reducing grain/noise in lowlight... but at high Fstops?

Moz

Moz

Active member
interviewgraintu7.png

​

Shot at F6.8 1/60th 24pa​


The look is suppose to be ominous interview with outlined but blackened out face against a black background. A small about of the face visible is OK because we are going to mosaic it.

I have 500 watts of light behind about 4 feet away, and 120 watts in front aimed down at his lap. The sides are suppose to be black because its 4:3 footage that's on a 16:9 movie. The plan is to have the black background blend in with the black matte outside the frame. I can bring the levels down no problem to do it but then the grain becomes more noticeable in the highlights. I really want this to look clean and dry.

The scene file flat. I don't know much about it so it just set everything to near zero to get the cleanest image possible. (I guess I was wrong)

Detail level 0
V Detail level 0
Chroma level 0
Chroma phase 0
Color temp 0
Master Ped -5
A. iris level -3
Gamma Cinelike D
knee auto
Matrix Cinelike
skin tone DTL off
V detail freq thin
Progressive 24pa

So what am I doing wrong or what can I improve it with? I would really like it to be very sharp and clean; little noise with hard deep blacks against strong highlights. Should I try and stick to the lens sweet spot (around F4) and just up the shutter speed? Should I just shoot brighter and then darken it in post at the cost of highlight detail?

thanks in advance.

edit:

I think master pedal is the ticket. Will see if it improves it when we reshot tomorrow
 
Last edited:
master ped is how you crush your blacks. that should probably work fine. what is your gain set at, if anything?
 
buy a home depot clamp light and 60 watt bulb (White). put the light right out of frame and make sure it only spills where you want the light (im assumin you only want the light on his back/face area where you have it). dependin on how close the camera is, make sure your focus is low, near macro-ish 40-42 so only your subject is in focus. your gonna have to adjust the f to wha you think is best, obviously not blowin the light. keep camera gain off and in post crush the blacks a little bit but not to much
 
You're going to NOT light the subject AND mosaic them? Personally I'd go for a silhouette look with a tightly controlled circle of light on the BG, or a more complete backlight instead of just a kicker.

Unless... you're making a sequel to 2001. Looking at this again, it looks cool in a cinematic way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top