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- Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2016 1:35 am
Seth Marshall wrote:Shooting LOG I often overexpose my image to intentionally lift my shadows to reduce noise.
I think this is a very bad idea for a lot of reasons. Noise is a function of lighting as well as exposure, so the danger you have in overexposure is sacrificing highlight detail -- clipping and destroying them -- for the same of less noise. You can do this in film negative (and in fact we often used to tell DPs to "give us a thick negative" by overexposing 1/3 or even 1/2 of a stop. But I think for digital images, you have to do the opposite and protect the highlights by underexposing a little bit, then compensate in the shadows with more fill light.
There are some great books out there on lighting and digital cinematography that go into this in great detail. I tell students, when in doubt, SHOOT TESTS. Find out the limits of your camera before the shoot, and figure out when noise is a problem and when highlight clipping (or shadow blockiness) becomes noticeable. And I don't think increasing ISO is the answer, either. There's a nominal range for every camera where the noise looks decent, and you just have to light to that stop, rather than opening wide up and increasing exposure in the camera. There are a lot of cameras out there that are rated at 1200 or even 1600, but the reality is you actually get better pictures at 800 (or lower). Tests will show you what the real usable range of the camera is.