the first of the following videos outlines pretty well why I like HLG3. Though, Jason is wrong when he says HLG3 is noisier than HLG2. The second video is, though getting old now, and made when most Sony mirrorless were 8-bit is still applicable. What Gerald outlines is pretty accurate in my experience with the current 10-bit cams from Sony, A7s, FX6s and 9s etc. From about 5:50 is what would probably interest you most.
BTW. Jason's earlier comments about using NO PP is interesting. I know a couple of shooters who do exactly what he says, and they are very happy with the results. It works well on the A7Siii and very well on the A7iv with its greater dynamic range. Maybe worth a try.
Chris Young
Chris - thanks for posting this.
After plugging those into a profile on my a7siii, I did some short, quick tests just around the home, both interior and exterior and compared against 3 or 4 of the various profiles I have used in the past. And really like the way that rolls down highlights - but gives a "thick middle" (to quote SMM who haunts these forums). I shoot 95% of the time with S-Log 3 Cine with that camera (and rarely have need for a straight to air type file), but your timing was perfect because I just shot a low-budget run & gun type shoot yesterday, no lights, both inside and out, as a news-type "b-roll only" shoot and things look pretty darn good.
Other than revealing how badly the cheap Tiffen rotating ND filters I have are - lots and lots of added much undesired color casts depending upon how much ND applied (I will now likely never use again), I'm happy with how things turned out. So cheers!
(for anyone wanting to know - so so much better than shooting S-Cinetone profile. it's not even in same league)
cyvideo
Veteran
Well! Glad to be of some assistance. Sir. I've had some reasonable comments from a couple of networks on the images produced, so guess I can't be too far off the mark. It took a while to dial it in, but now I find I use it quite often. Forgot to mention, I'm usually shooting 0.7 of a stop over with peak Zebras set for 95 IRE
Chris Young
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brent234
New member
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Sorry for the slow reply, I've been traveling. Fortunately, there's no need to run around a footy field with a white card. Anyone who knows how to expose would know that. Your silly attempts to divert the conversation with meaningless hypotheticals regarding discos and footy fields have nothing to do with exposing for faces.
Yes, I do consider your "caucasian" exposure technique to be racist. Try not to do it again. BTW, some of my best friends are white.
I would like to see some documentation for this statement:
Whether you like it or not, Zebras were developed as an exposure method with Caucasian skin in mind.
Please cite a credible source.