How to Correctly Expose Sigma FP RAWs - Episode 1 Protocol

[@innstikk]

Excellent. Looking forward to the next videos. Especially CDNG.

[@IonCosmina]

Almost done with the BRAW! Hopefully the next ones won't take a really long time either. CDNG is next

Waiting on that CDNG! Thank you for the video!

[@IonCosmina]

Thanks for the feedback!!! Almost done with the BRAW clip, CDNG is next!!!

[@TheGoodContent37]

Why people say it is hard to expose? Just watch the screen and eyeball it. Not that hard right?

[@Adeloye1000]

I'm in awe and grateful for the thorough work you guys are doing! I just got my fp and waiting for an adapter for my lens and finding high value information on cameras in general is hard and here you guys are delivering more than I could go for. 1. A brilliant explanation of methodology and terms used 2. A consistent and thorough test plan 3. Visual aid throughout the video. Excellent work! The only thing I would say is that it might be worth just taking pauses between sentences or going a bit slower as it can make points stand out more and allow people as slow as I to fully acknowledge the gems you guys are delivering. Honestly, great stuff!!

[@IonCosmina]

Thank you so much for the feedback! It's so useful to know how things are getting through to the viewers and if the clip actually delivers what I set out to do. I cut the next clip longer -with more pauses between breaths - hope that's going to be better.

[@artistcommunications1930]

Wow, what a monumental effort! Looking forward to cDNG and BRAW. Thanks so much! If I might ask though, could you just add a smidge more air in the edit? Sometimes I think if you just left 1 extra second between topics, I wouldn’t need to hit pause all the time to take in the info. It is truly an information-dense educational gold mine!

[@IonCosmina]

Thank you for the feedback! yep! noted about the more air in the edits. Would you reckon it'd be useful generally or just between topics?

[@artistcommunications1930]

@@IonCosmina More generally too, I think. I’m a native English speaker and I find the pace blazing. I think your international viewers might appreciate it even more than me. I love how you don’t explain too much basic stuff. So staying in expert mode, but just a tad airier would be the Goldilocks spot for me.

[@2947mjd]

Great work!! Thank you for sharing your findings and the hard work you’ve put into this!!! I’m look forward to your DNG analysis!!

[@IonCosmina]

Thanks so much for sharing your feedback, I'm really pleased the info in this video is something useful that people are looking for! I'm really curious about the CDNG too, there's such a significant difference in the file sizes between BRAW or ProResRAW and CDNG, it's bound to reflect some differences in quality?!?

[@colingregg]

Impressive. Looking forward to the next part.

[@IonCosmina]

Aaaaalmost done with the BRAW!

[@jalundblad]

Woh that's a lot of details, thank you. I love your shirt.

[@polarxta2833]

Great - was about to look into this as I have just bought the camera and am enjoying learning it !

[@IonCosmina]

Cool! we hope you're enjoying the camera so far, it's such a gem really! Hopefully we'll not take super long to release the entire RAWs series. You should look into SlimRaw as well to repacakge CDNG footage in a smaller format, it saves A LOT of space.

[@MesaVerdeProductions]

Now I know why he had hard time in that unboxing video 😅. You don’t entertain fluff (straight to the point) Thanks for the video. Amazing knowledge 🙌🏻

[@IonCosmina]

Ha ha! well cause there's so much stuff to get through, there isn't any time for fluff :)).

[@alaeifR]

Great tests and info! Thanks a lot. A tip on RAW processing in DaVinci though. Don't use the camera or the Blackmagic setting. When you mention you hadn't figured out why false color wasn't displaying correctly, this is it. Set it to P3-D60 and Linear. This way you get more information out of it. Use a color space transform to either Cineon Film Log and the Davinci Kodak LUT, or Arri LogC into the Arri to Rec709 LUT. Make any corrections/adjustments firstly in the RAW tab, secondarily using ONLY gain while still in the linear color space, and finally in the LOG space before the final LUT. If you don't like the RAW tab controls, making gain wheel changes in linear space lets you set exposure (total RGB amount) and temp and tint (X/Y). Be aware that exposure changes on the RAW tab is like changing the ISO and affects the noise level. Go easy on this one. You can get even more DR out of it if you set gamut mapping to None instead of DaVinci in the first CST. If you work in HDR you can use Rec2020 instead of Rec709. The FP's color space is very similar to Rec2020. Lightyears wider than 709. On par or even better than a $50k Sony Venice.

[@IonCosmina]

Hi, thanks for the tips! I did a quick test on the how false colors reacts to P3-D60 + linear settings. It shows a similar result to the camera metadata setting. So it is correct, but so was the false colors from the camera metadata... What's puzzling about the false colors is that the dropdown menu of the effect (when you have Sigma FP footage) is made for BM Film, so that's why I was expecting a correct clipping point to be shown for all my clips that were set to BM Film from the camera raw menu. The mapping itself is correct per each ISO in the dropdownmenu with the exception of a COUPLE of clipping points for low ISOs, in BM Film (just BM FIlm). Then, from ISO 400 I think, the mapping is correct for both camera metadata AND BM Film, for all the EV ranges. I pulled up a CDNG file with +1.0 EV and tried the P3-D60 + linear settings; it looks like I have a higher dynamic range for the shadows and mid-tones BUT a lower range for the highlights; the image has a lower clipping point as far as I can tell. In the next video that I'm working on (CDNG), I played around a bit with color space transforms that start with setting the camera raw settings to P3-D60 and Linear. I've tried CST to Davinci Wide Gamut + DaVinci Intermediate and ArriAlexa + Arri LogC. Yep, they definitely produce a flatter image than the camera metadata and Blackmagic settings. HOWEVER, and I found that odd, this doesn't also mean that the noise levels are decreased for all EV levels of an ISO! I also did a test with ACES (2 workflows, since the proper one I saw from a Netflix grading flow video didn't yield a good result). I didn't add any LUTs afterwards though! I also haven't tried out working in HDR, which sounds interesting. I'll try to go through all your ' recipes' in a different video, I really think CDNG grading workflow is an important point if you have a Sigma FP.

[@Ben-id1tc]

Not sure if you'll see this. But I'm really comfortable with the false colour in the blackmagic cameras. Would you say sigma fp's internal false colour monitor is close to the same exposure readings as the blackmagic video assist?

[@IonCosmina]

I’d stick to sigma fp false colors. The video assist is close but the sigma is spot on. The bm cameras have very good tools indeed.

[@Ben-id1tc]

@@IonCosmina I appreciate the response!

[@Ben-id1tc]

@@IonCosmina Thank you guys for the reply. So just one last question. Does the fp actually send out a 12 bit 4k raw signal over hdmi without any data loss to be recorded into the blackmagic video assist? I got the fp because I wanted the raw cdng files but sometimes projects that are smaller in scale, Id rather used a 12:1 braw compression and just want to assume the signal output coming through the fp's hdmi would be equivalent to if I was filming braw internally in a pocket 6k/4k.

[@IonCosmina]

@@Ben-id1tc you do have 12bit raw output over hdmi.

[@sergiusU]

hello Cosmina, i have two cameras xt3 and a7m4, i really like the xt3 picture in the video, but i want a full frame sensor. is it worth taking sigma fp? will raw video be better in sigma fp compared to sony? I want to buy fp as a camera for video.

[@IonCosmina]

hi! The sony you have now is the full frame a7IV right? If you want to use the second camera in parallel with a7iv I would recommend getting another Sony. The 4:2:2 10 bits looks amazing. Apart from the Sigma FP which we just use on planned shots (or when we absolutely need 3 cameras), we have a sony a7III and a7sIII . This is what we use for weddings, conferences, teambuildings etc. So I think it depends what you want to use the Sigma for. if you want to get into more cinematic projects, Sigma is worth it (you should only use manual focus with it). If you’re more events oriented (and use autofocus- we just use autofocus in these situations), then i think it’s worth getting another a7IV or maybe even sIII if you want a low light beast. Our next upgrade will be probably replacing a7III with an a7IV

[@sergiusU]

@@IonCosmina I use it exclusively in amateur shooting, for shooting my wife and children. Manual autofocus suits me more than.

[@sergiusU]

@@IonCosmina for example short on xt3 kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmTIiKd9lpWZl68

[@sergiusU]

@@IonCosmina yes, I have full frame Sony a7 iv, but I like use different cameras, and i want to try the benefits DNG RAW. Sony a7 iv ... I love it....the greatest autofocus, great photos.

[@IonCosmina]

The cdng is amazing but it fills your storage very quickly. We got a bm video assist and record braw out of the sigma now.

[@redc5984]

Thanks for your Video ! one more question : can I just refer to the EV warning of the sigma fp screen for correct expose, like you said if I use 100iso base, the EV shouldn't beyond of 1 or 1.5 + EV value ?

[@IonCosmina]

Hi, for ISO 100 you can refer to the screen yes. It's also ok for a couple more ISO's after that, I'm not sure up to which though. BUT this exact thing will be addressed in the next video. It will be for BRAW, but I think it holds for CDNG and ProResRAW as well. I'll get back to you with a link as soon as it's posted.

[@redc5984]

@@IonCosmina hhh can't wait to see it ! I normally use iso 800 which give me the decent headroom and legroom dynamic range, for me its the safest.

[@serg.films99]

Tare! Helpful video, tone of infos. ;) So the best settings to be sure that you preserve the image is to Overexpose if you dont have time to nail the perfect exposure. And the FP screen is showing that you are overexpose but you are not. The Ninja is more accurate. There was a significant difference in quality between CDNG and the rest? I am curious cuz CDNG is not compressed and the others are.

[@IonCosmina]

Hi Sergiu, thanks for the feedback!! Yep your comments are exactly right! For ISO 100 and 200 I'd be careful not to expose more than 1.5 - 2.0 EV cause the clipping point is quite low. Also up until ISO 400 (included) it's ok to expose at 0 EV or even under expose a bit (like 0.5 EV) cause there isn't noticeable noise. More accurate and detailed response coming up in the next videos! At first glance I didn't notice any difference in quality (though the colors are different, especially BRAW). Here's a link where I put up sample footage for all the RAWs, at ISO 400, on all the exposure ranges (over to under exposed) - sorry for the verbal comments in the clips: s.go.ro/t5hv774o

[@serg.films99]

I saw that FP has the base Iso 100 and 3200 at 12 Bit 4K CDNG. So at this Iso it should perform the best,yes? And a little overexposed just in case.

[@IonCosmina]

@@serg.films99 yep!

[@sheldonnorton9035]

Wow very noble level of exposure awareness! Personally there is no way I would have the time or wherewithal to work on that level. Too complicated and slow for me. However if you have all that memorized and have the time on set - go for it! But I would hope the aesthetic of the combination of composition and lighting would be priority. Perhaps that’s a given and obvious to most of us but worth mentioning for beginners. All in all if I am technically a tad underexposed but have the “look” in tact I don’t sweat it. Risking over exposure in digital however could be very destructive for that look. I am almost entirely focused on not clipping as the standard for finding exposure. When I shot film that was far less concerning and why my spot meter was zone calibrated and setup for that system but digital - not a chance.

[@IonCosmina]

Hello, thank you for your comment. Yes, I do have to say that when I'm shooting I just have the highlights of what I determined the test in mind, and the focus is more on framing and the directions of light, rather than exposure. Also yes, if you're clipped in digital iiiit's bad. Apart from the fact that you can't recover information from the highlights, the image loses saturation and contrast. I just had a bad experience a couple of weeks ago when we were shooting a theatee play. 3 cameras, with just 2 people, so the sigma fp was left alone to record - on BRAW. The light guy didn't have time to show us all the light settings/ intensities used throughout the play, and instead of trusting sigma's auto iso, I opted for setting it to an ISO i thought would be OK for the highest light intesity and the lowest. Long story short, we had quite a few shots that were over exposed +6 f-stops. This job is where I noticed the other properties of the image go really wrong as well. Did happen on film as well?

[@sheldonnorton9035]

@@IonCosmina Thanks for engaging with me! Film has the opposite weakness of digital. It’s fantastic keeping hi-lights organic while overly sensitive to blacks where it can be super grainy, most often in an ugly way. However film blacks once converted to digital are much easier to contend with than hi-lights of something shot on digital. So film is over all more forgiving in a way but finding the proper exposures is so much harder because you’re going blind of course. All of that said film even with it’s hi-light forgiveness and organic roll-off has FAR less advantages to film. If weighted out of ten, digital offers you advantages of 9 while film advantages would be close to .5. And that .5 of advantage would take years of experience to capitalize on and show up in your work (as it does with Wally Pfister for instance). The current romance with film is a very dangerous path in terms of gaining skill. Finding your look and style as a cinematographer shooting on film will take you approximately 20 more years of your life and cost about 1000X more money in footage compared to film. Wish I was joking but I’ve been there. There will always be somebody who will find a way to make their mark using film in this era but the risk of wasting your career away on it is extremely high. You can always try film once you’re an A-list cinematographer and you can do whatever you want. But in the meanwhile…

[@sheldonnorton9035]

Incidentally I find Low-Con and the now extinct soft-con filter(s) an excellent way of off-setting clipping hi-lights and warding off the dreaded video look when shooting digital.

[@IonCosmina]

Thank you for your input on film! If you go film school in Romania to train as a DP you still use film for a few projects, just so you get a feel of how the whole experience is. So in my first year we took B&W photos, then first semester second year we shot a short film with b&w film and third year first semester a short film with color film. I think we had a 200 iso kodak film and an 800 iso one, i can't remember what it was exactly. But since it is super expensive, I didn't take and chances with exposure, nor did I do any tests before. The colors are great though! I think the hues are just brilliant on digitized film when compared to digital raw, at least of low end professional cameras. It's great that you got a lot of experience with film I think! our professor was saying that if you learn to expose film right, digital should be a breeze. Mind you, I think he mostly just shot on high end stuff like Arri or Red, where you don't need exposure tricks to decrease the noise level in your footage. We got a chance to go with him on a film set when we were in uni and at ISO 3200 Arri image looks pristine, even if you have a high lighting contrast situation.

[@IonCosmina]

That's a very useful tip, thank you! I never thought about using filters for a practical reason (except for ND's of course). I think I only saw black pro mist being used for a film or a commercial. Since I don't have much experience with filters, I think I would be worried to use them in a non-planned setting. Off topic, but talking about Sigma FP, there were a lot of comments about what ISO is best to use overall. I think the conversation is on one of the other "how to expose...." clips. The short version is - use ISO 800 when possible (especially outside) as it offers a large and balanced range between (clean) shadows recovery and highlights recovery. I did notice something strange when shooting low light, low lighting contrast with the FP - it shows much less noise in underexposed areas than in the high lighting contrast I used for the tests. I still have one more clip to go in this series, so hopefully I'll add in more 'real life ' test footage as well. Digital reacts weirdly in some situations, and different cameras and sensors react very differently in the same situation so I think those are some downsides with digital. Alas, very affordable and if you understand and test out what you're usually shooting with, you can get some really nice results.

[@selfscience]

Another video that I don't understand.

[@serg.films99]

For some time now, I have a problem and maybe you can help. In 4k 12 bit CDNG I get sometimes choppy footage, the image is Flickering ( when I Pan shot ), is like the sensor is dropping frames( vreau sa spun ca imaginea sacadeaza)... Did you have any experience with the videos not being smooth ??? I tried changing the shutter speed, changing the fps but without any success. Could it be the Rolling Shutter, the sensor readout speed?? I don't know but I am getting videos that are not smooth...I didn't see that at other cameras.

[@IonCosmina]

Checking it today. Hope it’s your media or some project settings.

[@serg.films99]

@@IonCosmina Found my problem. Maybe you want to check it too. Panning speed. kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3K5l3yHZ6xqf9E

[@IonCosmina]

I cheked. I have the same problem. It's worst @ 23.9 fps and gets better @ 25 fps. I'm checking prores raw and braw and get back to you. I'm sorry it took so long.

[@nickgrant5800]

No way of monitoring your camera on set without false colour or an external monitor, different ISO’s meaning variations in how each of those monitoring methods works, and no log profile? This seems like a camera that would be terrifying to work with unless you were making proper cinema. Sigma need to fix these basic issues and I think this could possibly take over the market. Until then I’ll stick to reliability as that what’s gets you paid.

[@penduloprods.7400]

🥳Cinema punks!!! 🤯🥰

[@John-e4p1x]

she beaut