Magic Lantern Forum

Using Magic Lantern => Shoot Preparation => Topic started by: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:02:27 PM

Title: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:02:27 PM
Okay, so I know a lot of people are new to shooting raw footage now that we have been gifted with the power by everyone's favourite Canon DSLR "hack" so I thought it might be a good time to start a discussion about actually shooting with it  :P

There is a great thread going regarding post processing raw but what about the shoot itself. What are the best practices  when shooting raw and what tools do people use for getting the best exposure? Shooting h.264 is easy. You expose the subject and light to match (if you are lucky enough to be able to control your lighting) but what about if you want to gain maximum dynamic range from a dynamic scene?

I personally am a photographer who (of course) always shoots raw but even after years of experience doing this I still find myself exposing my raw video incorrectly.

Also, it would be really nice to start seeing some real world examples of exposed scenes instead of pushing the raw data to the extremes just for the sake of showing that it CAN do it.

Please feel free to share your techniques and experience with the rest of us :)

*ps. If this is already being discussed in another thread, feel free to move me along ;)
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:18:21 PM
By the way when I say shooting h264 is easy I just mean you deal with the clipping coz you have no choice so you just accept it ;)
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: Andy600 on May 22, 2013, 11:22:21 PM
Something is coming from A1ex that should help tremendously with setting correct raw exposure ;)
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:28:24 PM
Yeah I saw that , looks cool :) Would be nice to understand best practices in general though and how effective zebras are for example and using scopes to the optimum advantage etc. I have a reasonable grasp myself but there are people who know very little about this wizardry and probably as many people who can share how best to shoot. I'm hoping maybe even people can teach me a thing or two aswell :)
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: vickersdc on June 24, 2013, 05:54:26 PM
I must admit that for the few test shoots that I've done, I've continued to expose for the highlights - but I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do for RAW. I'd be interested to know how others deal with it too...

@Andy600: did A1ex put something up about RAW exposure? If so, would you be able to point me to it please?

Thanks,
David.
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: aaphotog on June 24, 2013, 07:22:04 PM
The highlights hold most of the information. So with that said, I use the histogram and expose as far to the right as possible without clipping.
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: dariSSight#1 on July 04, 2013, 01:18:02 AM
Quote from: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:02:27 PM
Okay, so I know a lot of people are new to shooting raw footage now that we have been gifted with the power by everyone's favourite Canon DSLR "hack" so I thought it might be a good time to start a discussion about actually shooting with it  :P

There is a great thread going regarding post processing raw but what about the shoot itself. What are the best practices  when shooting raw and what tools do people use for getting the best exposure? Shooting h.264 is easy. You expose the subject and light to match (if you are lucky enough to be able to control your lighting) but what about if you want to gain maximum dynamic range from a dynamic scene?

I personally am a photographer who (of course) always shoots raw but even after years of experience doing this I still find myself exposing my raw video incorrectly.

Also, it would be really nice to start seeing some real world examples of exposed scenes instead of pushing the raw data to the extremes just for the sake of showing that it CAN do it.

Please feel free to share your techniques and experience with the rest of us :)

*ps. If this is already being discussed in another thread, feel free to move me along ;)

I've been thinking about filming 2:1 format but is 2.35:1 or the better choice for Film presentation.
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: dariSSight#1 on July 04, 2013, 01:22:07 AM
Quote from: noisyboy on May 22, 2013, 11:18:21 PM
By the way when I say shooting h264 is easy I just mean you deal with the clipping coz you have no choice so you just accept it ;)

Have you try filming something with the Digital Dolly? It's pretty awesome but I was wondering what would people use it for, would the use it I place of tilting the tripod?
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: Karmaschinken on August 30, 2013, 05:48:00 PM
I am a little astonished that such an important topic gains that little attention, I also started over with RAW video and am unsure how to exposure right, and I believe there are many more shooters out there, no?

It seems argumentative to me following the ETTR rules to get good exposure, even more: With the new histogram with the little red, green and blue dots in it I consider this to be a good way:

Exposure everything to the right (ETTR) and even more exposure +1 EV so that the recoverable headroom of RAW will burn out in histogram but can be restored later in post. When looking at the small circles I realize that almost all the time the green channel is the first one that burns out. I ignored this one and overexposed the red and blue to ETTR +1. This was what I tried until now, but I have not that much experience to really compare different techniques.

But what do you think, is this a good way to start over?
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: C.films on September 05, 2013, 02:45:50 AM
I've downloaded the latest version of the Magic Lantern Raw for my 600D T3i. One thing it's giving me now is audio options. Wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what's the best run and gun settings I should setup, since I'm noticing filters and gain options. I have yet to find a tutorial that's based on this current version. Turning off AGC is pretty much all I know.  And does Override Audio Settings just turns off whatever manual settings you have on the T3i main menu? And if I leave it off, then whatever levels I have set in the main T3i Menu are used?
Title: Re: Raw video - preparation and shooting.
Post by: falkor on September 05, 2013, 11:39:56 PM
heres a video dedicated to shooting video in ML over RAW and goes into purpose, and things to avoid in shooting to reduce ghosting. with nice examples.