View Full Version : Shooting - Low Light & B/W questions


Chris Sgaraglino
January 26th, 2012, 10:05 AM
I have a two part question. I have a project for a national brand commercial that I will be shooting this weekend with my Sony and two DSLRs. It's a 30 second commercial involving ice cream and zombies (it's a job what can I say!)

The director is looking for a vintage B/W look, but with the product in color. So I'll be shooting in color and it will be converted in post. We will be shooting at dusk to get some light - but in post the editor will make it look like its night.

For my Sony:

Q1: What is going to be the best profile for this kind of look?

Q2: What are some good low-light settings to start out with?

Thoughts & Ideas welcomed!

Todd Bradley
January 26th, 2012, 01:20 PM
Hi, Chris. As far as low light capabilities, all I ever do is adjust the gain. I can't remember what the default 3 settings are, but I found that for really low light, I need even more than the High gain setting gives. So I reconfigured it so L is something like -3 dB, M is something like +6 dB and H is something like +12 dB. I choose a shutter speed (1/30 unless I have to do action, since I always shoot at 30 fps), and then manually adjust the iris to look decent. I use the default color and gamma profiles.

Maybe there's a better way to get good low light footage. If so, I'm all ears. I'm just saying what I usually do.