Shooting RAW with the

Blackmagic Pocket Camera

(BMPCC)

By Tomas Stacewicz
The RAW factor Is it better to shoot overexposed or underexposed?

Studying Steven Aschers The Filmmakers Handbook has left me somewhat perplexed and
made me reflect on the issue of exposure when shooting RAW. Or rather, what lattitude of
error exists in wrong exposure. Is it better to overexpose or underexpose RAW footage? Exact
and balanced exposure is of course always the preferrable, but what is worse when shooting
RAW, to overexpose or to underexpose? Doing a Google search only made me confused as I
heard different explanations and preferences. Some like to treat RAW as Video, i.e. never
overexposing for the fear of blowing out highlights and preferring to underexpose to be able
to recover details in shadows. Others treat RAW as old negative film stock, i.e. preferring to
overexpose as there is supposed to be more information in the highlights compared to
shadows, when it comes to the Log curve profile, and thus fearing crushed blacks. Steven
Ascher, in his otherwise excellent book The Filmmakers Handbook, never mentions RAW
per se in this instance, but does say that a Log capture should never be underexposed. Ascher
often compares RAW to Log so I guess the same goes for RAW, which I surmise shouldnt be
underexposed. Intuitively, I see a logic in treating RAW as film, i.e. never underexposing and
to be forgiving in overexposure. RAW behaves as film in many respects, such as responding
to light metering (again referred to Ascher). But I cannot base my cinematography on a hinch,
so I went over to the Blackmagic Forum and BMCuser and asked the forum members on their
opinions on this matter, based on their own experience. Luckily for me, there were some
answers which I want to share with you in a paraphrased and somwhat reinterpreted format.

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera histogram exposing to the right

There seems to be a general consensus not to underexpose RAW footage, in particular when
shot through Blackmagic Design Cinema Cameras (i.e. the BMCC, BMPCC and BMMCC)
which generally performs best in the range of midtones and highlights, rarely experiencing
highlight clipping (except on spectuacular reflections). When it comes to overexposure there
seems to be a tentative agreement that it is better and safer to overexpose than to underexpose
in RAW (as underexposing two stops, the footage will still be darker than expected at ISO
1600, and super noisy), however with caution; one should only overexpose slightly to feed the
sensor. Many cinematographers use the formula of exposing to the right (ETTR), or in other
words allowing the sensor to receive as much light as possible without clipping the highlights.
This is done by pushing the peak of the histogram (as presented on the camera screen) off
centre and somewhat to the right. The reasons behind this is to provide as much information
as possible into post where one may make all of the aesthetic choices concerning exposure
when grading the image. Shooting at ISO 800 (being the native setting for the Blackmagic
Cinema Cameras and a good baseline to start off) and overexposing, in grading one can easily
reduce one or two stops in the Camera RAW setting, with good results. Many others pull one
stop by rating the ISO of the camera one level lower, i.e. 400 instead of 800 which
overexposes the image. Let me quote the BMCuser Howie Roll (typo corrected and duly
edited):

On daytime exterior shots Ill ETTR. Ill put clouds at about 95% on the zebras, or if
there are no clouds, 80% on a clear blue sky assuming the subject isnt in deep shade in
which case lights may be necessary otherwise I might only use some bounce. For
interiors and nightime exteriors, after much testing, I found a happy balance rating the
Pocket sensor at about ISO 540, the mnemonic was 40 footcandles at an f/4.0 which
would put middle grey at 50 IRE. I use a lightmeter for interiors so having a footcandle
rating is critical for making exposure decisions. Again its not simple, if I have a high
key setup Ill use 40 FC for the fill side, if I have a low key setup Ill use 40 FC for the
key side at f/4.0. The advantage of figuring out the footcandles is that you dont really
need zebras or histograms, you know it works and you can bop around the set with a
lightmeter and know youve got it covered. Shooting an f/2.0? No problem now its 10
FC.

The screen and exposure tools on the [Blackmagic] Pocket [Cinema Camera] are
primitive at best and not really any indicator of what the final image will look like. I
know that several things have changed on the Pocket since my last deep dive including
the way [DaVinci] Resolve interprets the raw footage. Id advocate getting a lightmeter
and testing the camera for yourself. Without a lightmeter you really dont have any idea
of what the cameras response is, the histogram is too vague and gives no reference to
the light input. Ive had the same old Sekonic L-398 that I used in school 20 years ago
and magically its still going strong. [I use exactly that same meter myself Ed.]

Old school cinematographers, experienced with emulsion film stock, regard overexposing the
sensor using ETTR as a generally bad practice which should be avoided as a general rule,
although it may be unavoidable in certain situations; its better knowing your stuff and to
expose the image correctly in the first place by placing the desired shadows and setting ratios,
as too overexposed images may make it more difficult to grade the image in post. The golden
rule is to try keeping exposures of skin tones consistent from shot to shot, which makes
grading much easier, as skin can be more important than highlights. In this respect, using
false colour on your monitor and watching pink and green levels, is a good formula to keep
this skin exposure consistancy. Speaking of methods of measuring exposure, the entire topic
largely relies on the camera model chosen as each one hadles zebras, lightmeter, false colour,
and in particular display colour/space and gamma somewhat differently (where the
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera seems to be pretty accurate). Cinematographer and
BMCuser Dan Kanes has the following personal advice to give:

As far as where to set your ISO, I like to do it by where my mid tones look correctly but
never to clip highlights. Once highlights are gone its usually harder to pull highlights
back into a useable space because of digital clipping. Generally if it looks very very
clipped you probably are going to have a harder time getting it back. You may often
find that whether youre at [ISO] 200, 400 or 800 your highlights will still be clipped,
so if you keep your highlights and set your ISO to make your midtones look how you
want with nothing too hidden in shadow that you hope to see later, you will probably
find yourself a happy person.

So in conclusion, digital RAW footage tolerates overexposure errors more than

underexposure. Old school negative film stock is also more allowing for overexposure
compared to underexposure, i.e. RAW (digital negative) more behaves as film negative, not as
video, as digital cinema cameras that shoot RAW use a linear tonal curve that represents a
perfect straight diagonal line. A line that you can bend in any way you want in post, it seems.
The classical negative filmstock uses a slightly S like curve with a toe and a shoulder
which goes across the entire spectrum, from the lowest left corner to the highest right corner.
The RAW diagonal line also covers the entire spectrum from corner to corner but without the
small toe and equally small shoulder of the film negative. But much of the straight line of
the film curve coincides with the RAW feed, which probably accounts for the similarities in
the behaviour of both film negative stock and RAW negative digital film. However, the
straight linear curve is not as steep as the straight line of the film negative curve (provided
by the S shape), which explaines the less contrasty and flat image of RAW. But the thing is
that you can basically do whatever you like in post with the information contained in the
digital negative RAW format.

The RAW linear tonal curve as presented by Adobe (left) compared to the film negative curve (right)

The Log (logarithmic) curve is another mode of creating a film-like image which captures
highlights in a similar way as negative RAW and negative film, but differs somewhat from
the latter. Actually, the log curve follows the f-stops of the iris which emulates how the
human eye experiences light. Log encoding is used in the Apple ProRes family of codecs, also
featured in the BMCC, BMPCC and BMMCC. Kurt Lancaster, in his Cinema Raw: Shooting
and Color Grading with the Ikonoskop, Digital Bolex and Blackmagic Cinema Cameras,
states that the BMCC converts 16-bit linear to 12-bit log uncompressed RAW, which
probably applies to the BMPCC as well (being the upgraded kid brother of the BMCC with a
slightly smaller sensor) as the RAW image coming from the BMCC and BMPCC looks alot
like the flat log profile, different compared to the Blackmagic URSA RAW which lacks the
flat image of its predecessors and provides more colour prior to grading. So, it seems that the
world between RAW and Logarithmic processing is akin in the early Blackmagic Design
cameras. What emulsion negative film, digital negative RAW and Log encoding share
together is poor handling of underexposure which should be avoided.
 The Logarithmic curve with evenly spaced stops throughout the scene exposure range

Underexposed digital footage may also look worse than underexposed emulsion film footage
because of the digital noise behaving differently and being more distracting than film grain,
especially if it creates fixed patterns (which is an issue with all CMOS cameras, including the
sCMOS Blackmagic Design cameras). Raising underexposed footage, such as skin tones, to
middle grey creates noise that doesnt match with the normally (or over)exposed shots.
Cinematographer Rakesh Malik has further brought to my attention the fact that keeping
consistancy in skin tones may also mean that I have to expose skin at two stops over middle
grey, pulling it down in post to maintain a single look that matches up colour, noise, shadows,
ratios, etc. With a wider shadow ratio of three or four stops rather than one or two, I might
have to overexpose the skin highlights by a stop or two and underexpose skin tone shadows at
one or two stops below middle grey to ensure the retention of detail and texture of skin, as
well as the desired dramatic look. In these instances, a field monitor with false colour would
really help, a good reason to aquire one (such as the affordable 5 Blackmagic Video Assist)
in the foreseeable future.

The 5 Blackmagic Video Assist with its False Colour feature activated
The Logic of RAW Why its better to overexpose (than to underexpose) with
the Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

In my previous article where I delved somewhat into the question of over- and underexposure
with CinemaDNG RAW, I stumbled upon the topic of the seeming similarites between the flat
image of RAW and the Log (logarithmic) profile curve whose exposure f-stop range perfectly
emulates the iris of the human eye. Let me reiterate what I wrote previously on this topic,
namely what Kurt Lancaster states in his Cinema Raw: Shooting and Color Grading with the
Ikonoskop, Digital Bolex and Blackmagic Cinema Cameras, that the BMCC and BMPCC
converts 16-bit linear to 12-bit log RAW. The image coming from both cameras looks alot
like the flat Log profile and quite different compared to the Blackmagic URSA ungraded
RAW which provides more saturated colours, lacking the typical flat image of its
predecessors. I concluded that it seems the world between RAW and Logarithmic processing
is akin in the early Blackmagic Design cameras. BMCuser Eddie Barton (who also happens to
be Digital Bolexs colour engineer) commented on my conclusion and with his permission I
will quote him in full (with slight typo correction and edition / addition for clarification), as
his words are very enlightening and informative.

Raw as a term has come to mean many different things and now lacks specificity. In
general, when people refer to raw or camera raw theyre talking about the data
stored in the specific raw container (DNG, R3D, ARI, etc). This data is usually a Bayer
pattern (a form of CFA mosaic) and has not had any color transforms performed on it.
Now, this does not mean that a transfer function (a.k.a. gamma curve) cant be applied
to it. In the case of BMD cameras, they all perform a logarithmic transform on 16-b[it]
linear data to save space in 12-b[it] DNGs. The purpose of this curve is to reduce the
amount space taken up by the raw data and to retain details in the mids and shadows
through compression.

This data is still considered raw, and the general pipeline is as follows. This logarithmic
raw data goes through decompression and linearization behind the scenes. Processing
programs/pipelines prefer to work with linear data as it is easier to manipulate with
simple operations. So the raw files contain the LUT to linearize the logarithmic data.
After linearization, the Bayer pattern is demosaiced (a.k.a. debayering) to create an
RGB image that still does not have any color transforms done. And many people
confuse the debayering process as part of the color transform process. It has nothing to
do with it. Its sole purpose is to create an RGB image from CFA mosaiced data. The
color transform process is where you would choose the output/working color space for
the image (BMD Film, Rec 709, ACES, etc). The color space is made up of the color
gamut and transfer function. Usually, for convenience, the transfer function and color
gamut are named the same as the color space, but is not always the case.

So yes, raw data can be logarithmic or linear or encoded with any other curve you can
think of. Its just a matter of choosing the right curve. In addition, raw does not have to
be mosaiced. An example would be a camera with three sensors having a pixel for all
three channels. The raw file wouldnt need to be demosaiced, but it would still need
color transforms performed on it. Another example is actually the [Canon] C500 2K
raw. It super samples and creates 2K RGB raw from a 4K sensor.

Now as for over or underexposing, it depends on where you want your dynamic range to
lie. In the case of the original Cinema Camera and the Pocket, youll get the following.
 ISO for Blackmagic Cinema Cameras

What the chart shows is how the dynamic range is shifted with exposure. Exposing for
ISO involves changing the physical amount of incoming light (changing the aperture or
shutter speed or any other physical factor) so that [18%] middle gray is recorded at the
correct value in camera. When you expose for 800, the BM recommended ISO, you get
+5/-8 EV distribution. Now overexposing would be moving to the left [on the chart].
Exposing for 400 is the same as overexposing 800 by one stop. As you can see the range
shifts down. This means you get cleaner shadows, but you will clip the highlights faster.
In the opposite direction, exposing for 1600 is the same as underexposing 800 by one
stop. This will give you an extra stop of range in the highlights, but means you will
descend into noise faster.

I made [the chart] based on a combination of information from the BMD Film curve
LUTs provided by Blackmagic Design in Davinci Resolve, DNG metadata, and
independent tests performed by Corey Robson and Ryan E Walters. The independent
tests were just used as supporting evidence. I wanted to be as objective as possible in
making these charts. A lot of the time, there is still valid data in the noise floor that cant
be viewed on a scope, but is still visible in the image. The data is there at the bottom
and youd be able to see it in a log image, whether its considered usable or not is up to
the user.
 Data extracted directly from the LUTs provided by Blackmagic Design in Davinci Resolve

Here is the data for all of the curves on a 10-b[it] scale:

BMD Film:
1% Black: 36
18% Gray: 392

BMD Film 4K:

1% Black: 36
18% Gray: 392

BMD Film 4.6K:

1% Black: 76
18% Gray: 420
 The BMD Film signals

So, if I have understood the Blackmagic Design workflow correctly, the original 16-bit linear
RAW signal is converted to a 12-bit Logarithmic curve just as it leaves the sensor in its
original Bayern pattern, as a means to compress / reduce the size of the signal. This losslessly
compressed signal is then packed into CinemaDNG files in camera which are stored in the
SDXC cards for download. The Logarithmic RAW data is then decompressed in DaVinci
Resolve and linearized before the Bayer pattern is demosaiced / debayered, to create an 12-bit
RGB image which finally is taken through a colour transformation process to create a output /
working color space for the flat log BMD Film LUT. This explains why Blackmagic Cameras
have a large latitude in the highlights, compared to the Ikonoskop A-Cam dII and the Digital
Bolex which are considered to be more sensititive to highlight clipping. In closing, I will
quote another BMCuser regarding the preference of overexposure:

To answer the question [if it is better to overexpose or underexpose], provided youre

not clipping important data, its better to overexpose RAW because it gives you a better
signal to noise ratio. Obviously, everyone has different tolerances when it comes to
noise, and sometimes noise is desirable, but assuming a normal use case, overexposure
is preferred. I typically just shoot at 400 ISO/ASA, which overexposes a stop. If you
have time for noise reduction or want a little grittier image, 800 ISO has the most
dynamic range and is proper exposure for the camera. 1600 is underexposed by a stop
and is too noisy for me.

Technically, if youre shooting RAW, ISO is just metadata, so no ISO has an advantage
in dynamic range. Also, I think 1600 ISO actually has the greatest dynamic range in
ProRes, and its the only one that exceeds 100% on a waveform. But as I said, its a
little too noisy for me. I also should clarify, that Im basing this off of the Pocket, which
Im told is more or less the same as the BMCC. The takeaway is that youll have less
noise if you overexpose RAW and then bring the exposure back down in the RAW
converter (which, in the case of the BMPCC, happens automatically when you set the
camera at an ISO lower than the native 800 and expose for that setting).