Low light question at DVinfo.net

John Patrick Murphy · August 19th, 2008, 07:39 PM

I recently did my very first wedding, man was I nervous. And overall it came out really well. The wedding was on a beach in California, and even though I've owned the A1 for awhile now I was really impressed with the color quality.

All of the footage of the ceremony itself came out relatively flawless until I got to the reception. It was fine during all of the speeches and cake dealings. But during the garder/flower bit I ran into some trouble. I will be posting footage it just takes forever to compress. The room was lit with strings of "christmas lights" all of the way around the room and one very very dim light in the center of an aproxiamate 50x50 area. I had to go auto focus at this point as people were moving around alot. The real problem was the footage got all grainy. And while you can certainly see what's going on it still is a bit troublesome to me. It only got worse when the "dances" started. The video's not unbearable but it's remnant of a camera nowhere near the quality of the A1. Luckily I was "employed" by my best friend, the groom, so he really doesn't care about the grain.

My question is, if I ever run into this again is there anyway around it? I didn't really have time to mess with exposure since I didn't want to ruin some portions of the reception. But any suggestions would help.

Bill Pryor · August 19th, 2008, 08:03 PM

It sounds like you were shooting with auto gain on. When the gain goes up so does the grain. Use the camera in manual modes and you can probably find a compromise that's not so grainy. It may be better to be a stop underexposed at a +6 than better exposure at a +12. I've found that you can shoot at +6 and be reasonably decent but +12 isn't so good. Make sure your ND is off, of course, and auto shutter and auto iris off too. Sometimes if you're shooting 60i you can reduce shutter speed to 1/30 if people aren't moving fast and get by with that and gain a little light.

August 19th, 2008, 07:39 PM	#1
John Patrick Murphy New Boot Join Date: May 2008 Location: West Springfield, MA Posts: 14	Low light question I recently did my very first wedding, man was I nervous. And overall it came out really well. The wedding was on a beach in California, and even though I've owned the A1 for awhile now I was really impressed with the color quality. All of the footage of the ceremony itself came out relatively flawless until I got to the reception. It was fine during all of the speeches and cake dealings. But during the garder/flower bit I ran into some trouble. I will be posting footage it just takes forever to compress. The room was lit with strings of "christmas lights" all of the way around the room and one very very dim light in the center of an aproxiamate 50x50 area. I had to go auto focus at this point as people were moving around alot. The real problem was the footage got all grainy. And while you can certainly see what's going on it still is a bit troublesome to me. It only got worse when the "dances" started. The video's not unbearable but it's remnant of a camera nowhere near the quality of the A1. Luckily I was "employed" by my best friend, the groom, so he really doesn't care about the grain. My question is, if I ever run into this again is there anyway around it? I didn't really have time to mess with exposure since I didn't want to ruin some portions of the reception. But any suggestions would help.

August 19th, 2008, 08:03 PM	#2
Bill Pryor Contributor Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 4,449	It sounds like you were shooting with auto gain on. When the gain goes up so does the grain. Use the camera in manual modes and you can probably find a compromise that's not so grainy. It may be better to be a stop underexposed at a +6 than better exposure at a +12. I've found that you can shoot at +6 and be reasonably decent but +12 isn't so good. Make sure your ND is off, of course, and auto shutter and auto iris off too. Sometimes if you're shooting 60i you can reduce shutter speed to 1/30 if people aren't moving fast and get by with that and gain a little light.