I’m about to show you how to easily film in RED RAW with the Nikon ZR. To save you some time, check out my RAW filmmaking cheat sheet that shows all of the best settings in one easy place, so you can reference it whenever you need.
And if you want help getting amazing-looking colors from your RED RAW footage, I also have a set of color presets that work fantastically with RED RAW. I’ll link those as well so you can check them out.
Why Settings Still Matter When Shooting RAW
When it comes to filming in RED RAW, you might think the settings you choose on the Nikon ZR aren’t that important. After all, you’re shooting RAW, right? You can just fix everything in post.
Unfortunately, that’s not true.
RAW video is very forgiving, and RED RAW in particular is one of the easiest RAW formats to work with. It gives you incredible control over exposure and color. But that doesn’t mean you can just switch the camera to RAW, hit record, and magically get gorgeous footage.
There are still several key settings you need to dial in to make your footage look its best, and I’m going to walk you through how to do that quickly and easily.
Enabling RED RAW on the Nikon ZR
Let’s start with the basics.
Grab your Nikon ZR, open the menu, go to the video camera icon, and set the video file type to R3D NE 12-bit in LOG3G10. This enables RED RAW recording in log, which gives you a very flat and desaturated image.
That flat image is exactly what we want for maximum flexibility in post.
Making RED RAW Easier to Work With Using View Assist
Next, we want to make filming in RED RAW as easy as possible. The Nikon ZR gives you some excellent tools to help with this.
The first thing you should enable is View Assist. This removes the super flat log preview and applies a 3D LUT so you see a more saturated and contrasty image on the camera screen.
Important reminder: this LUT is only for monitoring. Your footage is still recorded in flat log and will need to be color graded later.
Turning on View Assist also affects how some of the exposure tools behave, which is why I strongly recommend enabling it. That said, if you don’t want to use it, that’s okay. I’ll explain how exposure works without it as well.
To quickly enable View Assist, press the Assist Display button in the bottom right of the screen, then tap the Assist button in the bottom middle. Instantly, your footage becomes much easier to judge.
Choosing the Correct Base ISO
Now that the image looks better, you might think you’re ready to hit record. But before you do, we need to talk about exposure tools.
First, some ground rules.
When filming in R3D, I recommend always starting by setting your ISO to one of the camera’s two base ISOs: ISO 800 or ISO 6400.
The Nikon ZR makes this easy. Press the ISO button in the bottom left of the screen, and you can toggle between the low and high base ISOs.
If you’re filming in bright conditions, like outdoors in daylight, use ISO 800. If you’re filming in darker environments, like an evening wedding reception, use ISO 6400.
Using these base ISOs gives you the cleanest image with the least amount of noise.
You might be thinking, “Matt, why does ISO matter if I’m filming RAW and can change it later?”
Great question. The answer has everything to do with zebras.
Setting Up Zebras Correctly
Zebras are those black-and-white lines that appear on overexposed areas of your image. If you see them, it means parts of your image are too bright and unrecoverable.
You want zebras enabled almost all the time when filming.
To set them up properly, open the menu, go to the pencil icon, Video, G16, and select Zebra Pattern.
Set the highlight threshold to 245, which is where highlights start to clip when using View Assist.
For midtone range, set the value to 130 with a range of plus or minus 15. Shoutout to Calen Rhome from Gamut for testing the camera and figuring this out.
Once set, press OK and exit the menu.
To toggle zebras on and off, tap the Assist Display button again and then tap the Zebra Pattern button. The first tap enables midtone zebras, and the second tap enables highlight zebras.
Why Base ISO Matters for Zebras
Here’s why sticking to base ISO is so important.
If you change the ISO away from the base values, the zebra levels also change. That means the camera can no longer accurately tell you when highlights are clipping unless you manually adjust zebra values.
Nikon even provides a PDF chart showing the correct zebra values for every ISO. You can download it from Nikon or from a mirror I’ve uploaded.
With View Assist enabled and ISO set to 800 or 6400, your zebras at 245 will be accurate. If you don’t use View Assist, you’ll want to lower zebras to around 180.
This is why I recommend base ISO whenever possible. It makes exposure faster and far less confusing.
Using Zebras to Expose Correctly
Now let’s tie everything together.
Set your Nikon ZR to RED RAW, choose one of the base ISOs, and enable highlight zebras. Adjust exposure using your aperture or an ND filter until highlight zebras just begin to appear, then back off slightly until they disappear.
This ensures you retain highlight detail while keeping shadows clean and noise-free. This is how you capture the maximum dynamic range the camera can offer.
Next, switch to midtone zebras and check skin tones. You want to see zebras appear on the side of the face where light is hitting. If you don’t, your image is either underexposed or overexposed.
This is a balancing act. You want properly exposed skin tones without blowing out bright backgrounds, so you’ll often toggle between highlight and midtone zebras to find the sweet spot.
Using the Waveform Monitor for Extra Accuracy
If you want even more confidence in your exposure, Nikon gives you another excellent tool: the waveform monitor.
To enable it, go to the menu, pencil icon, Video, G19, and set Brightness Information Display to WFM. Press right on the joystick to adjust size and position.
I recommend setting the waveform size to large and transparency to 3. The small version is just too tiny to be useful.
Back out of the menu, tap the Assist Display button, and enable the brightness info icon to turn on the waveform.
The waveform shows brightness values across the entire image. Dark areas sit lower, bright areas higher, and the image is mapped horizontally across the display.
The Firmware 1.10 Waveform Upgrade
Make sure your Nikon ZR is updated to firmware 1.10 or newer. This update added a crucial feature to the waveform monitor: a red clipping line.
If any part of the waveform goes above this red line, that area is clipped and unrecoverable. Even better, this clipping line automatically adjusts based on ISO, so it’s always accurate.
When filming RED RAW, keep in mind that exposure values are compressed downward. Properly exposed skin tones should sit about ⅓ to ½ of the way above the shadow line on the waveform.
If you hit that range, your footage will look fantastic.
The Complete RED RAW Workflow
Here’s the full workflow from start to finish.
Set ISO to 800 or 6400. Enable highlight zebras. Adjust exposure until zebras just appear, then back off slightly. Switch to midtone zebras and confirm they appear on skin tones. Use the waveform to double check skin tones sit about ⅓ to ½ above the shadow line. Finally, return to highlight zebras to make sure clipping is minimal.
This is the sweet spot of the Nikon ZR and where you’ll get the highest image quality and flexibility in color grading.
Final Thoughts
And that’s how you easily film RED RAW with the Nikon ZR!
Huge shoutout to Brandon Talbot for his helpful ZR videos that helped me confirm these settings.
If you want more videos about filmmaking, make sure to subscribe. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day.
