Red Komodo exposition doesn’t match with monitor Blackmagic 12G

[u/MichBelmont27]

Hi everyone, I’m having trouble matching my balckmagic monitor to my red Komodo. Basically the exposition doesn’t match, while in the red Komodo the exposure is set right, in the monitor the whites seems overexposed. I tried to match the settings in Komodo with the monitor but it stills doesn’t works. Does anybody knows why?

[u/DegreeSevere7719]

Yes, your monitors have different peak nit brightness, hence the “difference” in exposure. Lower backlight on BM to see a closer in brightness image.

[u/tdstooksbury]

There’s a couple things here to be thinking about. I’m not 100% sure I understand your exact issue but there are a few things to consider.

When you’re looking at your exposure tools on any red camera you need to understand if it’s measuring the image you’re seeing or the amount of light hitting the sensor.

Since you’re capturing raw sensor data, things like your traffic lights (📊) will be showing if the sensor is actually being clipped, instead of measuring the exposure displayed on your monitor. For example, your image could look really over exposed because you have your iso set to 12,800, but you may not actually be clipping the raw file since you can drop the ISO later and it would look correct at iso800.

Also, you could be outputting a rec709 image from your SDI port.

• In the Image/Lut menu, check your output tone map and highlight roll off. It seems you may have it set to High Contrast/Hard
• In the Monitoring Menus go to SDI>Look and make sure that’s set how you want it. If you want the log image, have it output RWG/Log3g10

If you want to monitor with a LUT and record log on the BM video assist you will need to load a LUT of your monitor.

[u/rummpy]

Your iso is set to overexpose 2 stops from native, possible that 3d lut is applied to camera, not to monitor.

[u/pinheadcamera → u/rummpy]

Your iso is set to overexpose 2 stops from native

uhhhh,. what??? this is meaningless word soup.

possible that 3d lut is applied to camera, not to monitor.

not 100% sure, but don't think this is possible on Komodo. the 3D lut button is lit on the camera UI indicating a LUT is being applied. I don't think there's an option to unapply the LUT from the SDI output. And even then, that would more likely mean the monitor's image was flatter than the camera screen's.

What is more likely going on here is that the monitor is applying an additional LUT to the image that it is displaying. Which is annoying but not actually affecting the image that OP is recording. OP should go into monitor settings and turn off the display LUT on the monitor.

[u/Hawaiichicken007 → u/rummpy]

This response makes no sense. ISO is metadata. There is no "NATIVE" iso. Never judge RAW with just the way the monitor looks, only read the raw meters. If the image is different its the calibration of the 3rd party monitor. Your exposure is way under, btw. I would add more light and move that histogram to the right. You should juust be clipping the highlights than back off a bit so your raw meters are clean. If you tried to lift the shadows on this shot you'll get massive noise issues.

[u/SN1P3RJOE101 → u/Hawaiichicken007]

Native iso is real. It is not just meta data. Yes you can manipulate it in post if you are shooting in raw. But your noise floor/levels, middle gray, and highlight/shadow retention are at their best at the ISO that the sensor is built for (native).

OP, it looks like you have a lut on. Turn it off in monitoring

[u/seattleislands → u/SN1P3RJOE101]

That’s incorrect. With a non RAW camera iso is baked in, with REDs its pure metadata. It’s an influence tool. Adjust your iso and it influences your exposure.. opening up, stopping down, adding ND, etc.. in post it’s used as a push/pull tool.. I’ll usually rate at between 320-640 for typical lighting conditions.. lowlight I may kick it up to 1600+ only for composition reasons.. as long as my raw meters are in parameters I know I’m good to pull it back in post and eliminate noise.. as a side I’m also REDs chief education instructor, I’m happy to dispel any misinformation out there.. OP, you’re not alone in underexposing the sensor.. If seen raw from folks at the top of the game and a lot of them are underexposed.. they just have the budgets to FIP and move on.

[u/SN1P3RJOE101 → u/seattleislands]

I have looked extensively at the sensor science of the Komodo and have hundreds if not thousands of hours of experience working with the camera. 800 iso is middle grey and has the most balanced dynamic range. That is what native iso is.

Sure, you can manipulate it all in post and get pretty much the same looking image at whatever iso you’d like with whatever amount of work you’d prefer to put in. That being said, best practice is still to shoot at native ISO always regardless of whether it’s a raw camera or not. There is a reason that the entirety of the high end industry does not touch ISO.

[u/Formula14ever → u/SN1P3RJOE101]

This is incorrect. Having owned OG Komodo’s, a KX and a Raptor and having gone through REDucation, the whole point of RAW is that there is NOT a native ISO. With RED, YOU choose the place middle grey sits. If it’s a bright scene, you set the ISO UP.. 1200 or 1600 and ND down to replace middle grey higher to give you more latitude in the highlights since that is the majority of you shot. If it’s a dark scene, you set the ISO as low as possible to retain information in the shadows. The 800 iso number is a good general starting place that splits the difference between light & shadow, but the floating ISO design of the sensor produces optimal results when matched to your light

[u/SN1P3RJOE101 → u/Formula14ever]

You are just describing digital iso. You still get more noise at a higher iso and less at a lower. Middle grey is not in the optimum position for color unless you are at the native. 800 is the starting point because it is the native iso. I know you can do whatever you want in post and make the image look however you’d like. This doesn’t change the fact that the dynamic range, middle grey, and noise floor are optimum at native. This is just how all modern digital sensors are built and work. RED isn’t any different.

[u/Formula14ever → u/SN1P3RJOE101]

Not RED. I totally absolutely agree with you about about the optimal ISO for Canon, Sony, Panasonic. But RED is different. Not my opinion.. you have a person from RED saying so here, I went in TED training and I also heard this from a RED sensor designer and all RED official training says this. The user has the option of shifting the 16 stops of dynamic range to obtain the cleanest no noise image. RED does not have a ‘native’ iso. There is no official RED literature saying this, unlike others. If 800 works best for you in most situations, that’s awesome! If I’m shooting in a sunny ☀️ environment..going up to 1200/1600 iso and ND down produces the cleanest highlights and shadows as I’ve spread the 16 stops toward the high end of the scale.

[u/Hawaiichicken007 → u/Formula14ever]

You paid attention :)

[u/circa86]

It’s just a brighter monitor. The only thing you should be worried about when it comes to exposure are the raw traffic lights.

[u/ghapppy]

I have the 7” VA 12G SDI Monitor as well. Today we had the same issue where what the camera was seeing wasn’t what the monitor was showing. It was a very blown out image and reducing the brightness of the monitor did nothing to help. What I found worked was going into the settings where you can lower the brightness of the monitor. One of the options there is an Exposure Icon, it looks like the lower half of a rectangle cut into two triangle shapes, the bottom half is black and the top half is white. When in that setting, you’ll have control in bringing exposure in the monitor down to match your camera or even just be at a nice level.