I still don't understand. I completely understand that whatever you set it to doesn't matter as it only changes your screen and not the RAW footage. So sure use the available light but you talk about setting the iso too high so you add nd and then you set it too low so you remove nd and then you keep repeating that. Why not just set it in the middle, then that way you don't add too much or too little ND. I just find this video makes it more confusing then it has to be.
😆 its a technique since before digital. You just rate the ISO based upon what part of the image you want to preserve. So if you want to preserve your highlights you actually rate the ISO higher because that forces you to adjust your exposure to maximize the dynamic range. Its just opposite of what you think it would normally be. Everybody says oh its low light let me boost my ISO. But thats actually doing more damage to your shadows. So if you lower the ISO now the dynamic range shifts and you preserve more details in the shadows.
@@JustinPhillip Yeah no I totally get that but how much do you put it up by? Lets say im at 800 and it looks right but I want to just make sure then how many stops should I put it up by? Apologies I am new to this so it may just take a little drilling in
Justin, great video, as always. Question though, you never seem to explain why you choose 500 vs 1250 as your ISO. I know the reason you are doing it, but why did you select those arbitrary numbers? How do you know how to set it to 500 and why not 200 or 400? Or 1250 outside vs. 1600? How do you know how to set it in a dark interior vs a brighter area so that you can accurately expose without adding noise? Thanks for all your helpful videos!
If I'm correct, the ISO setting is solely a gain control for displaying your image on the monitor. The ISO settings have no effect on your RAW data. The sensor doesn't change, and its characteristics don't change either. The ISO setting is simply a tool to assist you in achieving proper exposure. You can leave it at the native ISO, let's say 800, but then you need to understand the dynamic range of the camera. Measure the light with your light meter and adjust the lighting to fit within the dynamic range of the camera. This is what he is doing with the ND filter: reducing light to bring the highlights back within the dynamic range of the camera, and adding light to lift the shadows. When you select a higher ISO, you are overexposing the image on the display, and vice versa
I’m DP on a project that starts the day after tomorrow, and we’re shooting on my Komodo. This has been an incredibly helpful reminder of how seemingly backwards this camera is. Thank you. 👍🏼
What you are describing is EI - exposure rating. There is still a native ISO - the ISO that corresponds with 0db gain on the sensor (which is always the case when shooting RAW). RED just likes to confuse terms and make everything seem more complicated than it is as a marketing trick (remember "mysterium" sensor? lol smh...).
exactly. that's ot- There IS a native ISO (Gemini has 2, just staying in red realm)... I think the iso in red are better understood just as "different spread of light/shadow for different needs"
No. It's not EI. EI in manufacture recommended"native ISO" settings tells the camera that THIS PARTICULAR ISO needs to bake into the RAW/ Log file in camera, so that the best of the sensor is utilised and it is associated to in camera amplification and noise levels. However RED just adjusts the "numbers" (RAW data from the light hitting the sensor) based on what ISO you want from it. So for a particular scene if you set the ISO to 800 because its showing you in your display that you get good skin tones on a human subject or in another scene you like ISO 2000 because you want clean shadows and your display is showing you tyat. RED says, you set the ISO for it first(like film camera days), you set the aperture and shutter angle based on that ISO. Shoot the scene and take your footage to post. Once you go in post and set that ISO, THEN the "numbers" (RAW DATA from light hitting the sensor) change into color which get the look you saw in your display ONCE YOU SET THE ISO for them in post. Analogy: ITS LIKE making a lemonade where how much lemon and sugar (exposure settings) need to be added based on number of people or flavour. Then water is added later to adjust for flavour or quantity. (ISO is like water here) Get it?
Insightful for sure. Although on my BMPCC 6K cam the B-RAW doesn’t give you the full rage of ISO, you have to select somewhere between 2 ISO ratings. Ironically the lower ISO which you would think works better for EXT sunny conditions actually has the lowest highlight metadata and the reverse is true for the higher ISO Counter intuitive but I have to set my ISO to 1000 for EXT day and set it at 800 for INT
Great video but I am so confused about the outdoor scene, Why High iso? Could it have been done with lower iso say 400 and lighting the subject face, which you did anyways. I get the inside scene we need light on the back. I don't know maybe i am missing something here.
I love this…kinda confused though. how are you choosing what iso to stop at? I Have the Komodo and I went outside to try this but I didn’t know which iso to use or when to stop going higher on the iso. Should I stop raising the iso once I start clipping or do I keep pushing the iso until all the highlights are clipped then apply ND? Same in the shadows, you chose 500 iso based on what in the scene? We’re you looking at the false colors on the monitor to see If all shadows were clipped then started adding light or do you just default to iso 500 and 1250? I want to apply this concept to R5 in raw as well. Thanks Justin for everything you helped me a while back with all my scrim panels and flags.
Yeah i just have my parameters i like to go by. RED says anything between 250-1600 should be fine. I go with 500 for lowlight and pretty much any setting where i can control the lighting and 1250 i like for day exteriors. Kinda just have to do your own testing and see what you like. I also know that i dont like to go more than a 5 stop ND with a pola. But maybe a follow up to this one day i will do 🤙🏼
I was wondering that as well and maybe t's just by rule of thumb and nothing that has to be really that precise. But yeah... he could have addressed that.
I've been learning to shoot RAW with my Panasonic S5 and Ninja V recorder. One of the quirks with the S5 is that it has dual base ISO's for better low light at high iso. While it makes a big difference when shooting internally I haven't really noticed any difference when shooting raw with different ISO settings though. So I believe you are correct that it generally doesn't matter what your ISO is set to. However your Aperture and shutterspeed of course still affect the image since it's baked into the footage after being shot.
Yupp! Dual ISO systems, does depend on the tier. However I still do not believe there is a “native” ISO in each tier. When i had the P4K example, in low light i always lived at 1250. Vs every other situation i was at 400
Not true. Every sensor has a sweet spot where it will capture the most dynamic range. The farther you depart from that, the more the range is reduced. So it is not a simple one or the other.
@@MarkWilkinsonDirector yeah but isn't the point of the video to say that you should choose your ISO based on the scene. Sometimes I might value more shadow detail over most dynamic range overall. Like if it's a night scene and i want most of my information to sit below middle grey with no highlights in danger of blowing out. You want to feed the sensor more light and shoot lower than your native "sweet spot' ISO
@@ryanlin8148 Yes, but he's drinking the Red Kool-Aid (which is good, I have 2 Dragons and a V-Raptor) - unfortunately it's not the entire truth. Red says that they use black shade to suppress noise and make the sensor have no native ISO, but that's marketing now technology. The underlying sensor has a native ISO - the point at which it performs at its greatest dynamic range (for the Dragon, it was 100), but releasing a camera with a native ISO of 100 was a non-starter, so they simply decided that 800 was the ISO that had acceptable noise and they called that native. These new generation sensors are vastly more sensitive due to the larger photo sensors, so they can say "no native ISO" and while in many situations, the compromise might be difficult to see, it is a fact that these sensors have a peak performance exposure level. This is all FYI, not really disputing the video as an approach to a particular shot...
Question on this, once you are done filming and you bring your footage into something like DaVinci where do you set your ISO? Do you keep your 1200 iso shots there or do you drop it down to say 800 and use your color wheels to fix your exposer? Or does it not matter? Is there no noise difference between iso 1200 and iso 800 with the color wheels fixing your expose?
it all just depends, really. Sometimes i'll go into the RAW tab and try out different ISOs, or i'll leave it as is, and just hop over to my HDR panel, and use the Offset wheel to start pulling it down. It's a lot of push & pull, depending on the nature of the specific shot & overall tone of the entire piece. I have never noticed a significant difference in noise levels at 1250 vs 800.
When changing ISO on my Lumix BS1H I see a brightness change on my Ninja V5 when recording ProRes Raw. This may not be the same on all cameras. But it's my understanding that ISO is a tool to place the center of your Color Gamut (color, brightness, saturation) where you want in your cameras Dynamic Range. If you want your skin tones correct in the shot and better dark range, ISO 100. If better highlights, higher ISO. (With an exception being Dual ISO) The same ISO for all conditions I guess would be ok If you did not want your shots to match without requiring a lot of post process editing for saturation, brightness and varying noise levels.
This is not me pushing back, it is genuinely a question. Whats the difference with shooting 800 instead of 1250 and add light to the talent instead? Why use an ND filter to save the highlights when they were probably fine at 800 anyways before you raised the ISO? Disclaimer: I'm a photographer and I just started watching a bunch of videography videos so I'm probably wrong, but I'm genuinely curious.
When captruing in RAW the ISO is just a number u can change later in post. Use ISO like a floating LUT to preserve whatever you care about most in the frame.
i'm pretty flexible when it comes to ISO on the R3D raw. typical indoors though i tend to jump between 500 & 640. Outdoors, it just kind of depends on how much i'm trying to preserve that background. Sometimes 800...but sometimes 1250.
Hey Justin! Thanks so much for creating all the Komodo Content. I just subbed! I got my Komodo this week and have been watching and analyzing your videos! I'd love to know, what would be a good lens you would recommend for someone who just got a Komodo? A lens to keep with them for personal projects and such? Thanks for all the great work!
I still say the Sigma is a perfect all around go to lens: amzn.to/2XsELPh - Or if you're looking to stay with RF mount, there's this one with a much heftier price tag: amzn.to/3pjgtT5 For a solid all-around prime lens for the komodo, IMO, this one would be a VERY solid contender for a decent price: amzn.to/3pg7IJw - You would just need a M to RF adapter: amzn.to/3C0HVc6
Woah that's such a rocky perspective on this, so for outside, you put a rather high ISO to force you to drop the exposure to maintain highlights and you bring in the shadows as well? With the BMPCC4K, it has a dynamic range chart tied to ISO, is that relevant to your technique? Like when it says there's more dynamic range in the light at ISO 200 or whatever, that only makes you boost the shadows, is there a missing piece of the puzzle there?
Not sure i follow your question 100%. But other than the P4K having a dual native ISO tier, RAW still functions the same way. So on a P4K for instance, on a day exterior shoot, i would stay in that first tier, but set it to 1000 ISO. The level of shadows you want to introduce is only dictated by how limited you are on the power of lights or bounces you have. If you're just running around with no crew, then yeah, you're probably not going to be able to work like that, because you have no way to change your available light. So you could either still shoot at 1000 iso, but it would be way more work in post, because now you would have to make windows on your talents face, and probably would have too much noise there in the shadows, because the P4K is quite noisy to begin with. IMO. So you do have to stay true to what your capable of on the day. When you have a little skeleton crew, you can get away with saving the image a lot more vs just running around with you and the actors. In my experience, a lot of the image is lost when you're operating as a one man band. People don't realize that, but just think of any documentary shoot, or news interview, the background always looks like crap, and thats because they had no crew to work in a fashion that would allow them to get the best possible image. In those cases, you have to bite the bullet, and just save the part of the image where you know you want the audience to look.
@@JustinPhillip with my BMPCC4K I always use 400 ISO, because I don't trust the Braw. It's a great format but, in the end, it's a compressed file with everything that it brings in. When it's possible I use to keep up a little the darker areas, expecially when are red-brow. I noticed that is a common spot for ugly and multi colored noise.
I'm kinda confused. If the ISO is handling the monitors look and not effecting the actual sensor. .what's our gauge to seeing how the iso is actually being effected. Is it the goal lines and stop lights on the Komodo?
@@JustinPhillip great!! I think I need to do a test shoot for day and night situations. Last question. So if we are not using raw data then the ISO settings are effecting the sensor? Correct?
of course as you increase your ISO the more noise you will get. Usually start to get notice after about 2000, depending on how much light source you have.
so putting ND to save highlights retain more information in the highlights? Thats where I am confused with raising ISO In terms of lowering the iso for interior shot is that meant to have more light inside in order for more room to play with in post, rather than high ISO and clip sooner?
Yupp! I like to think of it as tricking the sensor. Because ISO is just metadata in RAW, so by changing it, you’re really only changing the display on the monitor. Which is forcing you to control your light and preserve the data. Technology has come a long way, but unfortunately 1’s & 0’s just cant retain highlights the same way analog film can.
@@JustinPhillip What are your go to ISO settings, do you balance between a range? I see you didnt go super low or extremely high. Any reasoning behind choosing one?
@@JesusMartinezCreates I dont like to use anything heavier than 1.5 when it comes to ND. So before i put any ND in the matte box, i iris down to see where i need to be for no cllipping, and i already know what my shooting stop is, so i base my ISO off of that for day exteriors. For indoors i jump around, lately i’ve been living at 640. Sometimes i might drop to 500 or 400 if its really lowlight, and really just use the False Color tool that monitors the raw image (not the video signal),
@@JustinPhillip Just try to steer away from purple for dark scenes or is purple acceptable when you know you want that pure black? Is there a course or so about this that you may recommend? I saw your previous video before a shoot on komodo so I made sure to drop ISO for Low light scenes. Thank you for all the help, really means a lot and I really appreciate you taking the time.
@@JesusMartinezCreates with RED, you have the goal posts to help monitor digital noise. I would definitely not fill those up more than half on the under side. 🤙🏼
Great vid. I still don’t fully understand it though. In situations with blown out highlights/too much light, you need not worry about the shadows so much, so by pushing the ISO up you are focussing all your attention on bringing the highlights into range using NDs, thereby maximising dynamic range of the shot?
Yes this principal works on red cameras only because they have a patented system for raw this does not work on airy or Canon or Sony as their Ross systems are not the same and do not read off the sensor the same
Hi Justin, great video. I'd like to ask you a question about your in-camera 3D Lut. How do you prefer to work to check your shadows and highlights when shooting RWG/L3G10 ? Low contrast and soft highlight roll-of, or more contrast to crush the shadows? And when you're monitoring in an external monitor for a client, what LUT do you put on the monitor for your client? The same? Thanks, keep up the good work. (I'm a Red Scarlet-w owner, not a Komodo)
so in the previous version of this video, i show how i use the “Exposure.false color tool” which is similar to the Gyro that is on the Scarlet i believe. Anyways, it only shows clipped, crushed and middle grey. So i use that, i dont care about what the lut is doing.. For downstream i send the Juan Melara komodo 2 alexa lut for monitoring only.
@@JustinPhillip Yes, I understand that the LUT it's not important to check the exposure, just curious about your preference to "feel" the image while you're on set. Thanks, keep up the good work
no difference. The LUT is just metadata as well. You can calculate what ISO you want to use based upon whatever LUT you’re using, especially if its been created for that particular show. Thats why RED use to call their ISO, FLUT for Floating LUT
Does this apply to cameras like the BMP's? I am only wondering because I know that BRAW does work "differently" but I don't how much and I wouldn't know myself due to not having extensive work on other cameras that have RAW. I typically work with 400, 800, 1000, 1250 and 4000 to protect either highlights or shadows of the image and then light around the camera settings that I chose.
same thing. For the most part. It gets tricky with other cameras that have a stated “native ISO” but once you are shooting RAW, that whole “native” ideology, IMO, goes out the window. However, when it comes to DUAL native ISO, it is best to think about those two tiers as well.
I'm super confused. If the ISO on the Komodo doesn't affect the traffic lights and doesn't actually change the light level (if the light level is only changed through aperture, shutter speed, and light sources), than what is the purpose of the ISO at all? When and how am I supposed to use it? I still don't understand why you raised and lowered it for the shots of the guys at the door if the ISO supposedly doesn't even do anything.
It forces you to believe that things are brighter/darker than they actually are, making you feel as if you need to expose either way, therefore changing where your middle gray is.
Justin, your RED tutorials are super powerful & helpful! Question: RED and Portkeys can’t answer this! The EV slider on the right side of the screen darkens both the monitor AND the Komodo LCD. What is being toggled inside the RED from the EV slider on the Portkeys?
Yes i would. Just keep in mind the science of the Dual Native ISO. (When i used the P4K I would do 1000 for day exteriors, and 1250 for low light situations. )
@@candyartstv ahh i see. Yeah but I was hired to shoot a pilot on RED. therefore I’m not going to shoot in ProRes. Also, shooting in RAW will give you optimal results when dealing with day exteriors. ie *More dynamic range
What about a scenario where you're recording raw in the monitor from a cam like a sony fx3 that doesn't record raw internally. It is sending the same signal I could expect from a RED to the monitor?
@@blu2th101 i mean, personally, i think of something like that as “RaW Lite” 😂 but thats just me. Really RAW is just the raw data, so as long as you have full access to as much data as possible in post. However, the biggest difference will be the bit size. R3D RAW is 16bit vs whatever the recorder can do. Maybe 12? hopefully
I’ll be buying the Komodo next year for sure. Gonna be using it for weddings. I think it will level up my brand. Side note: digging you’re Deity D3 Pro. How are you liking?
Fanrastic videa my friend. I think maybe some of the pushback might have been coming from people who aren't shooting RAW. When a camera bakes in the META-DATA that's it, you have to deal with that in post. Just a guess. I'd personally love to shoot RAW but there's a whole lot of other stuff I'd need to be able to make that possible. Like a much better computer able to handle that data in a realistic and practical way. Best of luck with your career you clearly know exactly what you're doing.
Although it’s very true when it comes to the Komodo, it’s not for cameras like the pocket 4K/6k. The iso of BM pocket camera represents the o stops of light above/below middle gray. Iso 100-300 will have a lower clipping point of the highlights than the “native” 400 which clips at 100% and has 13.1 stops of DR (100 has the same amount of stops but only 3 above middle gray and 7 below. 400 has 6 stops above and 7 below which makes it the most “balanced” iso in the lower circuit of the camera with the best single to noise ratio) When you switch to iso 1250, you actually switch to the second circuit of the camera and the whole image changes. 1250 has 12.3 stops of DR compared to 13.1 stops in 100-1000. And 3.8 stops above middle gray/8.5 stops below middle gray which means it is significantly cleaner than iso 1000 but with less latitude In the highlights which makes this iso level magnificent in low light scenes without specular highlights (a living room with human in the shoot at night maybe?) But a terrible iso to shoot midday because of the low amount of stops above middle gray. So in short, each iso level has its advantages and disadvantages in BM raw. Although, a really great video!
The same principles apply. I did a video on the P4K about this (i was one of the first to own that camera as well). I used to shoot P4K 1000 ISO for day exteriors & 1250 for low light. You are correct that you have to consider the second tier, but it’s still the same principles.
@@JustinPhillip agree! But different companies use different methods to interpret raw into their cameras. R3D is definitely the most advanced while BMraw is a bit behind but not so far away🙃
I’ve watched this video literally 6 times…I’m still lost on why you’re raising the ISO and lowering it …I know why as far you’re saying saying it’s tricking you but what’s the benefit I’m lost
@@JustinPhillip so if I’m shooting a day exterior and it’s bright AF outside I should raise my iSo?? And if I’m shooting an interior I lower my iso?? Like the opposite basically ..but I’ll have to ND on the exterior and more available light for the interior ? What if there’s no big highlights in the scene ? Just shoot at 800?
I don't understand the purpose of raising and lowering the ISO either. It seems like he's contradicting himself a bit, by saying it doesn't affect the exposure with the traffic lights, but also saying it affects the exposure regarding shadows/highlights. I'm very confused.
Don't care what ISO you have, just expose to raw false color and that's it. How does lower ISO make you put less ND filters and lose the background ? The native Iso of the Komodo is not 800, but about 320 When you put a high ISO you protect the light by shifting the midpoint down, getting a worse signal-to-noise ratio.
I disagree. ISO is only "meta-data", as you call it, if you consider ISO-invariant cameras. In variant or dual-native cameras, the ISO is translated into an electrical gain when reading the sensor (before the ADC) and, sometimes, a digital gain between those gains (what you call meta-data). In the case of the dual, the sensor also works with two different amplifiers, the second being less noisy, so that further impacts the SNR of the final result. Even that is a simplification because not everything is known about how manufacturers design their sensors, so a part is deduction from tests or leaks.
Man the comments here lol. People need to remember that on digital camera, ISO is applied gain AFTER the sensor has been exposed to light. Just like a radio receiver with a GAIN knob, it is post signal processing.
if this was true about iso on the red cameras then they wouldn't have come out with this dual iso like the gemini ... red has tricked there users to believe iso is arbitrary in all actually there native iso where u get this least noise is 800 yes the higher iso u go u protect the highlights and lower iso u protect the shadows but that's with most cinema cameras
I still don't understand. I completely understand that whatever you set it to doesn't matter as it only changes your screen and not the RAW footage. So sure use the available light but you talk about setting the iso too high so you add nd and then you set it too low so you remove nd and then you keep repeating that. Why not just set it in the middle, then that way you don't add too much or too little ND. I just find this video makes it more confusing then it has to be.
😆 its a technique since before digital. You just rate the ISO based upon what part of the image you want to preserve. So if you want to preserve your highlights you actually rate the ISO higher because that forces you to adjust your exposure to maximize the dynamic range. Its just opposite of what you think it would normally be. Everybody says oh its low light let me boost my ISO. But thats actually doing more damage to your shadows. So if you lower the ISO now the dynamic range shifts and you preserve more details in the shadows.
@@JustinPhillip Yeah no I totally get that but how much do you put it up by? Lets say im at 800 and it looks right but I want to just make sure then how many stops should I put it up by? Apologies I am new to this so it may just take a little drilling in
Justin, great video, as always. Question though, you never seem to explain why you choose 500 vs 1250 as your ISO. I know the reason you are doing it, but why did you select those arbitrary numbers? How do you know how to set it to 500 and why not 200 or 400? Or 1250 outside vs. 1600? How do you know how to set it in a dark interior vs a brighter area so that you can accurately expose without adding noise? Thanks for all your helpful videos!
If I'm correct, the ISO setting is solely a gain control for displaying your image on the monitor. The ISO settings have no effect on your RAW data. The sensor doesn't change, and its characteristics don't change either. The ISO setting is simply a tool to assist you in achieving proper exposure. You can leave it at the native ISO, let's say 800, but then you need to understand the dynamic range of the camera. Measure the light with your light meter and adjust the lighting to fit within the dynamic range of the camera. This is what he is doing with the ND filter: reducing light to bring the highlights back within the dynamic range of the camera, and adding light to lift the shadows. When you select a higher ISO, you are overexposing the image on the display, and vice versa
I’m DP on a project that starts the day after tomorrow, and we’re shooting on my Komodo. This has been an incredibly helpful reminder of how seemingly backwards this camera is. Thank you. 👍🏼
What you are describing is EI - exposure rating. There is still a native ISO - the ISO that corresponds with 0db gain on the sensor (which is always the case when shooting RAW). RED just likes to confuse terms and make everything seem more complicated than it is as a marketing trick (remember "mysterium" sensor? lol smh...).
exactly. that's ot- There IS a native ISO (Gemini has 2, just staying in red realm)... I think the iso in red are better understood just as "different spread of light/shadow for different needs"
Yes, Red iso is EI.
I hope everybody read this lol
No. It's not EI. EI in manufacture recommended"native ISO" settings tells the camera that THIS PARTICULAR ISO needs to bake into the RAW/ Log file in camera, so that the best of the sensor is utilised and it is associated to in camera amplification and noise levels.
However RED just adjusts the "numbers" (RAW data from the light hitting the sensor) based on what ISO you want from it. So for a particular scene if you set the ISO to 800 because its showing you in your display that you get good skin tones on a human subject or in another scene you like ISO 2000 because you want clean shadows and your display is showing you tyat. RED says, you set the ISO for it first(like film camera days), you set the aperture and shutter angle based on that ISO. Shoot the scene and take your footage to post. Once you go in post and set that ISO, THEN the "numbers" (RAW DATA from light hitting the sensor) change into color which get the look you saw in your display ONCE YOU SET THE ISO for them in post.
Analogy: ITS LIKE making a lemonade where how much lemon and sugar (exposure settings) need to be added based on number of people or flavour. Then water is added later to adjust for flavour or quantity. (ISO is like water here) Get it?
Insightful for sure. Although on my BMPCC 6K cam the B-RAW doesn’t give you the full rage of ISO, you have to select somewhere between 2 ISO ratings. Ironically the lower ISO which you would think works better for EXT sunny conditions actually has the lowest highlight metadata and the reverse is true for the higher ISO Counter intuitive but I have to set my ISO to 1000 for EXT day and set it at 800 for INT
Totally agree to this! I used the same technique on a film I shot for Hulu recently.
Great video but I am so confused about the outdoor scene, Why High iso? Could it have been done with lower iso say 400 and lighting the subject face, which you did anyways. I get the inside scene we need light on the back. I don't know maybe i am missing something here.
Setting a higher iso will shift the dynamic range to preserve more details on highlight.
@@Taran_Bali exactly my thoughts, I asked the same question here and I got a reply but didn't quite answer my question.
I love this…kinda confused though. how are you choosing what iso to stop at? I Have the Komodo and I went outside to try this but I didn’t know which iso to use or when to stop going higher on the iso. Should I stop raising the iso once I start clipping or do I keep pushing the iso until all the highlights are clipped then apply ND? Same in the shadows, you chose 500 iso based on what in the scene? We’re you looking at the false colors on the monitor to see If all shadows were clipped then started adding light or do you just default to iso 500 and 1250? I want to apply this concept to R5 in raw as well. Thanks Justin for everything you helped me a while back with all my scrim panels and flags.
Yeah i just have my parameters i like to go by. RED says anything between 250-1600 should be fine. I go with 500 for lowlight and pretty much any setting where i can control the lighting and 1250 i like for day exteriors. Kinda just have to do your own testing and see what you like. I also know that i dont like to go more than a 5 stop ND with a pola. But maybe a follow up to this one day i will do 🤙🏼
What made you decide on the choice of 1250 ISO looking out and 500 looking in? I like the technique and I'm trying to see how you pick the ISO.
I was wondering that as well and maybe t's just by rule of thumb and nothing that has to be really that precise. But yeah... he could have addressed that.
You’re not wrong, it’s the same concept I’ve learned with exposure indexes. Great information!
I've been learning to shoot RAW with my Panasonic S5 and Ninja V recorder. One of the quirks with the S5 is that it has dual base ISO's for better low light at high iso. While it makes a big difference when shooting internally I haven't really noticed any difference when shooting raw with different ISO settings though. So I believe you are correct that it generally doesn't matter what your ISO is set to. However your Aperture and shutterspeed of course still affect the image since it's baked into the footage after being shot.
Correct. But find the cameras dynamic range chart, you’ll see the benefits of what “tier” of base ISO to shoot in when needed
It depends if the camera has Dual ISOs or not. In the case of Blackmagic Cameras, if you are in one ISO, you can't switch to the other.
Yupp! Dual ISO systems, does depend on the tier. However I still do not believe there is a “native” ISO in each tier. When i had the P4K example, in low light i always lived at 1250. Vs every other situation i was at 400
It took me time to wrap my head around this! SO on RED cameras the ISO becomes a scene exposure tool?
Is this the same logic when working with ArriRaw? Thank you for the fantastic video!
Any RAW
higher iso = more highlight detail, lower iso = more shadow detail and lower noise floor, it's that simple
Not true. Every sensor has a sweet spot where it will capture the most dynamic range. The farther you depart from that, the more the range is reduced. So it is not a simple one or the other.
@@MarkWilkinsonDirector yeah but isn't the point of the video to say that you should choose your ISO based on the scene. Sometimes I might value more shadow detail over most dynamic range overall. Like if it's a night scene and i want most of my information to sit below middle grey with no highlights in danger of blowing out. You want to feed the sensor more light and shoot lower than your native "sweet spot' ISO
@@ryanlin8148 Yes, but he's drinking the Red Kool-Aid (which is good, I have 2 Dragons and a V-Raptor) - unfortunately it's not the entire truth. Red says that they use black shade to suppress noise and make the sensor have no native ISO, but that's marketing now technology. The underlying sensor has a native ISO - the point at which it performs at its greatest dynamic range (for the Dragon, it was 100), but releasing a camera with a native ISO of 100 was a non-starter, so they simply decided that 800 was the ISO that had acceptable noise and they called that native. These new generation sensors are vastly more sensitive due to the larger photo sensors, so they can say "no native ISO" and while in many situations, the compromise might be difficult to see, it is a fact that these sensors have a peak performance exposure level. This is all FYI, not really disputing the video as an approach to a particular shot...
@@MarkWilkinsonDirector what about pocket 6k camera?
Question on this, once you are done filming and you bring your footage into something like DaVinci where do you set your ISO? Do you keep your 1200 iso shots there or do you drop it down to say 800 and use your color wheels to fix your exposer? Or does it not matter? Is there no noise difference between iso 1200 and iso 800 with the color wheels fixing your expose?
it all just depends, really. Sometimes i'll go into the RAW tab and try out different ISOs, or i'll leave it as is, and just hop over to my HDR panel, and use the Offset wheel to start pulling it down. It's a lot of push & pull, depending on the nature of the specific shot & overall tone of the entire piece. I have never noticed a significant difference in noise levels at 1250 vs 800.
@@JustinPhillip Thanks man! Thats super helpful. Been trying to figure out how ISO plays a role in RED exposure for a bit now.
Very good breakdown. It’s so true when you utilize the iso to do that. Makes so much sense.
wow, I've been binging your whole channel and have learned how much I don't know. Hopefully learning, but wow
When changing ISO on my Lumix BS1H I see a brightness change on my Ninja V5 when recording ProRes Raw. This may not be the same on all cameras. But it's my understanding that ISO is a tool to place the center of your Color Gamut (color, brightness, saturation) where you want in your cameras Dynamic Range. If you want your skin tones correct in the shot and better dark range, ISO 100. If better highlights, higher ISO. (With an exception being Dual ISO) The same ISO for all conditions I guess would be ok If you did not want your shots to match without requiring a lot of post process editing for saturation, brightness and varying noise levels.
For raw, ISO does not affect actual data being captured.
Before even playing this video i'm like "holy shit he's right!" after just getting my first RAW capable camera a few days ago. Love your content man!
i actually got a lot from your vlog stykle video and rewatched this thinking it was that but this is very dope and easu to understand man thank you
Awesome!
This is not me pushing back, it is genuinely a question. Whats the difference with shooting 800 instead of 1250 and add light to the talent instead? Why use an ND filter to save the highlights when they were probably fine at 800 anyways before you raised the ISO?
Disclaimer: I'm a photographer and I just started watching a bunch of videography videos so I'm probably wrong, but I'm genuinely curious.
When captruing in RAW the ISO is just a number u can change later in post. Use ISO like a floating LUT to preserve whatever you care about most in the frame.
thank you, very interresting
I tried to purchase the book Rules of engagement but can't seem to find it. any suggestions? thank you.
So are those ISO numbers a constant that you use for indoor and outdoor shots… how much variation do you use in determining the ISO number etc
i'm pretty flexible when it comes to ISO on the R3D raw. typical indoors though i tend to jump between 500 & 640. Outdoors, it just kind of depends on how much i'm trying to preserve that background. Sometimes 800...but sometimes 1250.
all makes sense! great video!
Hey Justin! Thanks so much for creating all the Komodo Content. I just subbed! I got my Komodo this week and have been watching and analyzing your videos! I'd love to know, what would be a good lens you would recommend for someone who just got a Komodo? A lens to keep with them for personal projects and such? Thanks for all the great work!
I still say the Sigma is a perfect all around go to lens: amzn.to/2XsELPh - Or if you're looking to stay with RF mount, there's this one with a much heftier price tag: amzn.to/3pjgtT5
For a solid all-around prime lens for the komodo, IMO, this one would be a VERY solid contender for a decent price: amzn.to/3pg7IJw - You would just need a M to RF adapter: amzn.to/3C0HVc6
@@JustinPhillip Thanks I'll check them out!
Correct me if I'm wrong but ... ISO is usually treated as GAIN whereas in Red RAW it is more of an offset of dynamic range.
RED has always used ISO as a floating LUT. Sometimes referred to as “FLUT”.
Hi Justin, great video. Do you think this logic can also be applied to SIGMA FP? Thanks
Woah that's such a rocky perspective on this, so for outside, you put a rather high ISO to force you to drop the exposure to maintain highlights and you bring in the shadows as well? With the BMPCC4K, it has a dynamic range chart tied to ISO, is that relevant to your technique? Like when it says there's more dynamic range in the light at ISO 200 or whatever, that only makes you boost the shadows, is there a missing piece of the puzzle there?
Not sure i follow your question 100%. But other than the P4K having a dual native ISO tier, RAW still functions the same way. So on a P4K for instance, on a day exterior shoot, i would stay in that first tier, but set it to 1000 ISO. The level of shadows you want to introduce is only dictated by how limited you are on the power of lights or bounces you have. If you're just running around with no crew, then yeah, you're probably not going to be able to work like that, because you have no way to change your available light. So you could either still shoot at 1000 iso, but it would be way more work in post, because now you would have to make windows on your talents face, and probably would have too much noise there in the shadows, because the P4K is quite noisy to begin with. IMO. So you do have to stay true to what your capable of on the day. When you have a little skeleton crew, you can get away with saving the image a lot more vs just running around with you and the actors. In my experience, a lot of the image is lost when you're operating as a one man band. People don't realize that, but just think of any documentary shoot, or news interview, the background always looks like crap, and thats because they had no crew to work in a fashion that would allow them to get the best possible image. In those cases, you have to bite the bullet, and just save the part of the image where you know you want the audience to look.
@@JustinPhillip with my BMPCC4K I always use 400 ISO, because I don't trust the Braw. It's a great format but, in the end, it's a compressed file with everything that it brings in. When it's possible I use to keep up a little the darker areas, expecially when are red-brow. I noticed that is a common spot for ugly and multi colored noise.
when you are doing a turn around shooting interior, did you lose the ultra con filtre? or its still there ?
Its still there
Actually i think we swapped it for a Low Con.
you always do a great job of explaining this stuff and I really appreciate your videos, mate
Glad you like them! Thank you!
I'm kinda confused. If the ISO is handling the monitors look and not effecting the actual sensor. .what's our gauge to seeing how the iso is actually being effected. Is it the goal lines and stop lights on the Komodo?
Yes, the Komodo and all REDs make it very simple to monitor the raw data. Just glance down and check on your goal posts.
@@JustinPhillip great!! I think I need to do a test shoot for day and night situations. Last question. So if we are not using raw data then the ISO settings are effecting the sensor? Correct?
@@SakiBombTV that is correct. In RAW, ISO is just metadata.
Doesn't pushing the ISO up bring out noise?
i haven't noticed any significant noise increase at 1250.
of course as you increase your ISO the more noise you will get. Usually start to get notice after about 2000, depending on how much light source you have.
This is truly ilucidating. Thank you for this - it's opened up a whole new way of shooting for me.
so putting ND to save highlights retain more information in the highlights? Thats where I am confused with raising ISO
In terms of lowering the iso for interior shot is that meant to have more light inside in order for more room to play with in post, rather than high ISO and clip sooner?
Yupp! I like to think of it as tricking the sensor. Because ISO is just metadata in RAW, so by changing it, you’re really only changing the display on the monitor. Which is forcing you to control your light and preserve the data. Technology has come a long way, but unfortunately 1’s & 0’s just cant retain highlights the same way analog film can.
@@JustinPhillip What are your go to ISO settings, do you balance between a range? I see you didnt go super low or extremely high. Any reasoning behind choosing one?
@@JesusMartinezCreates I dont like to use anything heavier than 1.5 when it comes to ND. So before i put any ND in the matte box, i iris down to see where i need to be for no cllipping, and i already know what my shooting stop is, so i base my ISO off of that for day exteriors. For indoors i jump around, lately i’ve been living at 640. Sometimes i might drop to 500 or 400 if its really lowlight, and really just use the False Color tool that monitors the raw image (not the video signal),
@@JustinPhillip Just try to steer away from purple for dark scenes or is purple acceptable when you know you want that pure black? Is there a course or so about this that you may recommend? I saw your previous video before a shoot on komodo so I made sure to drop ISO for Low light scenes. Thank you for all the help, really means a lot and I really appreciate you taking the time.
@@JesusMartinezCreates with RED, you have the goal posts to help monitor digital noise. I would definitely not fill those up more than half on the under side. 🤙🏼
Great vid. I still don’t fully understand it though. In situations with blown out highlights/too much light, you need not worry about the shadows so much, so by pushing the ISO up you are focussing all your attention on bringing the highlights into range using NDs, thereby maximising dynamic range of the shot?
Beautifully described. Lovely
Thank you
I think Matteo does the same and everyone argued with him in the comments
If I remember correctly he sets the iso at 800 and 1000
Yes this principal works on red cameras only because they have a patented system for raw this does not work on airy or Canon or Sony as their Ross systems are not the same and do not read off the sensor the same
Makes all the sense in the world. Still feels like my head were about to explo. Thank you for clarifying this. Brilliant.
whi
Good info, cheers for taking the time to make it.. insightful
Is this only true for RED? What would be your approach on a Canon such as a C70 or C300 with a DGO sensor be?
for the most part i try to operate like this. But for cameras that can not shoot in RAW i just tend to shoot LOG with base native ISO
Hi Justin, great video. I'd like to ask you a question about your in-camera 3D Lut. How do you prefer to work to check your shadows and highlights when shooting RWG/L3G10 ? Low contrast and soft highlight roll-of, or more contrast to crush the shadows? And when you're monitoring in an external monitor for a client, what LUT do you put on the monitor for your client? The same? Thanks, keep up the good work. (I'm a Red Scarlet-w owner, not a Komodo)
so in the previous version of this video, i show how i use the “Exposure.false color tool” which is similar to the Gyro that is on the Scarlet i believe. Anyways, it only shows clipped, crushed and middle grey. So i use that, i dont care about what the lut is doing.. For downstream i send the Juan Melara komodo 2 alexa lut for monitoring only.
@@JustinPhillip Yes, I understand that the LUT it's not important to check the exposure, just curious about your preference to "feel" the image while you're on set. Thanks, keep up the good work
@@bmiguellventura Just a basic Rec709
You're right dude, amazing content ! Thanks for sharing
Does this apply to black magic raw as well?
all raw
where can we see the final film?
It’s a pilot.
Hi Justin, Great content. Still trying to grasp the concept. Question: I shoot "P4K" Please talk about how this relates to using LUTS. Thanks
no difference. The LUT is just metadata as well. You can calculate what ISO you want to use based upon whatever LUT you’re using, especially if its been created for that particular show. Thats why RED use to call their ISO, FLUT for Floating LUT
@@JustinPhillip thanks
But this senario of ISO is only applicable on HIGH END cameras , does this same thing apply to mirrorless cameras?
This a practice that only works for RAW. Any other codec, everything is burned in.
Does this apply to cameras like the BMP's? I am only wondering because I know that BRAW does work "differently" but I don't how much and I wouldn't know myself due to not having extensive work on other cameras that have RAW. I typically work with 400, 800, 1000, 1250 and 4000 to protect either highlights or shadows of the image and then light around the camera settings that I chose.
same thing. For the most part. It gets tricky with other cameras that have a stated “native ISO” but once you are shooting RAW, that whole “native” ideology, IMO, goes out the window. However, when it comes to DUAL native ISO, it is best to think about those two tiers as well.
I'm super confused. If the ISO on the Komodo doesn't affect the traffic lights and doesn't actually change the light level (if the light level is only changed through aperture, shutter speed, and light sources), than what is the purpose of the ISO at all? When and how am I supposed to use it? I still don't understand why you raised and lowered it for the shots of the guys at the door if the ISO supposedly doesn't even do anything.
It forces you to believe that things are brighter/darker than they actually are, making you feel as if you need to expose either way, therefore changing where your middle gray is.
The reason is that most people love 1 magic pill solutions from others who supposedly know better and hate to think, process, test and be intentional.
I don't own a camera that shoots in RAW but this has been very enlightening.
its been a hill to learn but im almost on top thank you you saved me days of research on the komodo
Good shit my boy....👍👍
Justin, your RED tutorials are super powerful & helpful! Question: RED and Portkeys can’t answer this! The EV slider on the right side of the screen darkens both the monitor AND the Komodo LCD. What is being toggled inside the RED from the EV slider on the Portkeys?
please tell me that tiny candle is a cheeky motivated lighting dig 😂 great content as always!
Great video Justin, very informative. Do these principles apply to formats such as BRAW? Would you use this technique with Blackmagic cameras?
Yes i would. Just keep in mind the science of the Dual Native ISO. (When i used the P4K I would do 1000 for day exteriors, and 1250 for low light situations. )
What does how you captured the scene have to do with raw?
i think you need to go all the way back to square one my friend.
@@JustinPhillip Well you could have lit the same scene without using raw couldn't you? I mean isn't the exposure triangle kind of universal?
@@candyartstv ahh i see. Yeah but I was hired to shoot a pilot on RED. therefore I’m not going to shoot in ProRes. Also, shooting in RAW will give you optimal results when dealing with day exteriors. ie *More dynamic range
What about a scenario where you're recording raw in the monitor from a cam like a sony fx3 that doesn't record raw internally. It is sending the same signal I could expect from a RED to the monitor?
in that case i would send the log image to the monitor, and then bounce back & forth between LUT and log image on the monitor
@@JustinPhillip thank you! Also is that RAW the same thing that a RED captures or are there degrees of “raw”.
@@blu2th101 i mean, personally, i think of something like that as “RaW Lite” 😂 but thats just me. Really RAW is just the raw data, so as long as you have full access to as much data as possible in post. However, the biggest difference will be the bit size. R3D RAW is 16bit vs whatever the recorder can do. Maybe 12? hopefully
You make great, helpful content. Thank you!
I’ll be buying the Komodo next year for sure. Gonna be using it for weddings. I think it will level up my brand.
Side note: digging you’re Deity D3 Pro. How are you liking?
Yes thank you for the rec, it is very nice!
@@JustinPhillip I’m glad you like it man. It’s a game changer especially for what you do. 💪🏽
Why use ND when you could have dropped ISO?
because ISO doesn't affect lights hitting the sensor so traffic lights meter on red doesn't change when dropping ISO.
Facts
Great video good information
Awesome video! Cheers!
Fanrastic videa my friend. I think maybe some of the pushback might have been coming from people who aren't shooting RAW. When a camera bakes in the META-DATA that's it, you have to deal with that in post. Just a guess. I'd personally love to shoot RAW but there's a whole lot of other stuff I'd need to be able to make that possible. Like a much better computer able to handle that data in a realistic and practical way. Best of luck with your career you clearly know exactly what you're doing.
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You are a fucking Gem man! can't wait to see you take off on here and help others
🙏🏼🙌🏼
That is a lot of work!
Thanks for this explanation, it's great. Although you crossed the line.
😅 i kno. Directors choice
@@JustinPhillip I'm such a dork.
I love this very much.
Although it’s very true when it comes to the Komodo, it’s not for cameras like the pocket 4K/6k.
The iso of BM pocket camera represents the o stops of light above/below middle gray.
Iso 100-300 will have a lower clipping point of the highlights than the “native” 400 which clips at 100% and has 13.1 stops of DR (100 has the same amount of stops but only 3 above middle gray and 7 below. 400 has 6 stops above and 7 below which makes it the most “balanced” iso in the lower circuit of the camera with the best single to noise ratio)
When you switch to iso 1250, you actually switch to the second circuit of the camera and the whole image changes.
1250 has 12.3 stops of DR compared to 13.1 stops in 100-1000.
And 3.8 stops above middle gray/8.5 stops below middle gray which means it is significantly cleaner than iso 1000 but with less latitude In the highlights which makes this iso level magnificent in low light scenes without specular highlights (a living room with human in the shoot at night maybe?)
But a terrible iso to shoot midday because of the low amount of stops above middle gray.
So in short, each iso level has its advantages and disadvantages in BM raw.
Although, a really great video!
The same principles apply. I did a video on the P4K about this (i was one of the first to own that camera as well). I used to shoot P4K 1000 ISO for day exteriors & 1250 for low light. You are correct that you have to consider the second tier, but it’s still the same principles.
@@JustinPhillip agree! But different companies use different methods to interpret raw into their cameras.
R3D is definitely the most advanced while BMraw is a bit behind but not so far away🙃
So iso does matter when you shoot raw on red. This technique works for every camera except for on the red
I dont understamd why red hasn't built in their cameras nd filters !? 💥💥 Blows my mind
Excellent
I’ve watched this video literally 6 times…I’m still lost on why you’re raising the ISO and lowering it …I know why as far you’re saying saying it’s tricking you but what’s the benefit I’m lost
to preserve shadows and/or highlights. ISO is just another tool at your disposal when you’re shooting in RAW if you know how to use it.
@@JustinPhillip so if I’m shooting a day exterior and it’s bright AF outside I should raise my iSo?? And if I’m shooting an interior I lower my iso?? Like the opposite basically ..but I’ll have to ND on the exterior and more available light for the interior ? What if there’s no big highlights in the scene ? Just shoot at 800?
I don't understand the purpose of raising and lowering the ISO either. It seems like he's contradicting himself a bit, by saying it doesn't affect the exposure with the traffic lights, but also saying it affects the exposure regarding shadows/highlights. I'm very confused.
Hey Justin, can you do a video on the mirrorless camera that are unable to shoot in raw? Specifically the Sony cameras? 🤔
🔥
My Gear List: kit.co/jpOnFilm
Very very good
ISO is a by product of shooting film where sensitivity is baked in.
Merci !
Don't care what ISO you have, just expose to raw false color and that's it. How does lower ISO make you put less ND filters and lose the background ?
The native Iso of the Komodo is not 800, but about 320
When you put a high ISO you protect the light by shifting the midpoint down, getting a worse signal-to-noise ratio.
missed ND filters.
I disagree. ISO is only "meta-data", as you call it, if you consider ISO-invariant cameras. In variant or dual-native cameras, the ISO is translated into an electrical gain when reading the sensor (before the ADC) and, sometimes, a digital gain between those gains (what you call meta-data). In the case of the dual, the sensor also works with two different amplifiers, the second being less noisy, so that further impacts the SNR of the final result. Even that is a simplification because not everything is known about how manufacturers design their sensors, so a part is deduction from tests or leaks.
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Man the comments here lol.
People need to remember that on digital camera, ISO is applied gain AFTER the sensor has been exposed to light. Just like a radio receiver with a GAIN knob, it is post signal processing.
All this gear, but still - broken dialogue axis.
WHAT? an open mind?! But, that's not the American way.
🤣
😂😂😂
After 20 years with your parents and then you meet your real parents 🙈🙈
I feel like you know how you are doing what you do but you are not using the correct terms in your explanation because this doesn't make much sense
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I’m so confused hahah
if this was true about iso on the red cameras then they wouldn't have come out with this dual iso like the gemini ... red has tricked there users to believe iso is arbitrary in all actually there native iso where u get this least noise is 800 yes the higher iso u go u protect the highlights and lower iso u protect the shadows but that's with most cinema cameras
yeah i didnt say it was specific to RED, i said it was specific to any camera that can shoot RAW