FS7: zebra 62% exposure sky and landscapes

P

Publimix

Veteran
Slowly I start to know the FS7 and its principles. The one question I have left (maybe the answer is too obvious) is this one:
When using a white-card I can set the zebra on the percentage that fits the shooting mode. Let's say 62%. The exposure is right when the card (or white spots in the viewfinder) starts zebra-ing. But what if it is a shot of a Landscape with clouds? In that case half of the monitor is zebra'd out. How can I be sure the sky / clouds is well exposed?
 
Publimix said:
Slowly I start to know the FS7 and its principles. The one question I have left (maybe the answer is too obvious) is this one:
When using a white-card I can set the zebra on the percentage that fits the shooting mode. Let's say 62%. The exposure is right when the card (or white spots in the viewfinder) starts zebra-ing. But what if it is a shot of a Landscape with clouds? In that case half of the monitor is zebra'd out. How can I be sure the sky / clouds is well exposed?
Click to expand...

To do it properly use a graduated ND filter to make sure both landscape AND sky are exposed correctly. It's the art of landscape photography. Plenty of tutorials about it. It's often a matter of judgement.

Oh by the way "white card" should be rated 90% reflective white, not just any white card or paper.

Claire
 
You are talking Slog here. in theory your should close down the iris until the zebra is gone to retain full detail in the white fluff.

Personally I would have the zebra at a higher value maybe 75-80

As for ND grad - you should not need that (in theory) as your scene should be in the 12 stops DR of the camera - best would be to darken the sky using a secondary in post.. well that is the theory.. again in reality an ND grad would surely help keep your shadows clean and may remove the need to do a 'sky burn' in post.

Of course an ND grad is not too great if there is a lot of camera movement like a pan up.

S
 
Publimix said:
But what if it is a shot of a Landscape with clouds? In that case half of the monitor is zebra'd out. How can I be sure the sky / clouds is well exposed?
Click to expand...

It depends on the clouds. Dark stormy clouds or clouds in front of a sunset, no. But if they are bright white cumulus clouds that are reflecting sunlight (not being lit from behind by the sun) you can certainly set your S-LOG exposure by having just a touch of 60% zebras on the clouds. I do it all the time. Perfect exposure. In fact, this exposure technique is very accurate and works great with any bight reflected white in your shot. Unlike zebras, the camera's waveform is not precise enough to guarantee hitting right at 60% -- and just avoiding clipping is not the right way expose S-LOG.

Of course, as Claire says, using an ND grad to darken the sky will help with dealing with the contrast between the sky and (usually) the darker foreground, but the clouds should still be at 60% regardless.
 
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Thanks for the advice, will test it in 2 weeks, filming in Norway.
Down in the fjords: only water and mountains,
Up on the fjords mostly air and snow and some rock.
I think I will try the old photographers trick, filming all the difficult shots 3 times with different exposure. (or wait for cloudy day and test it at home, no problem with Dutch summers.)

Peter Bosman
Publimix
Artisan cheesemaker, (Dutch camembert) author, publisher and producer.
 
Thumbs up on that Ben.

Publimix; try a 2 stop grad if you can with your testing. You can invert the grad in your matte box (not hard edge, but grad) if you have inverted contrast ratios, that is snow to sky, rather than sky to snow. Gives you more options for exposure and the creative finish.

Hmmm... Dutch Camembert - excellent on fresh toast. No, not FRENCH - FRESH :)

Claire
 
Alternately if you wanted to travel lighter instead of a mattebox and cine filters I have often used Lee 100mm stills filters and the lightweight holder. And you could get a reverse grad for the moments Claire spoke of above.
 
Can 14 stops of dynamic range and post-processing replace grad ND's?? I hope so, my first attempts are promising. The only filter I rarely use is a polariser. Otherwise I try to avoid extra glass. (The principle of grad ND is to squeeze the dynamic range of different parts of the image to levels that fit the camera, while slog3 broadens the dynamic range). Will save me some money for filters which can be spend on extra xqd cards.
 
I agree. I rarely use ND grads anymore with my F55/FS7 -- and those filters used to practically live on my previous cameras. Yes they would still be helpful in some stituations and sometimes I'd be better off if I used them, but to me, the difference is neglible and not worth the extra weight and hassle to lug a matte box and filters around. I hardly ever use a matte box anymore. I can do all the grads I need, with more precision, in Resolve.
 
Exactly - post is the modern gradND in all but the most extreme conditions.

The fact that you can place it, track it, etc does not mean you are fixing in post it means you produce better stuff than the old days.

And if a tobacco grad goes our out of fashion.. regrade.

S
 
Each to their own. There's some stuff I like to do in camera and some stuff I reserve for post. ND and diffusion especially I prefer the results I get when doing it there and then.
 
Publimix said:
Slowly I start to know the FS7 and its principles. The one question I have left (maybe the answer is too obvious) is this one:
When using a white-card I can set the zebra on the percentage that fits the shooting mode. Let's say 62%. The exposure is right when the card (or white spots in the viewfinder) starts zebra-ing. But what if it is a shot of a Landscape with clouds? In that case half of the monitor is zebra'd out. How can I be sure the sky / clouds is well exposed?
Click to expand...

You have around four stops above the point where your white card fills with zebras, so cloud/sky can be in zebra, not just the highlights on the rim of the cloud. It does depend on the sky and foreground though. If you just have a touch of zebra on the clouds you will more than likely be underexposing. Learn how to read the waveform and use it in conjunction with the zebra and you'll be fine.
 
This Slog3 thing is good I think, but I don't know yet if it is a step forward or a step back.
It took me 3 years to make a perfect white-mould cheese, recreating 'Dutch skies like Ruysdael' with the FS7 will also take some time and practice.
You cannot easily replace the sky with 'stock skies' (as I did with some photo's for a lighthouse calendar. (It is amazing what a good bunch of stormclouds adds to a picture).

How will we look back in five years to this 'slog era' ? (Will all hardware have 25 stops of dynamic range with wysiwyg viewfinders, fast intelligent focus etc.?). In other words when will the FS7 be obsolete?
I own the thing three weeks and I like it, so I hope the technique will slowdown a bit.

Thanks and goodnight.
 
Oh knowing Sony it'll be obsolete in 2 weeks with the surprise launch of the FS8 and S-Log6. But on the other hand, I could really go for some cheese now :)
 
I think making a hard rule to expose whites at 62% for slog is deceptive. It assumes you are shooting something with a more or less normal contrast range, but exteriors can often go way beyond that with backlighting, hot skies and dark shadows etc - hence why we like to use grads. So you just have to use your brain. 62% would be for a white card in the "normal" part of your exposure area. Say you're in a shadowed area and there are bright skies visible , or a bright white object in the sunshine - well don't base your exposure on 62% for the bright clouds, You can go way over 62% for real highlights - that's the point of Log isn't it?
 
Common sense says the subject is what matters most and should dictate the exposure. Yeah, you don't expose for clouds if you're shooting someone standing in the shade. You can do whatever you can to bring the rest of the image into line, but ultimately you will bump up against the dynamic range of the camera. If big budget hollywood films with dozens of crew members and truckloads of gear occassionally have blown highlights, then I have to accept them too . . . or change the shot. I usually change the shot to work with the tools and time that I have at my disposal. But that doesn't change the underlying principles of how to expose S-LOG.
 
You definitely have to determine what's most important in your frame. Like Doug said, you could expose for the clouds but if your subject is in shade you run the risk of it being noisy, no matter what camera you use.

Also, ND Grads and a window in Davinci are two different things that will give you different results. Doing it in post is never as good as doing it on location with ND. With the ND, the lower exposure gets you bluer skies and more saturation.
 
Lenilenapi said:
I think making a hard rule to expose whites at 62% for slog is deceptive. It assumes you are shooting something with a more or less normal contrast range, but exteriors can often go way beyond that with backlighting, hot skies and dark shadows etc - hence why we like to use grads. So you just have to use your brain. 62% would be for a white card in the "normal" part of your exposure area. Say you're in a shadowed area and there are bright skies visible , or a bright white object in the sunshine - well don't base your exposure on 62% for the bright clouds, You can go way over 62% for real highlights - that's the point of Log isn't it?
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
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