At SmallHD, we aim to demystify the idea of HDR. This blog is for anyone who is interested in transitioning into an HDR workflow or anyone who wants to learn more about HDR technology in general. We teamed up with professional Colorist and HDR expert, Sam Bilodeau, so that he could shed some light on the topic of monitoring in HDR as well as using different exposure tools in LOG & HDR.

“While getting HDR around your production is slightly more complicated than distributing SDR, it’ll allow you to understand how your audience is going to experience the content you’re so carefully and intentionally creating. You’ll be able to feel the realism and power in the images you’re crafting as you craft them, and be able to elevate your content into the format of the future.”, said Sam Bilodeau.

Check out the video below to learn more about Monitoring in HDR on set and on location:

In this video, Sam takes a deep dive into the most popular exposure tools for an HDR image. He walks you through waveform monitors, histograms, zebras and false color in HDR. Sam also goes into the intuitive and unique PageOS 4 platform that makes using these tools easy. “I’ve found in my experience shooting for HDR that a good set of exposure tools will help you capture cleaner images for HDR. When I, or the people I’ve worked with, have used these tools the way that we would for SDR, the image has suffered in the HDR mastering process, often because of overexposing the midtones and clipping the whites.”

Check out the video below to learn more about How to Read Exposure Tools in Log & HDR:

Sam Bilodeau has been working in grading and mastering High Dynamic Range video since 2015, and is considered by many to be one of the leading experts in the creative use of HDR and on HDR, HFR, and UHD+ workflows.

Through his work at Mystery Box, his clients have included Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Hisense, Panasonic, Dolby, AJA Video Systems, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Harmonic, SES, The UltraHD Forum, NHK, and more.

Sam has developed a course for Mastering HDR Video that will give you an in-depth education into all things HDR. Check out this FREE 30 minute introduction into his course.

We sincerely hope that you enjoyed these videos and will be able to apply what you’ve learned here to your own workflow. SmallHD will continue to produce content that, we hope, will make transitioning from SDR to HDR a little easier.

If you have any ideas about any additional information that could be helpful, let us know in the comments below.