Hi Michael,

I started shooting with Bill's suggestions which had Black Gamma at 0 and Black at -12 (at least that is where I came in). He advanced his settings to -8 for Black , and I followed. I realized that at the previous setting (-12), I had been nudging blacks back up in post to retain some detail, but of course I would rather pull them down then push them up for noise reasons. -8 helped, but I went all the way to 0 just to see. Too much. See how scientific this is. :)

My earlier post read:

I have 3 versions of Cine 1 set up for changing bright conditions all using Bill's Color tweaks, but with the blacks set at -4,-6 and -8 respectively. These were the black tweaks I was making every time in post.

Black gamma is still at 0.

Not really. The scene lighting called for a very moody set up. It was supposed to be a night scene where the only light source ON in the room was a desk lamp. So we had the desk lamp ON and a 1000w spot to key the actor as if it was coming from the desk lamp. Then we had HMIs outside coming through the windows to simulate moonlight. I did not really underexpose it. All I did was try to get the effect on camera, which was, anything besides what was on the desk or very close to it should be dark and blueish. Naturally I'm not talking about pitch black but the fake darkness effect Hollywood has thought us to expect. I broke up the shadows with some strips of light coming from a cookie. So it wasn't underexposed. It just had a lot of shadows. But the shadows were noisy. Unless the only way to light a low key shot and not get noise with these cameras is to light it brighter and get the effect in post?

Michael: What gamma did you use. You should be in CINE4 for this IMO. Also I'm as king if you are sure about the exposure because I have found the EX1 has the ability to capture a lot more highlight without blowing than the zebras suggest. I would take the histogram to the max. Do you have the opportunity of shooting this again? If so try C4 and do a couple of test shoots pushing exposure. Don't worry about the monitor looking too bright for the night scene as you may have to pull this all down in post but I bet the noise will be gone.

I hope you see the value in exposing to the zebras, rather than the cameras auto-exposure. You might want to consider setting the TLCS to "spotlight" if you insist on using the meter. The Black settings I specced will crush the shadows if exposure isn't perfect. There's no headroom, or footroom if you please, with these settings.

I never use auto exposure and always expose with the zebras.

Michael I shot the test in Cine4 actually and it was noisy.
Yes, I will have the opportunity to test it again, that's why I'm trying to get some info so I can try improving things next time. Thanks.