The Magic Of The Red
Published : 27th September 2009
Ok, all you Red wizards. Let's say I'm shooting daytime in a refuge on a glacier high in the Alps.
The scene is in the dining room with windows all around. Outside it's maybe 6200K with a stop off the charts. Will I be able to control the highlights within the Red menus settings enough with to actually see something outside.
Time and money - it's better if we don't have to ND the glass. Fill inside will be minimal.
I'll have a few small units, kinos and such, and I'll try to sneak in some reflected light from outside, but we're still talking a 7 stop differential min.
Any other tips for shoot outside in bright, cold conditions with the Red?
Thank you in advance, sorcerers of light ...
Benjamin Minot
Director/DP
One More
Via Della Luce, 3
00153 Rome
Mobile: (+39) 3331632050 ITALY
Mobile: (+84) (0) 902163288 VIETNAM
>>Will I be able to control the highlights within the Red menus settings enough with to actually see >>something outside.
The RED menus don't affect the RAW image that's recorded... just tag it with metadata so when the clip comes up in post it looks similar to what you had on set.
You could try a similar approach to Canon's 'Highlight Tone Priority'. Basically underexposes a stop and pushes the gain a stop. In essence, exposing for the highlights and bringing the shadows up in post. Your image will get noisy, of course. Similar to changing RED's ASA to 640 instead of 320 -- you're just underexposing the RAW image and bringing it back up in post.
The RED is not a magical wizard that's going to make every situation easy to shoot. In fact, it has less Dynamic Range than many other more expensive cameras out there. Also, there is no 'Knee Circuit' or 'Dynamic Range Stretch' option on the RED.
That said, if the room has lots of windows like you mentioned and you can reflect light in from outside, then you might be able to get your dynamic range within the abilities of the camera. More dramatic contrast in the wide shots and bring in the Kinos for the close-ups.
Using ND on the lens when shooting outside is pretty much a necessity if rating at 320. Lenses won't quite stop down enough to work in full sun.
Best,
Graham Futerfas
Director of Photography
Los Angeles, CA
www.GFuterfas.com
Oh, and maybe some UltraCons or Low Con filters can help.
Graham Futerfas
Director of Photography
Los Angeles, CA
Also, make sure you have a MacPro Laptop loaded with REDALERT! [free from the RED website]. Shoot a few seconds of your scene, maybe bracket the exposure up & down on separate clips [takes]. Import this into REDALERT! and play with the contrast & highlights...find what works best for your needs.
Remember, do not always trust the 720SDI output of the camera, this is a great looking image, but is a downconvert and should be used like a video assist.
I often find that certain colors [yellows & greens] seem to go a bit strange on the SDI output of the camera, but the quick & painless import into REDALERT! usually shows me what I originally wished the scene to look.
You can then export these color corrections as TIFF files & email smaller versions to the post house.
It is a great system...
Cheers,
Jeff Barklage, s.o.c.
www.barklage.com
agent: TDN ARTISTS www.tdnartists.com
USA based DP
At the risk of stating the obvious, if your lighting package is small and you can't ND the windows visible in the frame, perhaps you can convince the director to use a static camera for the wider shots, shoot alternate takes stopped down for proper outside exposure, and cut in the window in post. That may not be what you (or the director) prefers, but after all, there's only so much dynamic range with any camera. We all make compromises from time to time.
Everett Gorel
Director/ DP
South Coast Film and Video
Houston, Texas
www.scfilmvideo.com
You could expose at 1000ASA (underexpose) and apply noise reduction in post to get another 1 2/3 stops of highlight squeezed in there.
Florian Stadler, D.P, L.A.
www.florianstadler.com
What about using a ND Grad Filter(s) on half the frame then have all the action take place on the non-ND side?
BTW Build 20 has about 1 more stop worth of underexposure. In addition the noise is now a little more textured to my eye then in the prior builds.
Good luck,
Dane Brehm
DIT : Data Tech
San Francisco
Phantom | Red | Weisscam
Graham Futerfas wrote :
>>t he RED is not a magical wizard that's going to make every situation easy to shoot. In fact, it has less >>Dynamic Range than many other more expensive cameras out there. Also, there is no 'Knee Circuit' or >>'Dynamic Range Stretch' option on the RED.
Definitely agree, no tool any artist/artisan uses is anything without the user's hand. Which camera's of greater dynamic range are you thinking of Graham?
Thanks so much.
Jason Cacioppo
Principal / Creative Director
SUBVOYANT
>>Which camera's of greater dynamic range are you thinking of Graham?
Panasonic 3000\3700, Genesis, F35, Viper, etc.
All cameras would probably struggle in this situation. On the Panasonic, for instance, you can have the option of adding Dynamic Range Stretch, which breaks the image into small blocks and adjusts the levels of the individual blocks. Good for a setup like this, watch out for shadow noise.
Best,
Graham Futerfas
Director of Photography
Los Angeles, CA