I FINALLY understand EI now! Everyone made it so hard to understand but this was perfect, thank you!

This is the best, most clear explanation I've found. It makes perfect sense. The only thing I'm wary of is utilizing EI when handing footage off to other editors. In most cases the footage would be in competent hands, but you run the risk of having clients be unhappy with your footage unless you have the option or even want to spend the time walking other editors through the post-production process of properly handling the footage. For the most part, I intend to use this method when I know I will be editing the footage or am certain the editors will know how to handle the process; especially with a lot of the run and gun projects I shoot. Something to consider.

So far the best and concise explanation of Cine EI I’ve watched

I just got the FX6 for school. This is the first camera of any type that I have ever owned and Im finding your videos very useful. I know nothing about anything you said in this video but after watching it a few more times Im sure ill understand.

This by far was one of the best explanations on Cine EI. Lots of detail. I have a two part question for you: 1.) are you using this for moving shots, and it so, would you mind showing us how you use it in that setting? I know thats a big ask, so if you can't no biggie. Thanks for all you're doing for the film community.

Great video explaining Cine EI. I started shooting in Slog 3 on my Sony FX6 within the last 8 months. While still wrapping my mind around Cine EI, I'm loving the results I'm getting.

Finally somebody that explains it correctly, outside of Alister Chapman's blog, thanks for this! Side note: the 41% Zebras are only valid when not using the s709 LUT on the FX6. When the LUT is active middle grey goes to 44-45% zebras, just a heads up for other FX6 users. Also you can see the EI you used in the MXF metadata using catalyst browse. With that info it's easier to adjust gain in Davinci Resolve to make the default SLog3 color transform behave correctly. (At least so far I haven't found Davinci Resolve being able to compensate automatically)

Great explanation Kofi! Thanks 🙏🏼

Hey man I saw the video where you outlifted those guys with the shoulderpress haha impressive! keep it up man you're a beast

one the best, articulate, solid descriptions ever. thank you.

100% best video explanation of this feature.

the higher ISOs are quite useful in broad daylight or sets where majority of your shots are lit on the mids and highlights and less in the shadows.

Thank you thank you! I have looked at a lot of explanations for Cine EI including Alister Chapman. You have given the best tutorial on this subject I have seen. Keep this up, we need you.

I shoot Cine EI all the time the rule of thumb is you wan to always over expose your image by 1.3 to 1.7 Stops OVER 0.0 Exposure, meaning over exposed, the reason for this is, because because you got a good dynamic range out of your camera you can tone down the exposure and shadows and highlights in post production like Premier Pro or Davinci Resolve, and make your exposure look 0.0 like you wanted it, with a ton of less noise, and your getting the less noise over exposing because your using the cleanest base ISO. So, you don't have to change your EI value at all lets say your shooting at Base ISO 800, you could just adjust your aperture settings and watch you meters to show your 1.3 over exposed and that is where you want to be and not touch the EI adjustment too look normal you could just film with the over exposed look and that still will give you the same look as if you turned down EI value below 800 lets say 640, and then brought your aperture to make the exposure look normal and not over exposed, it will be the same. Example, lets say i shot a scene at 800 Base ISO and didn't touch the EI value kept it on 800, then used a aperture value of F4.0 and the exposure shows 1.3 stops over. then if i did it the other way and had base ISO at 800, but used a EI value of 640 and then the picture look correctly exposed using Aperture 4.0 the same value, you would get both the same results in a final video file when you bring your video to your editor (premier pro) the only reason the image looks correctly exposed when using EI value of 640 is because i'm over exposing but making it look correctly exposed as if i was to make adjustments in premier pro, Basically all this EI value thing is doing is giving you a look at what you will get when you edit your video in prost production, that is all, as i said you could just leave your EI value to base ISO value , and let your image look over exposed on your camera screen and if you want, but your not going to be able to see what your actually going to be working with in your editor, that is the only difference.. Many times i just leave me base ISO at 800 don't play with the EI values at all let me image look over exposed and look at my waveform to see if the exposure is 1.3 to 1.7 stops over and knowing that i will be able to fix that in post production and it will be what i want. That is how one would do it using a camera that doesn't have a Cine EI setup like the Fuji X-T4 or something when i used that i was always over exposed 1.3 stops over and my screen always looked over exposed and i was ok with that because i knew what i was doing and knew this is what i wanted to get less noise and good dynamic range.. same thing as if you shoot with the canon R5c your going to over expose Clog as well.. Now i always shoot with the Ninja always and so i watch all my meters and such on the ninja because it has better metering systems in there to tell me what i'm doing and what is over exposed and what is not and by how much it has tons of tools in there better then the camera to tell me i'm where i want to be it has false color it has zebra's and wave forms, histogram's are really not good for watching exposer for video it does give you an idea where your whites and blacks are, but does nothing to tell you if your over or under exposed by small amounts. So when you first start using CIne EI, you could just over expose your image by 1.3 stops over and not touch the EI values to see what it will look like in the video editor when your fixing it this. That way you can focus on what your doing while shooting and not have 1 more thing to try and monitor when you don't really have too, but later once you get the hang of it then you can start playing with the EI values and do it that way.. But you don't really have too to get the results you want.. Rule of thumb if you have to turn your exposure up in Post that is bad that is when your getting nose, always having to turn your exposure down slightly is always good, you won't introduce noise unless it's a crazy amount of course and your exposure was clipping while recording.. Many people shoot with low aperture numbers like F2.8 or F1.8 to get a look to blur out the background, and that is fine, how ever tho if that is not the look your going for you do want to use higher aperture values anywhere around F5.6 to F8 to give you the best sharpness, remember low aperture numbers like F1.8 will be softer and not as sharp as lets say F7 or F8. so if your not trying to get an artistic look and blur out the background like a landscape or full sharp image you don't wan to use low aperture numbers like F2.8 or F1.8 those will produce softer image. All lenses have a sweet spot of best sharpness anywhere from F5.6 to F8 usually on most lenses F8 is the sharpest image your going to get with your lens, but it does depend on what lens your using. Don't go too high of an aperture number tho because that will start to degrade your sharpness as well going too high that is why i said there is a sweet spot in your lens. That also applies to focal length as well there is always sweet spots in how much you zoom in or out, being the widest gives you less detail and zoomed in too much as well there is always a lens sweet spot where it performs it's best a good place to find out where that is for your lens is a website called DXOMARK, this place uses expensive equipment to measure lens specs.. www.dxomark.com/Lenses/

Excellent explanation! Finally I unterstood the concept of EI. Thanks for opening my eyes, Kofi!

Bro, I just went GOD MODE on my FX6 because of your video, definitely getting that subscribe and bell

Thank you for excellent video. I learned a lot. I was having a problem with color. I couldn't understand why at REC709 and sLog3 the image looked exactly the same. Another issue is that when I applied different LUTS the difference wasn't that dramatic compared to grading footage from my old Lumix FZ2500.

love how thorough you detailed this!! new sub 🙏🏽

Thanks for the thorough explanation! What I can’t find online, is how to edit CineEI footage properly in Final Cut Pro X. Are there transform LUTs for each CineEI level?

Great stuff man. Glad someone is making consistent Sony content. Making me want to get back on the YT horse 😂

Need this video specially on black skin! Thanks for making this. I just filmed a video for my channel for the first time on cine ei and brought the footage in to edit and was soo confused because I underexposed the crap out of it!

this is so much understandable thanks for the clear message

Minorly frustrating that no one is explaining what you're doing to change exposure values if EI does literally nothing. Obviously the only other way is to change shutter and aperture, mainly only aperture, but if you're in a situation where you need more light when not in situations where you can use 100% controlled lighting, which is majority of the situations, then aperture can only open up so far meaning......we're just screwed and better off using flexible (normal) ISO settings? Would like someone to explain the entire details on these. If this is the case, then if we know the base ISOs, and we already know we have to adjust aperture first, if we can, to keep best dynamic range and least noise.....then what's the point of Cine EI other than limiting what we can do if in event we actually need more light?

Great content as always Kofi 👏 I am still learning every day with my FX6 😂🙈 but I love it 🎥😍

This was helpful. It cleared up a lot of questions that I had. One last question. Can you apply a LUT with cine ei and use the gray card or does that mess up your ability to expose correctly?

Perfect articulation 🎬🎬

So usually you use EI200 unless you have super hot lighting like a white shirt in the sun then you use EI800 to get the shirt from blowing out?

Great video!! I understand now, but how do you normally expose for run and gun work?

Question: I’ve watched SOOOOOO many videos on shooting on log 3 and they all say to over expose by 2 stops. I have a Sony fx6 as well and there isn’t a such thing as a number but rather just a graph. But based on the picture you posted +2 stops would be considered 72%. Do I expose to 72% or 41% and why? thanks in advance for your time.

How do you correct your footage in post? Conversion LUTs? Or you bake in? If i'm filming at base 800, and i move the ISO down to 200 like you've suggest, the footage in post is obviously now two stops over and it's seemingly tricky to bring down in post and doesn't quite look right?

Hello how are you, I know it has nothing to do with this topic, but seeing that you have an fx6, you could still help me.. I am trying to attach the proxies files that create my fx6 in premier pro but I get this error (proxy media and full resolution media should have the same audio channels), the thing is that the original file has 8 channels and the proxy 2, I have tried to change it in the camera, in the proxy menu and it won't let me change the audio channels, I have also tried to do it in the premier pro menu and the same thing keeps coming out. Does anyone know something?? can you help me

Amazing video and awesome explanation! I’m just a little confused on the whole exposure index thing. I understand that it doesn’t affect the recorded image, but why are we changing the “brightness” of our monitor? I’m nervous by changing the exposure on the monitor will make me change settings that will ruin my final image. I shoot a ton of weddings so majority of the time I will be run and gun with all different lighting scenarios.

Questions, I'm currently in film school and the class I'm in has us focusing on setting white balance at 0db (and it has to stay there), but whenever I try to find videos about it I have no luck. So why use db instead of iso? Also, my instructor has us zoom all the way in on our white card to balance our whites, but whenever I see white balance videos no one is zoomed in at all so why is that as well? lmao

Excellent video but I still don’t quite get it. What I am not getting is you showing how the Cine EI previsualisation tool affects post work. Because that’s what it’s for right? Since it doesn’t do anything whatsoever to exposure it must be about pulling exposure down in post? Your camera was set to 12800, then you changed Cine EI to display the image 2 stops darker. That means that you have exposed for the shadows and are now pulling the image down in post to look correct. The difference is that we now no longer have noisy shadows, since we gave them 2 stops extra light. I’m from the darkroom era and this Cine EI seems to me to be somewhat reminiscent of Ansel Adams zone systems. Make a choice where middle grey will be and the rest of the spectrum will fall accordingly. The problem is your video (and everyone else’s) are only talking about the capturing part, you’re not talking about post. This becomes EXTREMELY confusing as you’re talking about protecting highlights and shadows. There is no way you could possibly be doing that if you’re not changing exposure. Still haven’t found a single video that can properly explain this. Incredible!

I'm filming with an FX6 for the next couple of months and I've watched 4 or 5 videos on EI and I still have no idea what the point of it is. I've shot SLOG3 for 5 or 6 years now and have always relied on monitors with SLOG3-REC709 LUTS to monitor my exposure. Is that all it is doing? I can't believe I'm not grasping the concept.

Verrrrrrrry well explained my friend

You said to expose at 41% for zebras for middle gray. Do you have a range you use in your waveform to make sure you stay within?

This was awesome! My question is I was testing the FX6 and in S-Log 3 with no monitoring LUT, I saw no changes on the built in monitor in white balance or exposure when adjusting those. Is that normal or is there a live view option like on mirrorless cameras?

can you do a video recording on fx30 steps for proper exposure.....appreciate your work and help....

hi, how to set the lower limit of the zebra on a white card using MLUT?

Would love to see some davinci resolve tutorials if possible

Thank you

Im very new to cinematography and still struggling with the EI thing. If EI is only supposed to adjust how the exposure appears on your monitor, why are you first setting your EI Iso then adjusting for 18% grey? Wouldn't you want to adjust for 18% grey to ensure you are moderately overexposed for slog3, then mess with the EI till you see how the overexposed footage would look when graded properly?

ty!

i am still lost, if its not backed in why do the three clips look different? is it how you graded it ?

Man thank you!

im a bit confused. you said to expose for 41 percent gray at first then at 200 ei you said to expose at 18 percent gray. and why did you change the percentage of exposure?

Hi Kofi. What exact settings should I choose in FX6 for the best , crisp indoor videos?

this is the correct explanation of cine ei; unfortunately, and practically it only helps recovering shadows, the opposite will introduce too much noise

very useful mate

All mine are like at 20000 I so confused lowest I can go is 3200. Help?

what if the white balance is off? Then I would expose my image wrong, right?

One more question if you don't mind...It seems like you can't re-rate in slog3 without monitor luts on. Is that the case? It looks your footage is being re-rated in slog though, so I am a bit confused.

Question: You say that changing the EI does not effect the final image, but when I shot a test, the same shot in 3 different EI settings, they all looked different in Resolve. The first was dark, and as I raised the EI, the 2nd was brighter and the 3rd was brightest. So it does seem to be effecting the image. What am I missing?

So how would you go about exposing that last setup you had? The "robbing peter to pay paul" part. Is the answer to either treat those windows or add way more light to you?

hi there, is Cine EI on the sony a7siii as well?

another 1

So what would be the best ISO and EI for best all around look for HIlights and shadow details

I'm still confused as all hell. Who cares what your LCD shows or what your IE value is at if it doesn't change anything to the file itself when you go into post-production? How can it help get you proper exposure or more/different dynamic range if it literally doesn't do anything to your file? Why is that better than just shooting with actual correct exposure?

So we no longer expose to the right with cine ei?

Try not to touch your white card like this, it’s gonna turn grey.

Ok but pls do not touch the surface of that color checker