Up until recently I have filmed wedding receptions with the traditional A1s and on-camera light. I see the tremendous potential of the canon 60d, 7d and 5dII.

As I continue to experiment with the 60d during wedding receptions, I feel other videographers are getting better results in low light. I would prefer not walk around with a light on the camera for obvious reasons.

However, my footage is dark, and when the ISO is bumped too high (on the 60d and 7d) the footage is grainy, and I need Neat Video to reduce but also this slightly blurs or smooths over the image too much

For your 60d or 7d, what is the max ISO you will use?

Light or no light for dancing shots (I always use a light for toasts, speeches, ect..)

Shutter below 48?

The F-stop results in too shallow a depth-of-field when below 2.8, where is your f-stop generally at for these types of dancing shots?

Attaching screen grabs of the 60d with canon 50mm, Sigma 30mm and Sigma 10-20mm. Shutter at 30, ISO at 6400 with varying F-stops. They are very dark, even with the shutter at 30!

Will upgrading to 5DII be my solution to walking around without a light? It looks excellent in low-light.

I will max out my 7D @ 2500. Any higher and the noise starts taking over significantly. Yes, you can massage it cleaner in post, but DSLR footage is soft as it is and denoising takes it further (pushing it further with a USM over top of that stresses the codec even more unfortunately).

The need for more light after that forces me to take off the zoom and put on my 24/1.8. Your screen grabs are what I usually try to avoid as the image turns a bit muddy and loses sharpness rather rapidly.

Now if you have no other option but to crank the iso as you "must get the shot".... then well... you gotta get the shot and expose for it accordingly.

Great low light performance is one of the main reasons I upgraded to the 5DM3 from the 60D. You can rent these cameras pretty cheaply, I would recommend trying one out if you are considering a purchase... you will be amazed at the difference in high ISO performance!

People say shutter speeds below 48/50 are some sort of cardinal sin, but I've shot hip hop dancers at 25 and found it fine. But people say I'm overly forgiving of motion blur.
Still, the way it was described you'd think it was as streaky as frame mode in older canon video cameras and it's nothing like that bad.

I almost never get above ISO 1250, but I find the depth at f2 generally fine. You can't get rid of smear once the codec gets a hold of a lot of noise, so you gotta get more light in there. That's what I say.

Thanks, what is your thoughts on mounting a light (ikan iLED 144 On-Camera Bi-Color LED Light) on the camera.

I am considering the 5dM2 (m3 is out of price range) and the canon 35mm f1.4 lens for dancing and low light at receptions. Yesterday I borrowed 5d2 and did a side by side comparison (to the 60d) that I will edit and post for you shortly. The 5dm2 is crisper on higher iso, even the grain is different, it is not colored grain which the 60d has.

So, who is using a light on their SLRs (or is that taboo)? If so, which light?

This light:

ikan iLED 144 On-Camera Bi-Color LED Light ILED144 B&H Photo

Here's some comparison shots. The 60d was using a Sigma 30mm f1.4 while the 5dM2 was using a 35mm Canon 1.4. (Sorry for the comparison with different glass but was on limited time to switch lens'.)

Conclusion: The 5DM2 is a better low light camera and you can push the ISO higher with less grain.

There's no doubt that the 5D will do better in low light. The still frames won't do the test justice since the grain will "dance" in the video and be more pronounced. The 5DM3 (I know you don't won't to drop the $$) has a much more pleasing grain if you can imagine that. It's more like the look of high speed film (kindof) and the 60D noise is really just noise and not very nice to look at.

Good luck!

Very true, I'm just wondering if I should upgrade to the 5D2 for the low light benefits, or add a quality light to the top of my 7D and 60D cameras.

Video comparison, here it is: A Side-by-Side comparison on the 60D vs 5DII we shot yesterday.

Lens: Sigma 30mm (yes crop lens but we cropped out vignetting in video)
Shutter: 50
F: 2.8
Canon 60D vs Canon 5DII low light comparison

5d2vs60d on Vimeo

Thoughts, comments & replies... open to all !

Very true, I'm just wondering if I should upgrade to the 5D2 for the low light benefits, or add a quality light to the top of my 7D and 60D cameras.

Video comparison, here it is: A Side-by-Side comparison on the 60D vs 5DII we shot yesterday.

Lens: Sigma 30mm (yes crop lens but we cropped out vignetting in video)
Shutter: 50
F: 2.8
Canon 60D vs Canon 5DII low light comparison

5d2vs60d on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/56070390)

Thoughts, comments & replies... open to all !


It made me dizzy.

It made me dizzy.


Try Dramamine for that.

couldn't help myself but to do some quick CC, as poor as it may be!

more on topic, i don't like going higher than 800 ISO on my T3i, which i think is the same video image as the 60D, although in the real world this doesn't always work out...
5DMII goes to 11...

We use 60Ds and nothing over 800 iso for us..unless it was a real emergency situation, we would go to 1250..Our third shooter has a MarkII and he can go up to 1800 iso without any noise issues...

Kren

Helllo folks,we use during night time weddings on the 60d a 1250 iso and never had a problem,in Emergency we go to 1600,after that if you go up,you will be in problems :)

I used a 600D for a while & would never dare go above ISO800 & all the crop sensor Canons are the same. In emergencies to gain an extra stop of light I would drop the shutter to 1/30 as a bit of extra motion blur is far more acceptable (in a wedding video at least) rather then either underexposed or noisy images. With a 5D2 I will happily shot at ISO3200 provided the image is well exposed. If you underexpose & hope to push exposure in post it will look like crap. As Bryan says the 5D3 goes up to 11 as there is no real limit as the heavy-duty in camera noise reduction means that the image is never noisy whatever the ISO although the image does get soft as you crank it up.

From memory testing showed 1250ISO has about the same amount of noise as 800. 1000 actually has more than 1250.
This is all to do with that 'native ISO' stuff which I don't really understand (possibly because I haven't read anything about it, but anyway...)

"Native" ISOs in the camera are native gain steps that are neither "pushed" nor "pulled" from other ISO levels. Now, while I am not sure entirely about which iso levels do what, you might find that ISO 250 being more noisy than 320 if 250 is simply native ISO160 'pushed' to 250 (1/2 of a stop, so imagine pushing ISO160 1/2 of a stop in post).

Now, I am using these numbers just to explain how native ISO are cleaner than non-natives, but I dont know if 250 is indeed a pushed 160 or a pulled 320. The post-native ISO push/pull to simulate intermediate ISOs is what causes some to be cleaner or noisier than others. Would it be cleaner to shoot 160 and push in post rather than 250 or the like, I don't know, never tested. I guess it heavily depends on how the camera handles things internally with intermediate ISOs.