XHA1 - Low Light Testing

[Steve Lewis]

Check it out here:
www.vimeo.com/1223698
Mostly 18 / 12dB...
-Steve

[Bill Grant]

Stephen, what preset etc. here? I also think the 18 looks useable. The 12db is actually a nicer picture to me, it seems more like the actual light in the situation. Good stuff.
Bill

[Steve Lewis]

Originally Posted by Bill Grant

Stephen, what preset etc. here?
Bill

Hi Bill,
The shot of the restaurant with the lights in the windows was the REALITY presets, however the rest were just straight A1 (no preset).

[Nathan Nazeck]

Hey Stephen,
Just as a side note, it your final product is HD, then 18 will be pretty noticeable, but if your downconverting to standard DVD at the end, a lot of the grain will disappear. At 12 the grain almost entirely disappears on a down convert. For a lot of my stuff I would prefer to deliver a standard progressive Dvd than a true HD product since I'm always shooting in low light.

[Steve Lewis]

The final product will be a SD DVD, however I will also upload it to the web in HD. I think I might have to go with 18db just to get enough of the image... or would it be better to shoot with a lower gain in camera and then adjust brightness/color in post?

[Dmitry Futoryan]

Originally Posted by Nathan Nazeck

Hey Stephen,
Just as a side note, it your final product is HD, then 18 will be pretty noticeable, but if your downconverting to standard DVD at the end, a lot of the grain will disappear. At 12 the grain almost entirely disappears on a down convert. For a lot of my stuff I would prefer to deliver a standard progressive Dvd than a true HD product since I'm always shooting in low light.

Nathan, that's a really helpful point, as I'm currently working on a project with several low light shots using 12dB gain.

I feel a lot more confident in delivering my footage on a DVD now than I was before, since I had been editing the whole thing in HD.

Thanks!

-Dmitry

[Nathan Nazeck]

Originally Posted by Steve Lewis

The final product will be a SD DVD, however I will also upload it to the web in HD. I think I might have to go with 18db just to get enough of the image... or would it be better to shoot with a lower gain in camera and then adjust brightness/color in post?

I've found that boosting the image in post after using 12 is usually a little cleaner than using 18 straight. It still adds some grain when you boost it, but 18 is quite bit dirtier than 12. We use 12 at just about every reception that we shoot and its acceptable most of the time. especially on an SD DVD

[J.J. Kim]

I didn't want to make a new thread so I am adding on to this one.
I shot weddings with my A1 and the other videographer has sony pd170 (or 150) and his image on low light does not lose the saturation of the color. I Am not so worried about the image being so grainy (12db does pretty good job with lower shutter speed) but I have noticed contrast, saturation of the color looks so washed out on my camera. I am trying to fix that on post (i edited , too) and there is a limit...
I have wedding this weekend and I hate to hear "JJ, your camera looks too different from our camera. use ours (or rent one)" cause imho PD170 is too small to handle, and I love my canon. Any preset tricks for that? I sometimes use vivid color, but on low light, it does not help so much... help, please?

[Tony Nguyen]

Thanks for sharing. I looked at your other videos too. The images are quite amazing! What preset did you use to shoot the wild fire and Jack's rehearsal?

[Steve Lewis]

Originally Posted by Tony Nguyen

Thanks for sharing. I looked at your other videos too. The images are quite amazing! What preset did you use to shoot the wild fire and Jack's rehearsal?

Hey thanks Tony!
If memory serves, those two were shot with the REALITY preset!
-Steve