600D movie Low Light

[Tariq Peter]

Hi, I am shooting in a small room with just a uplighter lamp. My 600D has a Tamron 17-55 VC lens attached which had good reviews for low light situations. To be able to see anything in my movie i need to crank up my ISO to 1600 which just creates a very noisy video. I must be missing a setting here but not sure what else to do. I have set my shutter speed to 125 and frame rate is 50P(1280x768)

[James Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

Hi, I am shooting in a small room with just a uplighter lamp. My 600D has a Tamron 17-55 VC lens attached which had good reviews for low light situations. To be able to see anything in my movie i need to crank up my ISO to 1600 which just creates a very noisy video. I must be missing a setting here but not sure what else to do. I have set my shutter speed to 125 and frame rate is 50P(1280x768)

You need a faster lens, more light, or use a lower shutter speed. Any reason you are shooting at 125? The normal advice is to get as close to 180 degrees as possible, ie; double the frame rate.

That would be 1/100 for your 50fps. Higher and you will start to introduce strobing, lower and you will start to see movement being blurred. Start with 1/100, then try 1/60 and see how it works for you.

If that fails, either find a fast prime, or put a higher wattage bulb in your uplighter :)

Also, I assume you are shooting at f/2.8, as you don't mention your aperture setting.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, try shooting at 25p with a shutter of 1/50 that will give you a bit more light.

Make sure the aperture is fully open, is that lens a 2.8 fully open?

And if that's not enough, you'll either have to use a post production noise reduction plugin or get a faster lens - 1.8 or 1.4

[Tariq Peter]

How can I check if the aperture is fully open and am I right that twisting the main dial changes the shutter speed in movie mode?

[James Donnelly]

Make sure you're not shooting in auto exposure mode or you can't see or change your aperture setting. First item in second video menu options page, set it to manual.

Depending on what display mode you're in, you'll see your aperture setting second from the left on the bottom. Press disp until you see the row of info along the bottom, but not up the left side.

To change the aperture setting, hold down av +/- button while turning the wheel.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Matt Thomas

Yeah, try shooting at 25p with a shutter of 1/50 that will give you a bit more light.

It will give you a lot more light. More than double in fact so you could drop the ISO to 800 which is the upper limit that I would use on the 600D. In a reception as there isn't generally too much movement you can even drop the shutter speed to 1/30 if necessary as a bit of extra motion blur is preferable to grainy underexposed video.

[Tariq Peter]

Can you please tell me how to change the shutter speed while in movie mode. I have set exposure to manual but how do I then change the shutterspeed. I have set the apperture to f2.8 but have read that shooting video does NOT use the camera shutter. It works by leaving the shutter open the entire time and rapidly turning the image sensor on and off several times a second.

[James Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

Can you please tell me how to change the shutter speed while in movie mode. I have set exposure to manual but how do I then change the shutterspeed. I have set the apperture to f2.8 but have read that shooting video does NOT use the camera shutter. It works by leaving the shutter open the entire time and rapidly turning the image sensor on and off several times a second.

The function wheel changes the shutter speed. I thought you said you had set it to 1/125 before?

Shutter speed in video mode does not refer to the mechanical shutter. It refers to the duty cycle of the sensor.

[Tariq Peter]

Yes my mistake the article I read through me off. I was basically under the impression that shutter speed as a rule is usually double that of the frame rate I started of at 100 and then lowered it and increased it but still had very poor light. What is strange is if I half press the shutter release button the image suddenly brightens up but then quickly returns to a darker image not sure why that happens.

[Matt Thomas]

It is auto focusing when you half press shutter I believe, which does light up the image temporarily to focus.

[James Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

Yes my mistake the article I read through me off. I was basically under the impression that shutter speed as a rule is usually double that of the frame rate I started of at 100 and then lowered it and increased it but still had very poor light. What is strange is if I half press the shutter release button the image suddenly brightens up but then quickly returns to a darker image not sure why that happens.

As Matt and Nigel have said, 1080x25p with 1/50 will get you more exposure, 1/30 if you don't mind the blurring will be as good as it gets. I take it you want 50p for your slowmo, as you have talked about this elsewhere.

Well, something's got to give here. Don't expect miracles with the 17-55. It's a fast zoom, but not a fast lens. For that you need a prime.

[Brian Tori]

If you are shooting 50p, then I would suggest using a 1/50th shutter with that frame rate. That will give you an extra stop of exposure which will allow you to drop the ISO to 800. The guideline for using a shutter that is double the framerate only applies to lower framerate capture. I'm in NTSC land and when I shoot 60p, I almost always use 1/60th. This gives me the most natural motion.

[James Donnelly]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

Yes my mistake the article I read through me off. I was basically under the impression that shutter speed as a rule is usually double that of the frame rate I started of at 100 and then lowered it and increased it but still had very poor light. What is strange is if I half press the shutter release button the image suddenly brightens up but then quickly returns to a darker image not sure why that happens.

Originally Posted by Brian Tori

If you are shooting 50p, then I would suggest using a 1/50th shutter with that frame rate. That will give you an extra stop of exposure which will allow you to drop the ISO to 800. The guideline for using a shutter that is double the framerate only applies to lower framerate capture. I'm in NTSC land and when I shoot 60p, I almost always use 1/60th. This gives me the most natural motion.

Ok, I assumed that on the 600d you could only go as low as 1/60 for 720x50p, as that's how it is on my 550d. Anyway, I think Tariq has tried the lowest available shutter speed.

[Tariq Peter]

Yes my settings are;

Movie Rec size is 1280x720
Frame Rate 50fps
Aperture is set at 2.8 (highest the lens can go)
Movie Exposure is set to Manual
I have the shutter at 1/60 which is the lowest the 600d allows me
ISO at 800 anything over 1600 becomes way to noisy for me it might have been nice if there were some other additional settings between 800 and 1600.

All in all a great lens and the next lens I get needs to be great for extreme low light conditions and also have a good DOF.

[James Donnelly]

By good you mean shallow? You get that for free with a fast prime.

Everyone should have a fast 50mm lens, as they are practically free.