Hey guys,

This is a short piece that I did for a dialogue class. I shot and edited it in 2 days. All the footage was shot on the XL2 and the footage has not been altered or color corrected in any way. I think that it is a good representation of what the XL2 is capable of in low light. Of course the set was lit, but the light levels were still very low. Just wanted to see if I could pull it off without having to darken it in post. Let me know what you think!

http://www.rpmproductions.info/videos/samples/Conversation_Small.mov

Oh, I used the low-light, low-noise preset found in the bulk preset folder here on DV Info. It was shot in 24p with gain set to +6.

I have reworked the ending and am working on giving this piece the "a scanner darkley" look. It's coming along quite well.

Ryan

Well... after a year i think i'm the only stupid one that cannot get a good image on low light.... can you post the settings?

Anyway, Ryan, your short looks good right now.

Well... after a year i think i'm the only stupid one that cannot get a good image on low light.... can you post the settings?

Anyway, Ryan, your short looks good right now.

Hi Michele,

Don't feel so bad, many of the shots had a fair amount of light on the subject and Ryan's shots were quite tight. So while Ryan's presets may be helpful, we still need to remember the essentials.

Michele, what lens do you use, and how about your shutter speed and iris setting? What wattage are you using, distance from subject, etc?

Good luck, Michael

I have only the stock lens, iris 1.6 (maybe 1.8 or less for close-ups) at full wide, 25P and shutter at 1/50. I have to say that i know my camera and i'm ready to see how dark is sometimes... but i was shooting side by side with a GL2 and the gl2 image was way less darker. I can olny think (apart preset personal settings) that since the GL2 has no progressive, don't need to have the sutter at 1/50. I usually use a preset that cut every noise, but yes darken a lot the image.

Hi Michele,

I shot the sequence in 24p at 1/48th shutter speed. The NTSC equivalent of your 25p. I had the gain set to +6 and the iris set to 1.8 for most of the shots. As far as the preset setup, I used the low-light, low-noise preset that I found here on DV Info. You can download the preset below.

I do have to agree with Michael though in that it really depends heavily on where the light is hitting. Shot composition plays a huge role in low-light shooting as well. I spent most of my time at this location lighting the set and composing the shots. I do have to admit though that I was somewhat concerned while I was shooting that the level of light was still too low, but my monitor looked pretty good so I went for it.

I can honestly say that you are not stupid. Anyone who can really feel comfortable with the XL2 in a year or less definitely has a significant amount of intelligence. There are people at my school that haven't figured out the PD-170 in over two years, they might be pretty questionable.

Thank you for your wonderful comments!

Best Regards,
Ryan