Sony a9: Video Overexposed when imported, fine on camera

[ipedro]

I’m a bit of a video newbie having shot still photography my entire career. Lately clients have been asking for video so I thought I’d give it a go.

Shooting on my Sony a9, video looks correctly exposed when previewed on the display/viewfinder and when played back on camera. When imported into Final Cut and on the files in the Finder, everything is terribly overexposed and flat.

I have a hunch that this is something to do with a colour profile or HDR but I can’t figure it out. What am I doing wrong?

In camera it’s fine:


On the Mac, highlights are totally blown out and the image is flat:

 

[Marco Klobas]

I've found this:

The color space must be overrides on each single clip in the settings tab to Color HLG 2020 for it to look like how you exposed it.

Does it work?

 

[ipedro]

I've found this:



Does it work?

Is this a setting in Final Cut? Is there more information where you found that suggestion?

 

[Marco Klobas]

Yes, it should be available on clip basis in Final Cut. Something like this:

I've found the reference on Reddit.

 

[ipedro]

Thank you. I don’t see Color HLG 2020 though. Only Rec. 2020.

I do feel like we’re getting warmer. I get the impression that the colour space Sony uses on the a9 needs to be matched on Final Cut. Maybe it’s a plug-in I can install? A custom LUT?

 

[Marco Klobas]

I'm not an expert.

Anyway, what color space uses the Sony a9 video? Can you find a panel like this, with the color space information?

 

[e1me5]

Use the HDR Tools in the Effects browser to convert HDR to 709, or Use the colour wheels and push down the highlights to your preferred levels.

Final Cut Pro X: Use HDR Tools to Convert HDR Media | Larry Jordan

 

[ipedro]

Thanks guys. There seems to be a combination of things happening here.

A) I noticed that my Exposure Compensation dial was inadvertently jacked up to +3. Even though the footage looks good in camera, perhaps something is happening on export.

B) The Sony a9 records in a profile that Final Cut isn't being faithful to. The EV +3 is probably not helping.

@Marco Klobas your suggestion got me on the right path. I selected Rec. 2020 and it gave me a little more dynamic range to play with.

I think the footage is usable now but I'll know to check my dials next time I'm shooting. Some lessons learned here for sure. If anyone has anything else to add, I'm all ears. It's going to take a while to fix this...

 

[Marco Klobas]

Glad to know that you have somehow made your footage usable.

I report two links related to the issue – perhaps you have already spotted them:

https://support.apple.com/guide/final-cut-pro/intro-to-wide-color-gamut-and-hdr-ver09be4f91f/mac

 

[profcutter]

One thing I’d highly recommend if you’re not doing it already is to use zebra stripes. Viewfinders aren’t that good at telling the whole exposure story. Zebras can tell you definitively what’s blown out.

 

[ipedro]

One thing I’d highly recommend if you’re not doing it already is to use zebra stripes. Viewfinders aren’t that good at telling the whole exposure story. Zebras can tell you definitively what’s blown out.

This came in handy on my next shoot! We shot in a fairly dim location with a couple of lights on the subject.

Even though in camera she looked correctly exposed, I thought I’d be safe and turned on the Zebra setting and it was going bananas all over her hair and face!

Looks like the monitor is not a faithful representation of what footage will look like on export. Thanks for the tip!

 

[profcutter]

I used to teach video production professionally, glad to see I could help, means I still got the chops!

 

[jons]

One thing I’d highly recommend if you’re not doing it already is to use zebra stripes. Viewfinders aren’t that good at telling the whole exposure story. Zebras can tell you definitively what’s blown out.

This is definitely good advice. Also, you can always check the histogram as well since I don’t think the the a9 can show scopes. Never rely on the monitor

 

[Ledgem]

This is definitely good advice. Also, you can always check the histogram as well since I don’t think the the a9 can show scopes. Never rely on the monitor

Yes, I'd second this - use the histogram. If someone is already coming from photography then the histogram should be a well-known entity; even if someone reading this isn't coming from a photography background, the histogram isn't a difficult concept to grasp, and seeing it in motion will probably make its function fairly obvious.