I believe ISO bug and noise at custom white balance are two different storys (anyhow closely connected). What I do at work when I can run on V-Mount is to simply disable all the energy saving on the cam, so it keeps runningbuntil battery is changed (once or twice a day). When changing battery i always dial in the desired iso again.

duh, the uh... noise bug

@pundit like I stated, I'm the only one reporting this, so far, so it may just be my camera. But do some tests and see if it does it on your cam as well. It warrants further testing. As fas as I know, no one else has looked into it.

I'd LOVE to be able to do it manually.

@Meierhans yes. I like the grain the camera has at most ISO settings from 200-1600. But the one time I tried to shoot 640 (approached the correct way to bypass the bug) for an ultra clean look, it went to sleep, and it didn't occur to me that that might bring the BUG out, until of course I saw the footage, and was furious.

There are too many things I have to keep track of while shooting, and the ISO bug is just too much of a hassle to add to the list. If you can keep it straight in your head, and make sure to use the work around every time you change batteries, or the camera goes to sleep... by all means.... go for it. I'm perfectly happy to shoot 200, 400, 800 and 1600 and never have to worry about the bug.

What the... That sucks...

@shian The ISO bug won't happen when using Q.MENU for changing ISO.

Simply press Q.MENU button. Browse to ISO setting. Use up/down buttons to set the ISO. No more ISO bug. ISO320 is quite nice.

@shian, thanks for the info and the enthusiasm.

Small correction: you keep saying "4-stop range," but what you're describing is a 5-stop range. It's your Zone V stop, plus and minus two stops. So it's Zones III,IV,V,VI & VII = 5 stops. I'm sure this is what you mean, because elsewhere you talk about a contrast ratio of 16:1. Contrast ratio = 2 to the power of the difference of f-stops, so a 5-stop range would be 2^(5-1) = 2^4 = 16:1

@shian thanks for the tip. would the noise / film grain be better at 200 or 400 than say 160 or 320? i can turn the auto power off but you are right the camera will mostly be off between setups.

So in your experience using 200 400 and 800 turning camera off and on is ok and doesn`t introduce unwanted noise?

I spoke to my gaffee about implementing a 4:1 ratio trying to expose the scene within + and - 2stops around the correct face exposure 18% gray. should be ok. though one scene is outside at night with camp fire so need to throw more light on the house in the background to bring up the shadows. Any advice on how to best shoot this scene. rather than night how about around dusk?

thanks in advance

@hedrox you won't be disappointed. It may seem like a nuisance, but it will, over time, change the way you look at Cinematography. Whether it is a short or a long span is entirely dependent on how much time you put into it, and how quickly you grasp the concepts. But soon, the mysteries of how to get something to look a certain way will disappear, and you'll laugh when you think to yourself, "I used to look at this, and be baffled. And now it just seems so simple, I wish I had learned this sooner."

Has anyone ever used filters (like those from Tiffen) to reduce contrast while shooting? Does it improve the image for grading afterwards ?

The CGFS Tutorials cover how to use a meter and a gray card, as for some of the other stuff being discussed here, there are resources in the following links as to where to expose.

Here are your 20-80 handheld meter and in-cam meter settings http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/67029#Comment_67029

And there's a chart here that shows how far off your meter is from the meter I use http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/61478#Comment_61478

I use a Gossen Digisix cuz it's cheap and just about everyone can afford one. It gives me a reading that is between 2/3 and 1 full stop off the in-cam meter. So I set my exposure by taking an incident reading from the key light, then check the in-cam spot meter against a gray card from the key light, and make a micro adjustment to the aperture to get it to 2/3 (if necessary), and everything else is based off that. Until I get the full tutorial up, these links and the video tutorial that began this thread should get you in the ballpark.

If you have a gray card it should have a cheat sheet on the back to help you adjust for lighter or darker skin.

The full Zone System tutorial will cover where things should be exposed for optimum color reproduction, and then how to compress everything into the 4 stop zone.

@thoughts2uk that is my understanding. But, I'm pretty new to this zone system as I know many other are too. If you have full control over the lighting on your scene, do it the way you said. Light your subject properly, then bring up the shadows and bring down highlights in the scene to make them fall within the 4 stop range. If you are in an environment where you don't have full control over lighting, you have to decide what is the brightest thing in the shot that you don't want blown out. Once you decide, you consider that your +2 and then have to light your subject based off of that. If I am in any way wrong, please feel free to correct me anyone.