How to determine the best exposure for raw files

Doesn't really help with placing skintones.

thats interesting. i havent streamed 4k from my a74 in my studio yet as only have 1 4k 10bit monitor for my editing. but i might have to plug the 4k into the camera to see if there is really much of a difference, im viewing my studio monitors from 2 meters away.

i have a weird setup for my skin tones and never shoot at base. i like to keep minimal light on my portrait subjects. enough for effect only. i also shoot a lot of fluro translucent coloured costumes to much light changes the already difficult to shoot colours.

Try shooting tethered, like www.captureone.com/en/explore-features/tethering or www.captureone.com/en/explore-features/tethering/wireless-tethering-sony - and there are much cheaper ways to achieve the same.

will have to look into it. but i tether now to twin 24 inch monitors and can pivot my monitors from portrait to landscape on there stands and the camera automatically switches views to match, i get full 24inch high portrait view. i will have to see how fast the wireless tethering is as i need instant as i dont shot with the camera evf at all. i only use the monitors.

The speed of WiFi data transfer depends a lot on your WiFi setup. USB tethering also works well.

im only using standard, but i do have lv1 switched on .

Yeah, standard or natural for me. I set the zebras to 105%, and even then you still seem to have about 1/3 of a stop headroom once they start to blink. Well, technically 1 channel will be blown out, but if it's a solid colour like blue sky, you don't really see it anyway.

i have mine set to 109 there's no headroom its bang on

105% is the max on my Panasonics, so that has to do :) Once you understand your camera (due to spending time and shooting tonnes of shots with it) you figure out the little idiosyncrasies and how to get around/work with them. I think that's one of the best things you can do -experiment and shoot heaps.

Hmm what exactly is different on your a74, out of what I said above?

as ive said before the incamera histogram it just doesnt show fine readings. heres a test i just did. put a zoom a constant aperture on your camera, now on wide angle expose on a light . me an oval caravan outside light. and stop down so your zebras are just flickering on the light. now look at your histogram its miles from clipping right ? now zoom in while looking at the histogram, as you zoom look at the histogram and the light will appear and clipped

there is a difference between "invariant" and "invariant starting somewhere" ? if it "starting somewhere" then it is not invariant but only partially invariant ... that is it...

dear, you made a simple error in wording originally - and now you are trying to find a way out with irrelevant notions ("enough", "a ton of dynamic range to deal with", "sufficiently low enough", etc, etc ) ... your cameras not invariant, they are only partially invariant within some ranges of nominal ISO values... and that they are only partially invariant nobody is disputing ... you are either pregnant or you are not... any camera with sensor using a dual gain in not invariant and noticeably so - that was the whole point of it - to make a tangible improvement in S/N ...

Sorry! I was replying to JohnVickers; but I forgot to make that clear by quoting him.

Had you written something like "Please go and preach to those members as well", and left it at that, that would have been courteous. But what you actually wrote was not what I would regard as courteous.

Best,

David

I wasn't as courteous as I could have been because I saw you as being unfair and biased by singling me out and not including the other members I mentioned.

For some deep shadows. Often, the read noise improvements from the Aptina trick are swamped by photon noise.

Nothing.