Thanks for making these videos, I've finally got my head wrapped around ISO on the Red Komodo. Around a half an hour ago I had one of those 'light bulb' moments. On one of your charts (numerical values/visible shades) I was wondering why the values start thin at the top and progressively get larger heading down. Then in this video it finally 'clicked' that this is exponential! This explains where you got the number 65,000 tonal steps (per color channel) and why I saw 'Clip = 65,532' in one of Red Cameras charts. This is exciting! I think I'm ready to start using my new Red Komodo 6K! Kudos Dude!!
Best technical RED camera guide I have seen on TH-cam. I have seen so many videos of people using the ISO value on the RED Komodo so wrong. Low contrast scene with ISO 3200 or even 6400 etc. Seeing that was so painful to watch…. Those people really need to watch your technical guides.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you saying I get an additional 2 stop of midtone and highlight range if I increase the ISO from 400 to 1600? Please go easy on me if I seem clueless because 99% of the time I am. Raising your ISO seems counter intuitive when it comes to getting more range out of the midtones and highlights.
It’s exactly counter intuitive, and back to front, that’s how Red’s ISO works… you get additional steps for the highlights within the tonal range. The dynamic range stays the same, but the steps within it, get reallocated to favour the highlights, Mid-tones stay the same. But the highlight increase in performance. They get smoother, more controlled.
awesome video, question - I've heard CVP mentioning that choosing the right ISO when shooting red RAW still has an impact on noise levels (which now is clear to me how thanks to you) but how does this work with the famous manipulations in post? is that highlight protection/ noise floor baked in the footage and by tweaking the iso in post I'm just moving this middle grey point, basically adjusting the brightness?
thanks!... the push and pull of ISO in post is very limited, your image may begin to degrade even after a half a stop adjustment. So, you need to physically compensate the light lost or gained by the ISO, which you can only do during capture. Otherwise, it works the same, the raw data doesn't change, I guess you could say its all in the codecs... but this doesn't mean its not important.
Yes, that is correct. Once you capture the highlight protection while shooting all you are doing in post when you change the ISO is the brightness or darkness. Whatever you captured will still be there. We can say the same principle applies when shooting. ISO in camera only changes the brightness of the screen you are monitoring with. If you set the camera to ISO 200 the image will get darker and consequentially you will try to open the lens more or increase the shutter speed in order to brighten the image on the monitor, in doing so, you will let more light into the sensor and the highlights might clip easier because ISO 200 is so dark that you need to open the lens so much in order to brighten up. Now, If you set the camera at ISO 1600 while shooting the image on the monitor becomes very bright and you will try to darken the image by closing the lens aperture or by Using ND to darken the image. By doing so you will let less light into the sensor effectively protecting the highlights at the expense of Noise (Because you are letting very low light into the sensor). That is why CVP mentions that the ISO has some impact (Because it forces you to let more or less light hit the sensor).
I have one question: If I film like with ISO 2000 on a bright sunny day with the traffic lights perfectly balanced, the image output on the monitor is very bright, vice versa very dark if I use ISO 320 or 500 in a darker scene. Since setting the ISO correctly on set also has a positive effect on image quality istead of selecting the correct ISO value in post, how do you handle the too bright or too dark live view on the monitor?
ISO in camera only changes the brightness of the screen you are monitoring with. If you set the camera to ISO 200 the image will get darker and consequentially you will try to open the lens more or increase the shutter speed in order to brighten the image on the monitor, in doing so, you will let more light into the sensor and the highlights might clip easier because ISO 200 is so dark that you need to open the lens so much in order to brighten up. Now, If you set the camera at ISO 1600 while shooting the image on the monitor becomes very bright and you will try to darken the image by closing the lens aperture or by Using ND to darken the image. By doing so you will let less light into the sensor effectively protecting the highlights at the expense of Noise (Because you are letting very low light into the sensor). That is why CVP mentions that the ISO has some impact (Because it forces you to let more or less light hit the sensor).
If you change ISO from 2000 to 320 (Or any other ISO change) but you don't change the lens aperture or use ND filtering then the ISO change is not doing absolutely anything to the captured image (Since ISO just brightens or darkens the image you are watching on your monitor). For example lets say you set your camera to ISO 2000 in bright sunny day and you open up the lens to a point where the traffic lights are balanced (Not clipping in the shadows or highlights)and you notice that the image is too bright, then all you need to do is lower the ISO to lets say 320 and image looks like it should (Looks well exposed). In essence what you were doing in the first place was this, you exposed for ISO 320 but had you camera set at ISO 2000.
@@AdrianAvila-w8i Hi Adrian, Thank you very much for the great explanation. This also makes total sense to me, hence I was wondered when I heard in one TH-cam video a guy telling that the ISO setting within the camera can have an effect. In short he told: For example setting ISO 500 in camera (with all the shutter speed and aperture settings remaining) will give you a better shadow quality than setting the ISO to 1600 in camera and dropping it back to 500 in post. But I cannot imagine that, since RAW data is recorded only and as you told, ISO will only brighten or lower the image on the monitor. I learned that the ISO setting in post, will set the middle gray lower in the tonal dynamic range when going higher with the ISO setting and vice versa.
@@AdrianAvila-w8i I asked him as well back then and this was his reply: "Even though the ISO is not baked into the R3D file (and can be adjusted in post) the noise and grain is baked into the R3D, and this will be determined by the ISO you set, so even though you can change the ISO you still need to think about which ISO is best for the environment your shooting in, and which ISO will give you a good balance of Latitude to digital noise in that specific shooting environment. If I shoot at ISO 800 the noise will be lower than ISO 1600, and even if I alter the ISO in post from 800 to 1600 the R3D’s grain will still remain and appear like it was shot at ISO 800. Does that make sense? Your essentially burning in the noise and grain based on the ISO you shoot at, but the ISO can still be adjusted to higher or lower values in post which is specifically affecting where your stops of dynamic range are placed.
I generally stay at around ISO 800 as a base, and move between 400-1600, I rarely go to 250 or 3200." Not sure if I can paste a link here but the video is called: "RED Komodo 6K: Technical Guide Part 1" from Ian Thurstan and he is telling it at 26:15 mins
@@B1TN3RD "You're essentially burning in the noise and grain based on the ISO you shoot at" This is true ONLY if you are changing the aperture of the lens to accommodate the ISO change. If you are shooting at ISO 400 with your lens set at F1.8 or T1.8 and you keep the lens aperture the same but change the ISO to 3200 in camera the only thing that will happen is that the image on your monitor will get brighter and it will get recorded in the metadata and when you open the clip in your Davinci resolve or other program it will show with ISO 3200 but in reality it will not be noisy. However if you set ISO to 3200 In camera and close the lens to F5.6 to compensate for the bright image on your monitor then yes, you will bake the noise in the file because you closed the lens, allowing less light to hit the sensor hence you will get a noisier image (The less light hitting the sensor the more noise).
ปีที่แล้ว
Great video, clear and concise! BTW, at the beginning of the video, which "RED Handbook" are you referring to?
Red Raw captures ALL the data from the sensor so that you can change the ISO (& white balance) in post. ISO is only used for metering the shot (in the same way the LUT is not baked in either). so ISO level is something that can be changed in post - it is not baked in unless you are using a Pro Res codec.
Even with Red Raw you are only capturing the physical light hitting the sensor. You are therefore restricted to ISO adjustment in relation to the physical light level captured. If you push or pull the ISO too far in post it will degrade your image. So to be able to take full advantage of ISO and maintain optimal image quality you need to adjust it during capture and appropriately compensate the physical light level for the chosen ISO… ISO post adjustment is really, in my opinion, a marketing gimmick rather than an ultra useful feature. If you expose correctly you shouldn’t need to adjust ISO in post. That’s why you can’t for ProRes.
@@nationalvideography2034 Yes indeed, I'm fully aware of the distinction with Pro Res- and you are correct - the Gio Scope feature is a clever way to check exposure at sensor level
Is the ISO then acting as a way to "trick" camera users into slight underexposure? I'll say the ISO having little bearing on the RAW image (and the ability to change ISO in post) is incredible confusing lol
FWIW, EVERYONE’S computer hates Neat Video. Extra points if it develops new interesting sounds after it’s latest multi-hour denoising session. Builds character.
ok i try to understand what the hell is going on but i translated it for my low IQ brain like this: expose like recommended with the red exposuretools, tune your iso correctly for the shot with false colors to avoid clipperinos and your good to go. is that correct?
Thanks for making these videos, I've finally got my head wrapped around ISO on the Red Komodo. Around a half an hour ago I had one of those 'light bulb' moments. On one of your charts (numerical values/visible shades) I was wondering why the values start thin at the top and progressively get larger heading down. Then in this video it finally 'clicked' that this is exponential! This explains where you got the number 65,000 tonal steps (per color channel) and why I saw 'Clip = 65,532' in one of Red Cameras charts. This is exciting! I think I'm ready to start using my new Red Komodo 6K! Kudos Dude!!
Best technical RED camera guide I have seen on TH-cam. I have seen so many videos of people using the ISO value on the RED Komodo so wrong. Low contrast scene with ISO 3200 or even 6400 etc. Seeing that was so painful to watch…. Those people really need to watch your technical guides.
About time someone is going more in to details on the Red Komodo
Great information! Would love to see a video where you do some real world tests of Bad vs Good exposure and noise comparisons etc.
Thanks... I'm thinking to do something like that soon.
Thank you for this - very well explained. I get my Komodo next month!
Good video, underrated channel
Much appreciated!
If I'm understanding you correctly, you saying I get an additional 2 stop of midtone and highlight range if I increase the ISO from 400 to 1600? Please go easy on me if I seem clueless because 99% of the time I am. Raising your ISO seems counter intuitive when it comes to getting more range out of the midtones and highlights.
It’s exactly counter intuitive, and back to front, that’s how Red’s ISO works… you get additional steps for the highlights within the tonal range. The dynamic range stays the same, but the steps within it, get reallocated to favour the highlights, Mid-tones stay the same. But the highlight increase in performance. They get smoother, more controlled.
some examples would be awesome.
awesome video, question - I've heard CVP mentioning that choosing the right ISO when shooting red RAW still has an impact on noise levels (which now is clear to me how thanks to you) but how does this work with the famous manipulations in post? is that highlight protection/ noise floor baked in the footage and by tweaking the iso in post I'm just moving this middle grey point, basically adjusting the brightness?
thanks!... the push and pull of ISO in post is very limited, your image may begin to degrade even after a half a stop adjustment. So, you need to physically compensate the light lost or gained by the ISO, which you can only do during capture. Otherwise, it works the same, the raw data doesn't change, I guess you could say its all in the codecs... but this doesn't mean its not important.
Yes, that is correct. Once you capture the highlight protection while shooting all you are doing in post when you change the ISO is the brightness or darkness. Whatever you captured will still be there. We can say the same principle applies when shooting. ISO in camera only changes the brightness of the screen you are monitoring with. If you set the camera to ISO 200 the image will get darker and consequentially you will try to open the lens more or increase the shutter speed in order to brighten the image on the monitor, in doing so, you will let more light into the sensor and the highlights might clip easier because ISO 200 is so dark that you need to open the lens so much in order to brighten up. Now, If you set the camera at ISO 1600 while shooting the image on the monitor becomes very bright and you will try to darken the image by closing the lens aperture or by Using ND to darken the image. By doing so you will let less light into the sensor effectively protecting the highlights at the expense of Noise (Because you are letting very low light into the sensor). That is why CVP mentions that the ISO has some impact (Because it forces you to let more or less light hit the sensor).
I have one question: If I film like with ISO 2000 on a bright sunny day with the traffic lights perfectly balanced, the image output on the monitor is very bright, vice versa very dark if I use ISO 320 or 500 in a darker scene. Since setting the ISO correctly on set also has a positive effect on image quality istead of selecting the correct ISO value in post, how do you handle the too bright or too dark live view on the monitor?
ISO in camera only changes the brightness of the screen you are monitoring with. If you set the camera to ISO 200 the image will get darker and consequentially you will try to open the lens more or increase the shutter speed in order to brighten the image on the monitor, in doing so, you will let more light into the sensor and the highlights might clip easier because ISO 200 is so dark that you need to open the lens so much in order to brighten up. Now, If you set the camera at ISO 1600 while shooting the image on the monitor becomes very bright and you will try to darken the image by closing the lens aperture or by Using ND to darken the image. By doing so you will let less light into the sensor effectively protecting the highlights at the expense of Noise (Because you are letting very low light into the sensor). That is why CVP mentions that the ISO has some impact (Because it forces you to let more or less light hit the sensor).
If you change ISO from 2000 to 320 (Or any other ISO change) but you don't change the lens aperture or use ND filtering then the ISO change is not doing absolutely anything to the captured image (Since ISO just brightens or darkens the image you are watching on your monitor). For example lets say you set your camera to ISO 2000 in bright sunny day and you open up the lens to a point where the traffic lights are balanced (Not clipping in the shadows or highlights)and you notice that the image is too bright, then all you need to do is lower the ISO to lets say 320 and image looks like it should (Looks well exposed). In essence what you were doing in the first place was this, you exposed for ISO 320 but had you camera set at ISO 2000.
@@AdrianAvila-w8i Hi Adrian,
Thank you very much for the great explanation. This also makes total sense to me, hence I was wondered when I heard in one TH-cam video a guy telling that the ISO setting within the camera can have an effect. In short he told: For example setting ISO 500 in camera (with all the shutter speed and aperture settings remaining) will give you a better shadow quality than setting the ISO to 1600 in camera and dropping it back to 500 in post. But I cannot imagine that, since RAW data is recorded only and as you told, ISO will only brighten or lower the image on the monitor. I learned that the ISO setting in post, will set the middle gray lower in the tonal dynamic range when going higher with the ISO setting and vice versa.
@@AdrianAvila-w8i I asked him as well back then and this was his reply:
"Even though the ISO is not baked into the R3D file (and can be adjusted in post) the noise and grain is baked into the R3D, and this will be determined by the ISO you set, so even though you can change the ISO you still need to think about which ISO is best for the environment your shooting in, and which ISO will give you a good balance of Latitude to digital noise in that specific shooting environment.
If I shoot at ISO 800 the noise will be lower than ISO 1600, and even if I alter the ISO in post from 800 to 1600 the R3D’s grain will still remain and appear like it was shot at ISO 800. Does that make sense?
Your essentially burning in the noise and grain based on the ISO you shoot at, but the ISO can still be adjusted to higher or lower values in post which is specifically affecting where your stops of dynamic range are placed.
I generally stay at around ISO 800 as a base, and move between 400-1600, I rarely go to 250 or 3200."
Not sure if I can paste a link here but the video is called: "RED Komodo 6K: Technical Guide Part 1" from Ian Thurstan and he is telling it at 26:15 mins
@@B1TN3RD "You're essentially burning in the noise and grain based on the ISO you shoot at" This is true ONLY if you are changing the aperture of the lens to accommodate the ISO change. If you are shooting at ISO 400 with your lens set at F1.8 or T1.8 and you keep the lens aperture the same but change the ISO to 3200 in camera the only thing that will happen is that the image on your monitor will get brighter and it will get recorded in the metadata and when you open the clip in your Davinci resolve or other program it will show with ISO 3200 but in reality it will not be noisy. However if you set ISO to 3200 In camera and close the lens to F5.6 to compensate for the bright image on your monitor then yes, you will bake the noise in the file because you closed the lens, allowing less light to hit the sensor hence you will get a noisier image (The less light hitting the sensor the more noise).
Great video, clear and concise! BTW, at the beginning of the video, which "RED Handbook" are you referring to?
thanks!... its the online content at www.red.com/red-101
Red Raw captures ALL the data from the sensor so that you can change the ISO (& white balance) in post. ISO is only used for metering the shot (in the same way the LUT is not baked in either). so ISO level is something that can be changed in post - it is not baked in unless you are using a Pro Res codec.
Even with Red Raw you are only capturing the physical light hitting the sensor. You are therefore restricted to ISO adjustment in relation to the physical light level captured. If you push or pull the ISO too far in post it will degrade your image. So to be able to take full advantage of ISO and maintain optimal image quality you need to adjust it during capture and appropriately compensate the physical light level for the chosen ISO… ISO post adjustment is really, in my opinion, a marketing gimmick rather than an ultra useful feature. If you expose correctly you shouldn’t need to adjust ISO in post. That’s why you can’t for ProRes.
@@nationalvideography2034 Yes indeed, I'm fully aware of the distinction with Pro Res- and you are correct - the Gio Scope feature is a clever way to check exposure at sensor level
Is the ISO then acting as a way to "trick" camera users into slight underexposure? I'll say the ISO having little bearing on the RAW image (and the ability to change ISO in post) is incredible confusing lol
FWIW, EVERYONE’S computer hates Neat Video. Extra points if it develops new interesting sounds after it’s latest multi-hour denoising session. Builds character.
ok i try to understand what the hell is going on but i translated it for my low IQ brain like this: expose like recommended with the red exposuretools, tune your iso correctly for the shot with false colors to avoid clipperinos and your good to go. is that correct?
Super simply… protect the highlights, and use iso to either further enhance the highlights, or reduce noise.
Is there an elephant in the room? How significant is ISO if all shooting is done in RAW?
omg all the silly movie inserts are just distracting. Keep with the informative content and lose the nonsense, your videos don't need it.