expose to the right for video?

[Hamza Ben]

hello guys,

i'm canon slr user and i just wonder, how do you expose your normal scenes?

do you expose to the right? like the trick photographers do when they shoot RAw? does it have the same effect on video?(reducing noise and has a better quality).

some people say they expose one stop to the right, others say one stop to the left lol xD

i'm talking about the scenes where you want a perfect exposure,not like shooting in dark.

so how you guys do it?

cheers

[Victor Nhat Nguyen]

I have a t2i and I install the technicolor Cinestyle for higher dynamic range. It helps me from over/underexposing. However, I think it all depends. However, shouldn't you expose to the left since it's easier to get detail back from the shadow than highlights?

[Hamza Ben]

I have a t2i and I install the technicolor Cinestyle for higher dynamic range. It helps me from over/underexposing. However, I think it all depends. However, shouldn't you expose to the left since it's easier to get detail back from the shadow than highlights?

after posting this, i kept digging and digging till i came by an article that mentioned the h264 codec which captures more info in highlights than shadows ...so u have to expose to the right to the point where clipping wouldnt happen ...i use the magic lantern histogram and waveform ...but you have to be extremely cautious not to clip ur highs ...and ofcourse back in post u have to reduce the exposure to where u want :)

hope it's helpful

[keidrych wasley]

hello guys,

i'm canon slr user and i just wonder, how do you expose your normal scenes?

do you expose to the right? like the trick photographers do when they shoot RAw? does it have the same effect on video?(reducing noise and has a better quality).

some people say they expose one stop to the right, others say one stop to the left lol xD

i'm talking about the scenes where you want a perfect exposure,not like shooting in dark.

so how you guys do it?

cheers

 

With Canon DSLR you should expose way to the left. This is also a technique used by Shane Hurlbut (Act of Valor, Terminator Salvation). In his words he 'starves the sensor of light', rarely having the histogram go beyond the third bar.

[Ram Shani]

for me what work best is

 

expose to the right at - interiors and night scene

protecting the highlight at day exterior (expose to the left)

ram

[Mei Lewis]

...rarely having the histogram go beyond the third bar.

 

The histogram isn't an accurate representation of the image in many cases. For example if you have a mostly very dark image with an important point of bright detail such as a face, then sometimes the histogram won;t show the bright detail ata ll because it's too small.

 

However if you exposed every image so that the histogram didn't go beyond the third bar you'd end up with a lot of underexposed, noisey images with little detail in the blacks.