Do you have grainy A1 footage?

Jay Rodriguez

Jay Rodriguez

Coffee Member
Do yourself a favor and switch the AGC (auto gain control) OFF!

Then you might want to head into the menu selection and set your gain to -3.
 
In addition to that make sure you go into the preset menu and set your knee control.
 
It will make an incredible difference. Assuming you have some light on your subject or enough natural light and you dont turn the gain up.
 
So gain is bad for making the picture look smooth, what is the function of gain and when would it be a good time to turn it back on? Or to use a high gain setting?
 
That's how I have my camera, it's always in the -3 phase but I set it for "0" the other day as I was shooting indoors on a rainy day. It was just too dark @ -3.
 
Night Life Saver

Night Life Saver

Jay Rodriguez said:
Do yourself a favor and switch the AGC (auto gain control) OFF!

Then you might want to head into the menu selection and set your gain to -3.
Click to expand...

Oh my rod!! I wish they would put that in the manual "Our gain causes serious grain issues". I just shot a night scene last night and it looks like tooshie. I did some tests in complete dark with -3 on L and AGC off and it looks like I just bought a new camera. Exactly what I was looking for!

Thank you so much for posting this!

T
 
thumbsup2.gif
 
Setting the camera to AGC will boost the gain up as high as needed for any situation. So it will go to 36db in low light and the 36db setting is unuseable except for some kind of surveilance photography. The 18db gain setting however is to me very useable in HDV. 18db at 1/30 at wide open is about all you can get out of this camera but will work well.
 
Kosher said:
I wish they would put that in the manual "Our gain causes serious grain issues".
Click to expand...

I want to add a point of reference. The Gain control is the same for any cams. As Barry posted Gain = grain.

I was shooting at the longer end of the lense last week and had the cam at 6db, not that it needed it, we wanted a grainier look. Wiith the bokeh from the shorter DOF it looked rather nice IMO. Sorry no screen caps of that - as I am not editing it. Ill shoot an example though for reference.
 
After a weekend filled with a lot of useless grainy footage on our new XHA1, and a relentless search for the past 4-5 hours, I'm SO glad communities like this exist. I cannot wait to get home and try tweaking some of these settings.

All of our low-light/night shots are extremely grainy and washed out, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with what has been discussed here.
 
does it mean that in "green auto mode" it will produce not good pictures?
 
Last edited:
This happen the same to Sony pd150 make sure set that gain to manual and set it to 0. I don't know what have to be set on the canon. If you don't set the gain to manual all camcorder will come out horrible anyway. I got some pro user with Sony pd150 say the picture look too grainy in dark light . They didn't know that the gain is automatic in the background unless you block it the manual. A +0gain picture alway better then +9 gain. I only use gain when I'm not shooting professional stuff. Else if there is not enough light then use some on camera light else what you see what you get will not be better.

One story I should tell your when using the Sony. If ND filter is set to 1 or 2, and iris is set to manual the camera will not give out warning. Iris have to set to automatic in order the camera issue a warning. Last time I accident turn on the ND filter and iris is block the system not even give me a single warning. I look for all button and forgot the ND filter because thinking that the system should give me the warning. So that is the last time I shoot with +9 gain because I thought something wrong with my camcorder.
 
A lot of grain at 0 gain

A lot of grain at 0 gain

I was shooting in light that was not particularly low - over head, office flourescent light and in some clips the noise and grain were incredibly bad and not just in the blacks. I t appears that I accidentally left the gain on auto . Was that likely the problem? In some clips there was no noise and then some were awful. Thanks for any advice .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top