Why digital film looks so milky

A job of a 'Digital Image Technician' is to set and decide workflow to avoid conflicts when dealing with mixed formats from different digital cameras and take secure backups and transcode for the editor to do offline edit before the Digital Intermediate process takes place so that EDL's, XML and the VFX sequences and sound match with the offline edits during the post production process till your content is distributed through Digital Cinema Package (DCP).

A 'Digital Image Technician' is generally from post production background who is a editor who understands the process of pre production to post production and various other aspects of film making which comes handy to guide different departments of a film unit to achieve best from their art and times breaking new grounds which creates a feeling of 'Awe' in the minds of the audience.

The ARRI Alexa camera is a digital tape less camera which records digitally on cards with images up to 3k size which is higher than 1920X1080 pixels HD resolution recorded on Sony F3 and Sony F35 on tapes but latest *Sony F65 is tape less (updated).

On my seventh day as a DIT on location I was asked "Why the SXS Apple Pro Res QuickTime 444 clips looks milky" for which I had no proper answer. I just knew that a LUT (Look Up Table) has to be added to the Apple Pro Res 4444 QT's to make it look like the live video feed from calibrated monitors on set in the post stage while trans-coding as decided with the team.

The older ARRI Alexa camera gives two outputs one in SXS cards in Apple Quick Time 444HQ format with roll numbers as a clip name and .ARI Codex in Gemini card which records .ARI file in folders or in the Codex recorder as a raw proprietary extension like the .dpx sequence is given in form of .ari you can switch on and off the Rec709 looks set by the cinematography department while trancoding a process to makes high res footage for editing to save disk space and easy data management .

The camera records on 24 fps (Also on 25 fps and other fps). The ARRI Alexa camera shows you the live feed REC 709 look that you see on the monitor with no milky image but you can see a milky image in the ARRI Alexa Apple Pro Res 4444 QT MOV on XT or 444 HQ on the SXS cards. Its because the image has additional gamma (brightness) to give more control of colors while doing the color correction so its only the meta data same goes for Red epic (5K) and Red Dragon (6K) (Updated). Its just representation of looks via meta data.

You have to add custom LUT's to make it look like raw live feed on the camera .ARI file sequences while trans-coding with Davici Resolve lite or any other software which accepts LUT's to make the C-log/S-log/red-color look like the way you recorded on ARRI Alexa/Red/F-65/Black Magic Pocket Camera (Updated).