Nail Your Exposure Every Time

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The Gear I love and use everyday:

0:00 Intro
1:00 Overview
2:10 Why False Colors?
4:00 Managing Under-exposure
5:00 Workflow & Gear Overview
6:27 Choosing the right clothing
7:00 Why are you using ND?!
7:50 AOD

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[itsmahdisadeghi]

You are a savior, teaching us the very important things are not in any other place available to learn. I think that was the fastest I ever subscribed to a new channel. Keep up the brilliant work. ❤❤❤

[JackIsaacVideo]

Great video on the basics ! However, darker skin tones shouldn’t generally be set around 70 IRE as stated and will range between 50-70 (unless over-exposing for creative effect) depending on the skin tone. 70 should only be used for lighter skin tones. Same caveats, rules can be broken etc, but generally if you have someone with darker skin tones and set the exposure at 70 IRE it’ll look pretty bad.

[VisualsByChristian]

I think your presentation, passion and methods are one of the best on YouTube, I wanted to learn about the basics of false colour for my videography journey and I got this from your video. I appreciate the effort it takes to make these videos.

[davidp]

+1 for False Color. It has helped me so many times to see levels of exposure that are hard to interpret on a small camera screen. 5-7” monitors with False Color are a must-have IMHO.

[dougdina]

I used your methods within this video to shoot a concert a few days ago. It is normally a challenging situation to expose properly since the lightning would be unpredictable. I used an external monitor whereby I set some function buttons to bounce between regular and false color. The resulting video is outstanding in terms of being able to color process it.

I normally just use the camera’s histogram as I like to keep a super light setup. But, there are many advantages to an external monitor: false color, easier to focus, additional storage. The best thing, and the biggest difference between a histogram and false color is, the histogram does not tell you WHAT the exposure within the display. False color shows you that exactly. One down side, in my opinion, is the my ext display with false color has many hues in the mid tones. There is a light green then a few grays. In other words, it is not easy to quickly ascertain the mid tones.

Anyway, great video and thank you so much.

[Tscharski]

Tempo, Emotion, Insight - the ingredients of a perfect video! You can tell a person is incredibly passionate about their craft when they get annoyed by things they see other people do. I promise I won’t overexpose ever again!!! Thanks for the great video

[BrendanEvan]

I just “discovered” false colors this year and idk how I’ve lived without it

[cjwomack]

I wake up in a sweat when I dream of accidentally formatting a memory card 🥵😅

[erolsq]

Fantastic video my friend. You nailed in my opinion, two of the keys to an effective video;
1. Provide value, quickly discuss your ability to provide this value
2. Quickly deliver the value (straight to the point)
Not only were the tips tremendously valuable but they were presented in an easily-digestible way. Keep it up my friend !

[The_Daliban]

4:26 to be fair this only applies, if you are working without reduction luts.
As soon as you have reduction luts on you want false color to apply to the log image, not the rec709 image.
since most viewers probably use an Atomos Ninja V this is important info.
The Atomos Ninja V doesn’t support multiple luts active or the ignore showlut function of the smallhd.
That means if you have a Atomos ninja v and use reduction luts you have to switch back-and-forth to check for correct exposure.

[bake.agency]

Guys.. I'm somewhat confused.. researching some IRE scales / guides now for LOG.. general recommendation is for skin to sit at around 50% / 50 IRE.. even your clip at 6:09 is sitting there.. 70% or 70IRE would be over exposed.. is this a metric / imperial thing? Ke?

[lachutequimarche]

I appreciate the log making multiple brief appearances.

[djepodjepo]

Mark, I'm an AOD student (Module 1-2-3), currently watching Module 1, and was just thinking about false colors. And then you put this video online. lol. Just wanted to say to everyone who has doubts about the AOD course: take out your wallet, pay these guys and don't look back. It's a no-brainer.

[BryceDocherty]

This is seriously what I was lacking until about 6 months ago when I finally bought a monitor. I was always like....eh...do I really need one? Why not get that new lens, that new gimbal instead. Now, I WILL NEVER, EVER, shoot without a monitor while having a lut active while using NDs. Literally, buying a monitor changed my filmmaking. I think it's essential and I can't stress it enough to other filmmakers. Awesome vid. Thanks Mark. Just joined AoD and am SUPER excited to see everyone's work and grow as a camera person story guy!??

[andrewdavidjames]

Smallhd is what we use in film. Stupidly expensive for the average consumer, but exactly what is needed for production.

[christopherthinn]

Really appreciate these more technical step-by-step videos! As a storyteller who's just learning to shoot, this really helps demystify the process. Love it.

[kevinvainio]

The log emoji 😂 Actually laughed out loud. Awesome video, thank you Mark!

[bjklophaus]

Great video! I never really had a problem with over-exposure until this past summer. Still don't know exactly what happened, but it reiterated the importance of using monitoring tools on set and not just relying on the image you're seeing. Really like the simplicity of the false color on those smallHD monitors. You may have just converted me.

[kore]

Had no idea how that worked and always wondered why someone would want to see those colours…so thank you!

[Andisend]

That easy when you explain it so well. Thank you