Excellent post a couple weeks ago from Ted Schilowitz on “how to expose with Red”. Succinct and excellent. Neatly fleshes out some gut impulses I had, based on empirical evidence (aka actually shooting a lot with Red):
I’m explaining to people on a pretty regular basis that the RED is kind of like 2 cameras in one – one camera for low contrast, low DR photography where you can rate from 250 ASA on down as long as you don’t overexpose, and use the Raw View mode in the camera to check the levels, and have really nice imagery – learning to use the histogram on the right side (the right 3rd of the of the histogram scale) for low con imagery can be your best friend…… and one camera for high contrast, high DR challenging photography where you have a huge range from under to over, and you can expose at 400 ASA or higher, and as long as you don’t clip the highlights, you will be amazed at how much range you have in the mids and shadows to work with… This camera is way more sensitive that people give it credit for under the proper high contrast shooting conditions… Using the histogram from 2/3’s full on down for high DR photography can be your best friend.
The biggest mistake I see people make is letting things blow out because they are worried about the shadows, those shadows can hold clean and gorgeous like crazy – I see it all the time on properly exposed high DR imagery.
If you use REDspace for your overall exposure setting, and use RAW View for checking highlights as you work and check exposures you will have effectively done what MacGregor describes in his Rec709 at 640ASA testing. REDspace for all types of photography can be your best friend, when used in tandem with checking highlight exposure in RAW.
The RED ONE has various “sweet spots” for exposure depending on the various contrast conditions, color temperature of light being used and a number of other creative factors – that’s one of the reasons it’s such a nice tool to work with. The more testing and experimentation a DP has time to do, the more they learn about how far the can push and pull the images to create the look and feel they want – the joy of RAW cinematography.
+ Ted
[...] carefully these two things from Ted Schilowitz, on how to properly expose with Red: 1. I’ve previously posted this 13 April 2009 post by Ted on reduser.net, but it’s worth posting again and aggregating [...]