Should Proper Zebra Level Look Overexposed in the Monitor?

What I've learned is outdoors to look at the clouds. The zebras will go away even if you're overexposing the clouds . You want the clouds to have detail and not to be washed out or worse totally disappear.

NickZ2016 wrote:

What I've learned is outdoors to look at the clouds. The zebras will go away even if you're overexposing the clouds . You want the clouds to have detail and not to be washed out or worse totally disappear.

I tend to agree with Nick's advice above.

The reason for overexposing certain gammas is to reduce noise in the shadows.

The drawbacks are that you are prone to clip your highlights. With film or certain digital codecs, this could be less of a problem, since the highlights will often blow out smoothly (soft roll off). But in digitial codecs, the roll off isn't nearly as nice.

The other issue is that when exposing to the right, you are cramming a lot of what would be midtone detail in to the highlights, and it tends to make the midtones a bit flatter after you reduce the exposure in post.

rdbot wrote:

thanks to both of you, but I'm not sure i understand what you are suggesting to do, or not do. And still not sure if looking washed out on the monitor is correct or not, having set my zebras to 95%.

I tried as well to expose skintones to 70% +1, but when zebras finally appeared on skin town, the picture looked very washed out... I wound up just eyeballing it to look ok on monitor, maybe a tiny bit more exposure, but seems exposing for skin at 70% and sky or anything else at 95% looks washed out.

That said, it does look better on my mac, maybe a little washed out but probably would look good w/ a little grading.

So I'm still confused if I'm doing it right or wrong.

What do you suggest the workflow should be?

Mac's aree different. They have a built in gamma adjustment for final cut, but not for Resolve.

For Resolve (and probably final cut), you will have to bring the brightness down before applying the HLG to 709 lut.

You are applying an HLG to 700 Lut, right?

Which editor are you using?

With Resolve just look at the scopes. You'll clearly see if things are clipping.

Before you shoot, you should know the dynamic range of the scene and take the capabilities of your camera into consideration. Set your lights accordingly. Sometimes you need to reduce contrast (adding or subtracting light). Shoot everything correctly, without over- or underexposing. The luminance values of your skin tones should be roughly between the 40 - 70 IRE Range. This isn't set in stone though and every scene will be different. What is the effect you are after?

Setting everything correctly saves you from dragging values around and introducing artefacts.

Edit: Use RAW if you can and use log as your profile.Always set your white balance correctly,

Edit2: REC2020 is a wide gamut final delivery color space, can be a working color space, but it's not your camera color space. Best is to learn the basics of color space. On youtube look for Cullen Kelly.

DaVinci Resolve is the way to go. Industry grade and free to use. Lots of tutorials.

rdbot wrote:

thanks for the advice. no doubt I have a lot to learn. mostly shooting documentary run and gun, so no lights, and have to have a lot of flexibility and speed. thought setting lower limit to 95% and skin to 70% +1 would get me in the ballpark, and i think it did, but as I mentioned, at 95% it looked washed out in camera (but not as bad on mac) and 70% on skin was way to washed out to be right, so took the exposure down.

Note, my aim was to overexpose 2/3 to 1 stop for HLG3, and where I got the 70% from, but now I'm more confused than before.

What should 18% grey be for HLG 3 and what should it be for 2/3-1 stop over exposed?

Will def. look into Davinci.

R

We are throwing a lot of information at you so it is going to take a long time to digest it all. Sorry.

First, rec 2020 / HLG will capture more dynamic range than most picture profiles on your Sony a7R III.

The problem is displaying the picture ACCURATELY on different monitors.

In reality, Sony designed HLG to be played on an HDR television ( as far as I have read). It wasn't designed to be shown on a standard definition (SDR) monitor or tv. It would look "washed out" on an SDR monitor or tv.

On an HDR tv, you would expose the image NORMALLY instead of overexposing the image.

You CAN overexpose but then reduce exposure in post and still have a video that looks "right" on an HDR tv (monitor). I am simplifying here because then there is the whole other discussion about 10-bit color for TRUE HDR vs the 8-bit color that your a7R III records. Probably not something to concern yourself with now. As my dad used to say; "We'll fall off that bridge when we come to it."

Most content created for YouTube or computer monitors is delivered as SDR / REC. 709, which has an expected maximum brightness of 100 NITS.

Sony HLG records brightness values ABOVE 100 Nits.

So people use LUTS such as HLG to 709 to "conform" the values that are too bright down to the 100 NITS maximum brightness of SDR monitors and TVs. (Another over simplification, sorry.)

So here is the workflow if you want to capture the most dynamic range AND avoid noise in the shadows AND deliver in standard dynamic range:

Shoot overexposed as much as possible WITHOUT clipping your highlights/ Whites, then bring the exposure DOWN in postprocessing first, THEN apply a LUT designed for SONY 8-Bit HLG to Rec 709.

That will give you a video that DOESN'T look washed out nor overexposed on an SDR monitor / television.

I mentioned earlier that Mac's are different. Apple has a gamma adjustment feature that changes exposure/ brightness levels automatically to match what your monitor can display WHEN Using NATIVE APPLE SOFTWARE (like final cut pro or QuickTime). But it Won't do that when using a non-Apple app like DaVinci Resolve.

Anyway, I hope that this helps instead of hinders you. Apologies in advance if it doesn't.

Also, if you just want to SHOOT NOW and worry about all this stuff later, I would simply shoot in the portrait creative style (not the picture profile) and turn down the saturation and contrast to -1 in camera, expose normally, and then add a bit of saturation and contrast back in post. If it is a very contrasty scene you could even UNDER-expose up to a stop and then bring the brightness up one stop in post.

Many different ways to mutilate a cat.

18% grey is middle grey. As a rough guide, middle grey is generally 50-60% outside in the sun, 50% with window light, 20% in moonlight and roughly 30% in some sort of bar.

I think you should first learn the basics before using techniques like deliberately overexposing.