What everyone gets wrong about Exposing To The Right

Want better shadows? More detail in your image? Less noise? Expose to the right, but don't do it like everyone else does.

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[kuunami]

You're the first person I've ever seen tie together the lighting process and grading process in such a concise way.

[peturthor]

Well explained.

A handy tip for shooters that might grade their own stuff is to actually export a lut that is underexposed in the same fashion you show in the video. I always have a lut on my monitor that is 1 under as well as 2 under forcing me to increase light falling on the sensor. This is particularly handy for those that have cameras dual base iso (the higher one is typically a bit noisier). That would be a perfect scenario to use the underexposed luts.

Hope this all makes sense!

[WarrenPeaceOG]

If I were teaching someone from scratch, they'd start out shooting raw (BRAW) and log. They'd ignore the exposure charts and always shoot native 400 ASA outdoors and native 3200 indoors, so they see what the sensor sees. ND to control exposure. They'd ETTR but never clip any non-specular highlights. They'd set final exposure and colour temp in post. Since BRAW is raw at ProRes file sizes, they'd remain in raw thru-out. I'd tell them a camera is a light-recorder. Without photons exciting the sensor, even if there's an image, it's going to look dead. BRAW is simple and flexible. I will never go back to complicated and baked in. YMMV. Great video! Subscribed

[sturmn]

I think the tip for using ISO to ETTR is correct (as Cullen usually is!) but incomplete: if you lower your ISO to below your sensor's native ISO and *are not shooting in RAW*, then you are simply clipping your top stop of highlights.

The more complete piece of advice would be: Lower your ISO to half (1 stop) or a quarter (2 stops) of your camera's base ISO, set your lighting so that it looks good, then return to your base ISO and only then press record.

Another less cumbersome option is to load up a -1 stop or -2 stop LUT onto your recording monitor.

[hongjiwu]

a bit of caution: Extreme ETTR(+2~3 or even more stops) is not a good technique. Even for a camera like Alexa which has a very very linear OETF(LogC) above mid grey, you are at the risk of losing color saturation and may potentially have channel clips, even in raw. There were guru colorists talked about this. Also from a workflow perspective, David Mullen has also mentioned the impracticality of shooting every shot ETTR cause that will result in workflow problem and also uneven base noise.

The clever way, as a lot of experienced DP know, is to "rate" the camera with their light meter/false color at a lower ISO and light to it, combining with a pull down lut for preview on set.

[joshrathbun]

so glad i just found this. I could not figure out why there was so much noise in my shadows when I set my base iso and "thought" i had proper exposure. Turns out I was completely off with my lighting and needed more light, not less. I am "just" a youtuber, but hey, the info is gold!

[JimRobinson-colors]

Absolutely agree with this explanation of ETTR. Unfortunately the footage from camera people is not all of the caliber that you might be used to. And there are many people explaining and using ETTR incorrectly - especially the ISO part that you explained correctly. There are people that are using ETTR by setting up zebras for the highlights just before clipping and doing it on every angle and every situation. Which means that every angle and every clip is exposed differently - so the colorist is then setting exposure for every clip and consistency of the capture is all over the place.
In cinematography,  consistency and continuity between set-ups within a scene will trump exposure perfection in terms of giving each shot maximum exposure to lower noise.  Plus how is anyone looking at the monitor on the set going to judge the mood if everything is just exposed brightly?
There are also cameras that have a knee set that when the skin tones are pushed up into it that it creates a roll - off that is not very natural looking - even when the exposure is reduced.
Also with ISO - lowering the ISO is supposedly lowering the middle grey and changing the ratio of stops below and stops above - which if you ever look at a BMD ISO chart, you can plainly see that you would get more detail in shadows with lower ISO and better highlight detail with higher ISO.
I asked Walter Volpatto about middle grey and exposure on set and he told me:
"If the 18% gray is coherent with the exposure in the set, the DoP will have to just use the light meter and get a predictable result."

[MartiSmz]

An important thing to keep in mind though is that by overexposing and gaining down your signal (be it wit ISO or in post) you are effectively losing dynamig range in the highlights by putting that into the shadows. To me that is a huge deal, as hard clipping highlights looks much worse than losing your blacks into the noise floor, which has a smoother falloff. I recently graded a feature in which they mixed film and digital (Alexa mini) and had to be matched (it was BW so it was easier). After some tests we decided that the best option both for dynamic range distribution and texture was to shoot at 1600 ISO.

[GlenReed]

That’s why I appreciate that BlackMagic gives us the exposure charts for their cameras, it shows how we are moving either away or towards the noise floor with each ISO. Thanks for another great video Cullen!

[VistarCreative]

This single best explanation, on any topic, I have ever seen. Ever.

[sajalkararia]

That's like the best way to demonstrate how we should expose our images . It's great to know someone is trying to do the explanation part so that the colorist gets their jobs done more effectively

[Manofcube]

Magic Lantern for Canon DSLRs (rest in pieces) had the best ETTR ever conceived. They figured out how to read raw data from the sensor and simply jacked up the exposure until right before clipping occurred. It even had a time-lapse mode that could be set to only move in one direction for sunrise/sunset use!

[CraigHoward]

This is such a helpful video to re-align knowledge. I know, that I knew this...but that hasn't stopped me from falling into this exact trap every once in a while, being so caught up that a couple of notches in ISO couldn't hurt to expose to the right....Wrong...and hearing it explained so clearly and so concise really helps to hammer it home and remind me WHY, and keep it at the forefront of thought when hitting the record button. Always, just a fountain of insight Cullen. Appreciate your continued efforts and work. Just know that your voice will be booming in the minds of anyone exposing for an image, the voice of god...of colorists around the globe.

[tstyles]

I feel both dumb and enlightened 🤣🙌🏽🙌🏽you just saved my ”moody dark” movie. 👀

[starskymedia]

Really outstanding and well explained video. When you talked about increasing iso to expose further to the right, I still think the consensus is that it's always best to expose properly using the camera, rather than increasing in post. Also, might have been good to mention that increasing the iso to hit the second dual native iso is a common tool used by videographers to further expose a scene but not be penalised too much for quality.

Great video once again, learnt a lot!

[bobmay]

Detailed and clear, a rare combination. Thanks.

[studiotwentyone]

Brilliant, clear and concise.. Thank you

[AllThingsFilm]

Best explanation of ETTR I've seen, yet. Many thanks.

[BenPhanStudios]

Brilliant! Thanks for making quality content brother, it's appreciated

[chicojones]

When this truth hit me, it' was sort of a "duh" moment. But, I admit, my mind has been opened. I was NOT connecting things in this way. I cannot unsee it now. Thanks!!!