Not sure if am doing things right

[richfiifi]

i installed magic lattern. and i shoot it raw. I shoot in Manual mode. Shutter Speed at 1/50 .High ISO Speed Noise Reduction , Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Lighting Optimizer all disabled.My iso i shoot 100, 200, 160 , 320 , 640 only.
I use a carl ziers planar t 50 mm prime lens on a 5d mark ii. but ive seen others get better quality with even old lenses.My footages look so stupid . i am so not sure if am doing things right. Because ive seen some raw footages that doesnt even need much grading. it looks good right from the camera. mine doesnt look to me. I want to know whether its a good footage and its just my brain being stupid because there seem to be nothing for me to do to make it look even better.it doesnt kind of look flat to me too.i know color profiles doesnt affect raw , or does it? i know the whitebalance really doesnt matter when you are shooting in raw because you can change in post.what else dont i know? is there something am missing? i dont know. but still this looks shit! am so sad , please help. i have attached a DNG file to this . please download and kindly let me know.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85674912/M13-1810_00056.dng

[Malcolm Debono]

Exposure is good.

Raw footage is shown as rec709 by default, so it won't look flat unless you convert it to log (for example BMDFilm in Resolve or VisionColor in ACR). Converting to log may be useful for applying certain LUTs.

Does something like this look better?

[PressureFM]

It looks just fine in my eyes.

A quick trip through Adobe Camera Raw with VisionLOG and warmer white balance, tint and contrast nets this.

[richfiifi]

Pressure FM and Malcolm . Thanks so much . i am yet to try my hands on this steps though . Hopefully tomorrow.

And oh both footage look amazing . a little bit of light on the characters will make it even more amazing right? So am  certain everything is just fine  with my camera , exposure?  thanks a lot guys. i almost gave up.

[a1ex]

For me, this frame is underexposed by 1 stop. Consider using ETTR.

[richfiifi]

I dont really understand ETTR . I just read on it , but i kind of dont understand it. How do i use ETTR?  You dont have to stress yourself and explain everything , but atleast give me a bit of detail for me to understand.


and oh i tried what you guys told me and i came up with this?? I graded this







into this with davinci . its a novice touch though.   

[Audionut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

[richfiifi]

how about my new footage. is it underexposed? it kinda look a bit dark though . bUt well , so you mean i have to take the info on the histogram and push them to the right  without clipping the highlights and shadows right? Thats sounds like a hard stuff , however , am learning more about it on youtube right now. thanks.

[Audionut]

Final graded output is a personal choice.  Looks pretty good here though on a tv calibrated with bt.1886 gamma.

The important part is making sure that you capture at the highest exposure possible, for the least amount of recorded noise.  With raw you can simply reduce the exposure as needed in post, and reduce the noise also. 

http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5693.0