S-Log spot.

[Gregory De Tennis]

Here's a spot I recently shot with the F3 using Zeiss CP's. Shot using S-Log to the SxS and to a PIX240 in 10bit.

Aurora St. Luke's "Henry" 2012 - YouTube

[Peter G. Johnson]

That's really excellent, Gregory. I've got the same set up as you. You know, Pix 240 (etc.) What sort of lighting did you use?

[Gregory De Tennis]

We used HMI's on the interview, with various reflectors and 12x12 and 6x6 overhead silk's for the interview and b-roll.

[Alister Chapman]

The shots at 8 sec and 11 sec are a bit hot. In the wide the ladies blouse is washed out and in the mid shot her face is really washing out. What exposure method did you use. It looks like you were at least a stop over optimum for S-Log. A secondary on her face should have been able to control the highlight if it was exposed at a low enough level. Maybe a reflector to lift the guys face would have helped balance the shot a bit better? The shot at 22 sec looks to have been exposed lower and appears to have a nicer tonal range as a result. It would be interesting to see the pre grade images.

[Gregory De Tennis]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

The shots at 8 sec and 11 sec are a bit hot. In the wide the ladies blouse is washed out and in the mid shot her face is really washing out. What exposure method did you use. It looks like you were at least a stop over optimum for S-Log. A secondary on her face should have been able to control the highlight if it was exposed at a low enough level. Maybe a reflector to lift the guys face would have helped balance the shot a bit better? The shot at 22 sec looks to have been exposed lower and appears to have a nicer tonal range as a result. It would be interesting to see the pre grade images.

Thanks for the input.

The shot at 8 sec and 11 sec are a bit hot in parts, however the YouTube video makes it appear hotter than what appears on the master file or on TV. The information is all there thanks to the S-Log.

Funny thing is the shot at 22 secs is the ONLY shot that was not shot in S-Log. The PIX was acting up and that shot is from the SxS card with S-Log off.

I am just getting used to the exposure with S-Log. I have since this shoot learned the method of using my Zebra's to expose skin at 70% and then backing down two stops with S-Log, or with white at 90%-100% and then backing down two stops.

This method has seemed to work pretty well, however I have been going more for dropping 1 stop down, as two stops has given me some exposure's that were a bit too dark.

I will soon be posting a couple more spot's. One that was shot before using my new exposure method, and one that I just shot this weekend in NYC that I used this method of getting my exposure.

[Alister Chapman]

You need to understand that correctly exposed S-log will look under exposed. This is because your capture gamma no longer matches your display gamma and as a result the image will look dark until you have graded and de-logged it. You cannot expect S-Log with it's 13 stop range to look correct on conventional monitors which only have a 6 stop range and use a different gamma (Rec-709) so don't be too surprised or concerned if the image does look underexposed. You need to keep skin tones and mid tones well down the exposure range as everything above about 50% is getting compressed and the higher you go up the curve the greater the compression is. Over expose faces and they can be difficult to grade nicely.

[Ron Aerts]

Allister
In general: is it ok to use a gray card and use the onboard spot meter from the F3 at around 40%?

[Alister Chapman]

Yes, that one of the best ways to set your exposure in S-log. Make sure the grey is a proper 18% reflectance mid grey and expose it at 38%

[Douglas Villalba]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Yes, that one of the best ways to set your exposure in S-log. Make sure the grey is a proper 18% reflectance mid grey and expose it at 38%

So Alister, wouldn't be easier to set a light meter at lets say 1,600 ISO?

[Chris Medico]

Using a grey card with the internal spot meter on the F3 is dead simple and works perfectly.

A light meter isn't going to be any easier or better than that.

[Alister Chapman]

You could use a light meter. You wouldn't need to change the light meter ISO, just under expose by 1.5 to 2 stops. If you do want to fiddle with the ISO then it would be 3200 for progressive S-Log, but I wouldn't recommend this as there is a real risk of confusion when you use a different setting on the light meter to what the camera is set to.

The cameras built in spot meter is very accurate and allows you to spot check different parts of your scene. You grey card does not need to be huge. I have several small pocket sized grey cards on lanyards that I keep in my camera bags so I always have a couple floating around.