“Exposing to the right is one of the best ways to set yourself up for success in your color grade” 

It turns out that Cullen Kelly’s a big fan of exposing to the right. Below, screen shots of an image that’s been underexposed 2 stops and one that’s been exposed to the right by +2 stops.

Kelly’s video on ETTR is remarkable for the reason that, just like his insights regarding film emulation LUTs and his perceptive comments about HDR (prior to his conversion), ETTR cannot be said to enjoy widespread popularity among narrative filmmakers – and Kelly himself says that, of the projects he’s received, most are either exposed to middle grey or underexposed. For those of us interested in HDR, this is a particularly important issue, firstly, because noise becomes much more prevalent in HDR than in SDR. It’s not for nothing that Netflix, in their guidelines, asks filmmakers repeatedly to avoid noise in their shots, as it is more visible in HDR. Secondly, because exposing to middle grey is not necessarily the best method when it comes to capturing high dynamic range imagery – like diffuse white, it’s a constantly shifting target. Another thing to keep in mind is that, unlike traditional SDR, consumer TVs use tone mapping on HDR content, which has been shown to aggravate the appearance of noise in the picture, so it pays to avoid introducing noise from the start.

Below, one shot recorded at ISO 250, the other at ISO 12800 (lighting changed slightly between shots!).