All your exposure skills will be obsolete in less than 10 years

shian

“Making Emma was a way of figuring out the implications of HDR on set and in post,” says Daryn. “We had no way to preview the image, so I was just going by what I thought would happen. I lit with very simple lighting, knowing that we would have a deeper black and highlights that could stretch even further. I envisioned a sweet spot of exposure for areas of interest that was more like 5 1/2 stops than 3 1/2 stops. If it all works out, it will look just like how your eye sees and your brain perceives. Shadows, without DI correction, will look more natural rather than going muddy really fast. You can have an actor play dialog walking from shadow into bright sun, and it won’t look overexposed — it will just look brighter. There’s a lot we have to work out yet in terms of postproduction and tone mapping.”

http://www.theasc.com/asc_blog/parallax-view/2014/08/13/okada-tests-hdri-with-emma/#more-942

They'll just do it in post. So sad.

Question is... will they still hand out cinematography awards, like for "life of pi"?

Vitaliy_Kiselev

I am not so sure that it deserves such title :-) DR is improving but all the exposure skills are still required and won't go anywhere in next 100 years.

shian

This is just the tip of the iceberg. At this rate, in another 5 years they'll have sensors and codecs that capture the full range of visible light. Then producers will demand that they shoot the full spectrum so they can determine exposure in post...

Vitaliy_Kiselev

At this rate, in another 5 years they'll have sensors and codecs that capture the full range of visible light. Then producers will demand that they shoot the full spectrum so they can determine exposure in post...

You do not need to capture "full range of visible light" as our eyes work in certain way. Also due to simple physics restrictions sensitivity of sensors has clear limits.

pundit

And of course all this will available as standard within smart phones by 2016 which will be able to shook 8K RAW video at 240FPS with 18 stops of DR and 7.1 surround sound. ;)

endotoxic

Interesting point, @shian .

Its a logical step, and its not like sensors cant capture full light spectrum. They will, and in that regard, exposure will be determined in post. Maybe use LUTs on field so the DP and Director can work on a persived mood.

Life of Pi is an aberration for old school DPs, but indeed, it will become more and more common every day.

About the need of capturing full range of light, why not? Raw can capture lots of stuff, and select in post what range and tone you want, either you eyes work or not on a certain way. If tech can give it why not grab it? and it will.

Dont forget and DP is not only exposure, is lens selection, composition, mood generation, and a good coordination between art direction, and psychology of the image.

And finally, exposure skill will not be obsolete, even in the best DR sensor. It just will be transferred to post, and DPs will have to work more tightly with colorist, maybe create a hybrid carrer. Or colorist will become more like DP or DP will become more like colorist.

duartix

@Shian:

Shouldn't this be the "natural" evolution since SLR's video "boarded" the film industry? I mean this is the regular workflow for photography. Video has been (for must of us amateurs) a process where you set an exposure and more or less cross your fingers that the light doesn't change very much. And that has been because in video (and note that I'm trying to avoid the word "Film") the latitude just isn't there unlike photography.

Once you have RAW, you have Post. And when you have Post, almost everything is possible.

Strange thing is I always pictured you more a master of Post than of Exposure. :) I have still a lot to learn.

shian

Well, I didn't say DP's will become obsolete... but the job description will change... I just gives me pause, and a bit of encouragement as I am both DP and Colorist on many projects, maybe that will become the norm. It's interesting for sure.

DrDave

I'm not too worried--more worried about the data ocean with a million channels and billions of vids.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

The company has developed a sensor 10 times as sensitive to light as existing chips, allowing for easier detection of objects in dark environments. The sensor can provide a color display of the surrounding area even in moonlight, enabling it to detect obstacles more readily than a driver can.

http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Sony-breaking-into-automotive-image-sensor-market

rNeil

@duartix

Actually, @shian is a pusher of CORRECT exposure in a sense BECAUSE of his work in post. He's quite aware that if you screw up initial capture he can't ever make it with post work what he could have made it if you got the exposure right to begin with. So on his site, he pushes awareness even of the Ansel Adams 10-step gray scale to understand exposure. And apply the concept of "zones" to video shooting/post.

karl

The claim "a sensor 10 times as sensitive to light as existing chips" sounds fishy. Existing sensors already require less than 10 photons to yield a different read-out for a pixel, so I wonder how the Sony chip is supposed to sense differences of less than one photon.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

so I wonder how the Sony chip is supposed to sense differences of less than one photon.

It is marketing thing :-) And it can be even correct as under "existing chips" they can understand something very specific.

caveport

Most of the footage I receive from professional camera operators makes me think they have decided their exposure skills are obsolete already! ;-)

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