"Every cinematographer worth their salt will want this."

2x Oscar-nominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC 
(The Avengers, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Nocturnal Animals)

Dear Cinematographer,

My name is Cullen Kelly, and I'm a colorist and color scientist living in L.A.

Over the last 15 years of grading everything from national commercials to acclaimed Netflix series and even Oscar-nominated narratives, it's become clear that the #1 factor for how well any color grade will go is how well you exposed to middle gray what you meant to expose to middle grey.

This is because if you don't get that proper middle exposure while you’re on set, we’ll spend a good chunk of our grading time fighting noisy shadows, low tonal separation, and pinned highlights.

But, if you do get it right...

From the very first minute of your grade, we get to work on bringing out the best in your images — perfecting your lighting choices, sweetening your color palette, and guiding the eye exactly where you want it to go.

This difference between spending our time fixing things versus being able to focus every minute on enhancing the image is truly everything.

Noticing this, I thought about how all the current tools have some drawbacks that we'd all like to see disappear:

-Crazy colors covering the image
-Working differently depending on what camera you're using
-Measuring in IRE instead of stops
-Being hard to read and unintuitive to use
-Metering the display image instead of the light hitting the camera sensor

And when it comes to light meters, they're slower than their digital counterparts, more expensive, and need to be calibrated. They can also only tell you what your camera should be seeing, not confirm what it is seeing, AND there's the fun of camera manufacturers using different ISO standards (even though ISO stands for International Standards Organization).

So, I decided to create a new option that came without these drawbacks.

I've spent the last year testing and iterating a new solution with working DPs, and built the features they said were critical for an exposure tool that helped you create your best image quickly, easily, and reliably — no matter what camera package you're using.

After some amazing feedback, I'm releasing it into the world.

You can see how it works and get it for free — truly for free — below. Enjoy.

Introducing Sweet Spot

The first digital exposure tool that lets you set up your shot faster, gives you more time to be creative, and leaves you feeling more confident on set.

Even better, it's free. Here’s how it works.

Sweet Spot monitors the "sweet spot" for your scene's subject, revealing the part of your image that sits between ½ stop below mid gray and 1 stop above, and letting everything else fall off to gray.

It comes packaged as a LUT and easily integrates into your workflow, working equally well in your camera or your monitor. You'll simply download the LUT for the log space you’re using and install it into your camera or monitor.

This setup means that no matter what camera or monitor you're using, Sweet Spot will always look, feel, and work the exact same way while giving you a measurement that's 100% accurate in every shooting scenario.

Sweet Spot currently supports:

  • LogC3
  • LogC4
  • RedLog3G10
  • SLog3
  • Blackmagic Design Film
  • Apple Log
  • Panasonic V-Log
  • Canon Log 2
  • Canon Log 3
  • Fuji F-Log2

No more relearning a different type of false color every time you switch camera packages, no more crazy colors covering your image while you're trying to shape it, no more dealing with IRE instead of stops, and no more metering the display image when you should be measuring the light hitting your sensor.

Sound good? Let me show you what using Sweet Spot looks like IRL.


You've got your scene set up, and you take a look at your monitor to see your image.

Good start, but it feels a little under exposed, so you turn on Sweet Spot to see where you’re at.

Way under — almost none of your talent is appearing in the sweet spot zone. Having just a touch of your talent appearing like this would be fine if this were meant to be a more moody image, but it’s not.

So, you adjust your exposure to bring more of your subject into the “sweet spot”.

You’ll know you’ve gone too far when your subject starts disappearing from the zone again – this time due to overexposure.

You open up until you can better see your talent's face.

Much better. There’s still a good amount of the subject's face that is sitting outside the Sweet Spot range, but these areas were lit to fall below key.

From here, you can feel fully confident in where you’ve set your exposure. If you decide you want to add fill, you can now just use your monitor to make further adjustments since your exposure is accurately set.

So you turn off Sweet Spot and...

Voila — the image looks great.

In what would take only seconds in a real life scenario, you’ve nailed your base exposure and can spend the rest of your time focusing on the creative part of exposing your image instead of on the technical part of it.

And since you know your subject is properly exposed, confirmed by Sweet Spot, you’re now free to use your monitor instead of digital metering as you create your image and paint with light.

Here’s another example:

This time, it’s quite clear to you that you’re under.

So you flip on Sweet Spot…

It’s time to adjust. Whether by adding more light or changing your iris, you increase the exposure until the key-lit areas of your subject come into view.

Much better. 


You turn off Sweet Spot to see the result…

Bingo. Amazing what just getting the right things into the sweet spot zone will do for your image.

And now that your exposure is nailed, you're free to use your monitor to make any final adjustments to sweeten the image.

Ready to create faster, and feel more confident and creative on set?

All you need is a tool that's quick, intuitive, and always accurate.

With Sweet Spot, you'll spend more of your time creating images instead of measuring, double-checking, and second-guessing them.

It’s yours for free. All I ask is that if you love it you share it by sending people to this page.

Just put in your name and email to get your download link.