The Perfect Exposure for Sony Alpha cameras

Hey @cocexperte1 by any means i'm not a "professional" ph so for an in depth explanation i can suggest you checking:
Mark Galer youtube channelor Gerald Undone youtube channel
for a quick resolution you can check thisvideo from Paul Leeming on ETTR instead

The reason why Exposure To The Right is prevalent is that due to the compression codec: you have less noise bringing everything down rather than pushing the shadows up. Of course if you are shooting stills your best option is to use bracketing from drive mode and mix it in post.

Also be ware that zebra value are specific for each skintone meaning it will vary upon matching a darker/lighter skintone.

As far i know i've never heard about a7iii color shifting (that could be maybe because i'm rather new to this industry) so if i was in your shoes i would probably check the white balance.
For white Balance i use a "colorchecker passport" which even if is rather expensive looks handy and durable. (they also have a youtube channel where they explain how to use it)

 

A good alternative to the SpyderColor Checkr 24 (SCK 200).

 

Thank you guys for your answers. I read the Book from David Busch about the Sony A7 III - quite helpful.
Also read some other books with other tips, but the majority of them is pure crap. So hard for a beginner to learn the right way.

- Hoping for Shortstaches coming Workshop he mentioned in his Baseset Tutorials: HOW TO SHOOT -

In summary: Never overexpose Highlights.

- ETTR is not the rightes site of the Histogram -> it`s the far right site with no overexposing highlight.
- Skintones and zebra value are specific for each skintone - like @born2day mentioned already. I use now 80 for standard and my skintones improve a lot.
- and the best tip i get: Use the Viewfinder and decide more by eye than on math

Hope this helps out.

I think about getting a ColorChecker, but i think a grey card will be enough for the first time.

 

Mark Galers Videos are okay, but don`t cover everything i want to know.
So i find a really educative Video. It is quite long, but he explains really god how your lightning affect your colors and how to expose right in Sony Alpha Cameras - helped me really out.

Hope this is okay to share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNWWEMS_rEk

Takeaways from the Video
So what’s the formula? You need to:

• Shoot uncompressed RAW only.
• Switch to neutral creative style and reduce the contrast to -3. The color space doesn’t matter.
• Use just the histogram to make sure your scene doesn’t clip. You can quickly raise the exposure from middle grey by two stops, and then work from there.
• Ignore the highlight exposure warnings. Don’t use the zebras!
• Until I get some clarity on Capture One, process RAW images in Lightroom or ACR.

 

Since i'm starting to understand a bit more what you wanna know i can add that:
zebra do make difference ( that video of Galer is 5 years old!)
zebra can show u the clipping point, in the video he was not clipping on "100+" zebra setting because (if i'm not mistaken) he was in slog2 which has a clipping point of 106% .
Gamma affect the raw photo regardless if u have Picture profile off (that should be still gamma)
You can get more info on gammas here
As a safety measure i also recommend setting zebra a lil lower (3-5% less) from you clipping point so that you are sure you are not even clipping a single channel (lets say red)

>Gerald is more technical*, here's a video about a7iii exposure

*also i'm feeling bad about suggesting you about mark channel since he's a lil harder to digest.

 

Hmm setting the picture Profiles to off is not possible? There is just the "Standard" Profile - if this is what you mean by "off".
But even the Standard Profile is a Profile ...

My problem was, when i shoot in Standard Profile and set the exposure to the histogram, i get over or underexposed images and the histogram looks on the pc totaly different (shifted to left or more right). So i can`t relly on the tiny histogram on the lcd of the sony a7 iii.

Today i tested the Neutral Profile with -3 Contrast and tested out how accurate the histogram was later on my PC. I have to say, that i get 95% accurate Histogram later in Lightroom. The tiny histogram on the a7 iii looks quite the same later in Lightroom. I also tested it with the Zebra Level at 80 and some Pictures only by histogram and some other with pure eye with the evf.

I got the best results in a combination of the histogram and the zebras 80. My next Portrait shooting is next week on sunday. Hope it will work out well like today in my testings

But yeah, i will watch your linked videos and tell what i think - so great to got somebody who understand what i`m talking about hehe.

 

So i watched now the Gerald Undone Video, it was very educative
Unfortunately the video is about exposing for videos and not stills - i wonder if the rules are the same without the HLG Profile or SLOG.

The question is: What profile is the best to work with histogram and zebras.

He showed a technique how to get proper skin tones with the zebras. Otherwise to set the zebras to show overexposed highlights, it is possible to set the zebras to show specific colors - see Picture below:
My theory: If this works i will set first the zebra for the model and then use the same number to show clipping highlights. This should bring me perfect skin tones in Combination with a grey card for white balance?



And anybody interested in the Values for Skin Tones - Here is a chart he did:

 

Creative (profile) is an exemple of PP off (if u notice u cannot have both creative profile and PP at the same time)
Anyway from the menù you can select PP off directly (if you can't maybe you dont have the latest firmware)

You should choose a gamma and stick with it (for consistency), if you are shooting stills the best gamma should be "still" (which is the same as PP off) (but then you could use detail -7 (for maximum accuracy always sharpen in post) and crispning 7 (result in less noise) (please use 0 crispning if you want to show the subtle textures in a close up).
If you are shooting stills and short clip or movies just use the same PP as the one you shot for movie (helps a lot matching in post).

Your theory is definitely right, as soon as you get your grey card you should be fine. (just be sure to get a quality one (expensive doesn't mean quality tho)

re-reading this i felt i missed saying you that 95-7% zebra are good to check the overall exposure of the scene (not the subject!)
Also regarding exposure, isn't always bad to blow some highlights as far those are light spots.
Closing remember that dynamic range on a7iii is great but still limited around 13 stops of light so be reasonable with your composition, and yield to bracketing in extreme light situation

 

@born2day

I have to clear up a misunderstanding. By "profile" I meant creative mode all the time.

I NEVER take pictures with PP, only with the normal creative mode (Standard, Portrait, Neutral,...) - yes I know that these have no effect on RAW. As I said before, I am concerned with an accurate histogram.

Yes, the dynamic range is good but I don't rely on it - rather get the picture in camera as good as possible.
Example: If the person is totally underexposed and the shadows are raised, the colors look totally unusable.

 

So, today i tested my new settings out.

Zebras 80 and Standard Creative Mode with -3 Contrast gives me 100% perfect Exposure.

On the crappy Sony LCD the Pictures looks sometimes really underexposed, but in Lightroom they reach a never seen before accuracy in Exposure. So happy to figured it out

BTW: I use now a X-Rite Colorchecker Passport Photo, This gives me perfect Whitebalance and also pretty nice colors out of the Sony camera. I missed a lot my old Canon and the Colors but with this, i`m over with Canon`s old Systems.

 

anyone here that have mark galer's ebooks for sony a1?

 

i set zebra to 70 then wait to see them appear on the skin which indicates your in the 70 ire mark for your skin tone. its seemed to work pretty good so far

 

This works well with caucasian skin tones. For darker skin tones, you need to set things up differently?

 

correct. if dark skin you will need to judge if is 40 50 or 60 ect

 

IRE is only for video, and only related to rec.709. For photography, if you were shooting in jpeg, which uses sRGB, it's close enough to rec.709 that you likely won't notice a difference. But for shooting in raw, you don't need to worry about all that. On Sony cameras, the raw data clips at 109 on zebras. Sony alpha cameras also are particularly suited to using the ETTR (expose to the right) method because they use dual conversion gain sensors. To protect your highlights, just set your zebras to 107+ (to give you an early highlight protection warning) and simply adjust your mages in post. You don't need to worry about targeting skin tones like you do in video (unless you underexpose... then you'll have color issues). Here's a good video focused on the different way to use zebras: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nigy3Abbd38

Also, in Sony cameras, don't use picture profiles (those are for video and will affect your raw data - raw data is linear, not supposed to be recorded with a gamma curve), make sure your color space is set to AdobeRGB, and turn off the DRO (Dynamic range optimizer) setting. While this setting is only supposed to affect jpegs, it will change how you expose for raw, too, because it affects the screen tones and colors (because the screen uses a jpeg preview). Using DRO when shooting in raw will cause you to consistently underexpose your shots.

Finally, an underdiscussed issue is that you need to calibrate your editing monitor. Most people only think of the color when they do this, but monitors are usually set WAY too bright when calibrating. So you'll want a calibration tool that's able to tell you how bright your screen is in cd/m2 - ideally you're shooting for between 90-120 cd/m2 (depending on how bright your editing environment is). For many modern monitors, this is only about 30-50% brightness.

 

The things you said are true, but I don't entirely agree with you on 2 points.

1. that the settings for RAW don't matter is youtuber nonsense. It does play a role in color rendition and the DR of how you shot a RAW photo. If it's too dark, and you try to lighten it later, it will affect the green or purple tone. This applies not only to portraits, but to all types of photos.

Conclusion: Expose the image in the camera as well as possible.

2. a calibrated monitor is not necessary unless you want to print. You can calibrate it however you want, but on the end media such as smartphones etc. it will be distorted again anyway. Except for the brightness setting, which may be correct depending on the environment, but generalizing 50% is not correct. In a bright room, you should increase the brightness. But again, 50% is not the same for every monitor.

Conclusion: Don't worry so much about calibration.

 

For 1. You're initially misrepresenting my point and then restating the point I made above about underexposure. This is why I brought up ETTR, among other things.

For 2. Again, you haven't read what I actually said. I specifically clarified that I was speaking about brightness, and that matters for everything.