Proper Exposure with Resolve and Raw Video

I know this might be a long shot but hoping someone could help. Im curious what range is considered "proper" exposure for video? Using the scopes within the coloring tab in Resolve what is the level in which I should shoot for? what I consider "proper" by just looking at it with my eyes but is there a technical level considered looking at the scopes? Im used to editing projects requiring the "film look" usually don't go above 640 but most stock sites reject this saying it is underexposed. Any thoughts?


Thank you all in advance.

Shooting on an Osmo RAW, Cinema DNG format, 23.97fps, iso 100. shutter at 50. variable is Ap, depends on light and composition.

Use the A (Auto levels) button lower left in the Color page. Then tweak from there. Look at your scopes (waveform and histogram) you want your peaks to be up near 1023, your blacks to be near 0. Leave room for later adjustment, don't crush the blacks or blow out the whites. (usually this means pulling back a tad on Gain and up a tad on Lift.

Putting up clips that pop a bit is better, in my experience, than putting up clips that are flat. If the client wants the original flat version, you can put up two ... one bright and normalized, the other flat.

Don't render directly to h.264 from Resolve. It's terrible for some reason.

Understand, Thank you. I'm trying really hard to stay away from any LUTs. Do use them? The only Luts I have used in the past is DJI D-LOG to REC-709. The problem with this is the darkening, shoot over +1 stop and this LUT always drops at least 3 stops.Should I not use those in stock? Good tip on Render, I usually go Pro Res, trying to maintain as close to original, with as little compression as i can.

I don't use LUT's except for monitoring. I prefer to manually screw up my footage : ) (I have made my own LUT's for batches, but I often prefer to use Animation Presets in AE and Stills to transfer preset groups of Nodes in Resolve) as I tend to tweak stuff a lot depending on the shot.

To color correct/enhance or not ... equally viable arguments for both. I do and that's part of the fun for me. That's why Pond5 calls us "Artists" Do what makes your heart sing. (gawd that sounds cheesy. I need to lay off the coffee ... )

Oh, and ProRes HQ minimum for archival. I usually render out YUV 4444 from Resolve, then transcode to PRHQ for archival and future file update, and 200-300 VBR h.264 for upload. If in doubt import your finished file back into your timeline and do an A/B. Zoom in a lot and you can see the pixels dance. You should not be able to.(much)