Newbie: Shooting at night with DVX 100B

A

alanthing

New member
I'll preface this post with stating that I am a totally amateur at video production. I know a little bit from high school and I know a good deal of terms but I'm a computer nerd, not a video guy.

With that said, I'm doing a video shoot Sunday evening around 8pm-10pm. We're doing it in a parking lot with street lights, but we do not have lights of our own, and we can't go buy any. I know the picture won't be as good as it could be with lights, but I don't have any other choice. I'd like some tips on how to set up my camera, DVX 100B, to get the best possible picture given the conditions.

I'm assuming that I need to turn off auto anything: iris, focus. I have a white balance sheet that I can set to underneath the street light I guess. The iris can be adjusted manually, but since it'll be dark it'll need to be opened all the way. Will I have to use the Gain? That might lower the quality, but I haven't done a night shoot before. Manual focus, not auto focus.

Are there other settings that I could use to improve my picture? Maybe the scene file settings? (I don't know what half of them do, like Gamma) I really want to learn more about my camera and video in general but don't really know where to start. The instruction manual only says so much and doesn't put it in laymen's terms.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for the tips!
 
Also, if it helps with the suggestions I get, in post in using Final Cut Studio 2, and I don't after After Effects.

Thanks!
 
You're result will be pretty much unusable unless you light it decently. I would suggest going to Home Depot and spending a few bucks on some 500W halogen flood lights. The will at least give you some usable light and it shouldn't break the bank...
 
set the shutter for 1/24 instead of 1/48. It'll blur movement a little, but it will also double the light.
 
Tommy is correct, you'll need some light shining on it. Fortunately for you, the DVX can do pretty well in low light. Better than most cameras in its class. Here are a few more pointers for getting the brightest picture with the light available:

- Make sure the ND filter is set to off
- Set the Gain to High (12db)
- Iris will open all the way in automatic mode, but you could still manually open it.

Turning the gain up will make the image more grainy, but that's the tradeoff for shooting in low light. Make sure you turn it back to 0db when you are done because it is easy to forget in daylight and it will make your daylight video look bad.

ag-dvx100.jpg__jpeg_image__1419x874_pixels_-20070922-171800.jpg
 
Thanks for the tips everyone! We ended up doing the video under parking lot street lights and it turned out really nice! We only had to turn the gain on when we strayed from the lights, which wasn't often. I would've tried the shutter speed setting but everything looked okay on the normal setting. I wrote that down and will keep it in my list of things I can use.
 
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