Black and White / Low light

T

tdolanguage

Member
I've been running some tests on my panasonic dvx100B, trying to figure out the best way to get a good quality black and white image. So far I've found everything I shoot turns out to very noisy. This is the same problem I've ran into when shooting low light and it's one of my biggest qualms with these digital cameras.

As always I very much appreciate the help and ideas.
 
more light! lol and turn off the gain if it's on. Pour on more light to get good contrast and adjust the iris until it looks pretty good. And if you want less noise, shoot a little more open that you normally would and crush the blacks in post, it gets reid of a lot of noise in dark spots
 
So by shooting more open I'm assuming you mean to set the proper exposure to a fairly open iris, not to overexpose.

The problem with adding too much more light is that I want it to be dark. I.e., I want the background to be black. The problem I keep having is that black is always black, but black with noise. And then everything seems to be magnified with image manipulation in post.

--T
 
can you post some grabs so we can see exactly what your doing?

remember that you're lighting for the camera, not for your eye. Often dark scene are actually brightly lit, that how you get good contrast. First "Light" the scene, then find out how dark you want it, using things like iris, masterped, and making it darker in post. Let me see if I can post an example.

And if your blackest blacks have a lot of noise, make sure the gain is off. After that, crush them in post. If there was no detail in them before then your only removing noise.
 
eek, these are not the best examples (I've learned a lot since these) but the idea should still show.

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In these scenes I wanted it to appear in a black void. But I like to think they're pretty well lit, and to achieve that I had a lot of lights and all that light spilled over everything, you could all of the floor, all the walls, etc, but I stopped down and turned down my masterped until the dar areas just went to black.

If when those areas go to black everything else gets too dark, well then you don't have enough light oh your subject. :) Almost everything I do tends to be very dark so this is a technique I had to learn really early (these grabs are from the first thing I ever light actually)
 
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What's the most you'll stop down your iris before it results in a sloppy or soft image? What settings are you using for the clips you sent.
 
this year almost 2 years ago, so i dont remeber the settings, but they were different for each shot anyway.

just remember to use your eye and experiment.
 
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