Blackmagic Forum

Whenever I open the BRAW clips (shot in the "film" setting) from by BM 6k Pro in Resolve and apply a color space transform to bring them to Rec 709 they always appear to be underexposed, compared to how they appear in camera on the screen when applying the default LUT that comes with the camera.

For context I'm a student using my university's cameras, I don't currently have the camera with me to search through settings, but as far as I am aware, all the settings are essentially default in the camera. I don't understand why bumping up the clips by 1 or 2 (stops?)(Is that what the "exposure" slider here means when I put in "2"?) brings them back to about what they looked like when filming. The same goes for if I change the ISO on the BRAW clips and bump it up around 1 or 2 stops, which I don't understand since that wasn't how it was filmed.

Is there a setting I'm missing in the ACES transform? I feel I didn't have this problem when I used our RED Komodo (I don't have the footage with me from that unfortunately). Am I just underexposing my footage and don't realize it or does this have to do with the CST or the BRAW or what? How do I make it look like it does on the monitor of the camera, or should I not be bothering to match it to that anyway?

There are too many uncontrolled variables here, including the the brightness of the camera's screen as it relates to the accuracy of the viewing monitor (which is uncalibrated?). At this point, you have no way to judge which monitor is "correct", because you don't know which monitor accurately reflects the exposure. Most likely, neither does.

Which is why there are light meters and why the camera has its own built-in exposure tools -- for example, "false color". What happens when you expose a middle-grey card (your film department will have one) for (you guessed it) "middle-grey"? Where does that shot fall on the waveform when you bring it into Resolve? There's a right answer (and a wrong one) here, so no need to guess.

If these are unfamiliar terms, download the camera manual and read the pertinent sections -- at least for starters. And to work productively, you'll need an accurately calibrated monitor. Otherwise, it's just guess work, because nobody else's monitor is going to match the arbitrary state and settings of yours.