Matching camera Liveview colour to approximate Cinelog-REC709

[saf34]

Hi all, I shoot handheld footage on a Canon 5D mk iii.  And I'm wondering how others manage colour while previewing from live view?

Basically: I find that when I import footage that looks good on Live View, I always need to bump up exposure by about 1EV to get a similar exposure in the shadows in REC709.

I can just expose to the right of course.  But then I can't make aesthetic decisions from the live view in real time.  I'd much rather be able to see something that is close to the final result for this kind of work.

My workflow is:
- shoot RAW,
- Adobe ACR to Cinelog-C (usually have to bump up exposure by 1EV)
- After Effects to Cinelog-C DNxHR 444 master

How do other people deal with this?  Or am I missing something (I am pretty new to this)?

Many thanks,
Stewart

[Dmytro_ua]

Maybe there's a better solution but did you try to lower the brightness of camera screen to match your exposure in post production?

[Andy600]

Hi @saf34,

You shouldn't be bumping up exposure in ACR with Cinelog as this adversely affects the math. If you need to offset exposure only do it in AE as described in the user guide.

My first suggestion is to make sure you are only using Raw metering when shooting raw. If you are consistently adding 1+ stop in post to your own taste you could try offset metering -1 stop then expose according to what you see on the LV screen however this is not best practice for achieving the best SNR and dynamic range for the chosen exposure (i.e. what Cinelog is basically designed to do). If you typically expose only using LV you will often clip highlight or shadow information unnecessarily (except where HDR situations force you to do so). It is far better to retain as much information as possible when shooting and make these kind of aesthetic decisions in post rather than clip it when recording and limit your options later.

The Picture Style through which you are monitoring is a little different to Cinelog Rec709 and has dynamic controls for altering contrast, saturation and color tone whereas Cinelog Rec709 is a fixed output (with a tone curve derived from a math function) and assumes the input is a properly metered exposure,  however both increase perceptual brightness by approximately the same amount (~1 EV). It's also worth noting that the LV screen is not calibrated to produce a Rec709 image in the same way as a display or monitor.

There is no one definitive Rec709 look so don't be afraid to experiment. Have you tried using a different look e.g. the Cinelog DSLR looks which are built to better simulate Picture Styles?

[saf34]

Hi, thanks for the responses.  Makes sense! 

@Andy600
Just to get something straight in my head: lets say I have a scene where exposing to the right leads to an overexposed frame.  If we accept that exposing to the right and reducing gain in post is preferable to exposing 'correctly' at source from a noise persepctive, then the correct workflow is...

1) Expose to the right in RAW
2) Import DNGs ACR->AE at this exposure using Cinelog-C ACR profile
3) Reduce exposure offset in AE to the desired 'correct' exposure (as described in the manual)
4) Generate DNxHR 444 master

Did I get that right?