Exterior night shooting with HVX

B

BrianF

Member
I'm helping someone out with some shooting on a nature documentary. I'm all set for shooting daytime footage (tele converter, etc.).

But the best chance of getting footage of certain animals we'll be seeking is at night - without any lights (which would scare the animals away). There will be another shooter with a specialized thermal imaging setup, so that style of footage is taken care of.

I'm just wondering, could the HVX possibly be of any use at all in the woods at night, or should I just leave it behind at base camp on the night expeditions?

Is infrared a possibility? I'm not going to rent a separate camera like the DVC30 to take infrared footage, but I might rent just an infrared spotlight if there's any way to set the HVX to pick up that information.

Anybody ever shoot anything by moonlight with the HVX? Fwiw, there will be a full moon with likely clear skies on the night we'll shoot. And any footage of any quality will be worthwhile with some of these animals, which have rarely been shot in the wild.

Would appreciate anyone's two cents on this...
 
All cameras have an IR filter (IR light will be as useful as tits on a bull), otherwise your pictures would look very strange. The DVC30 removes it when shooting IR. HVX is very poor in low light anyway, so I don't think you'll be able to get anything but sound from it in the moonlight.
 
The Engineer said:
I don't think you'll be able to get anything but sound from it in the moonlight.
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lol, that is real. I think you have a del-ema in your hands. Try to re direct the natural light !? I think the HVX does a bad job on dark scenes but a little light, opend the shutter all the way, and get it at a high frame rate and take the clips you dont need out, adjust contrast, & C it might work out.
 
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Try the 2fps hack and dial in a 350d shutter...that will give you a 1/2 second exposure time per frame... and pray the animal lays still... :)
 
I'll disclaim my (non)expertise in advance since I'm a new HVX owner, but I think your question would be best answered by simply taking your HVX out in a similar night time environment for a quick test shoot and seeing the results for yourself.

I'm sure someone will correct me on this if I have it wrong or leave out something important, but I think the best low light results, assuming you want to shoot HD, would be in 24 frame mode at 1/24th shutter, aperture wide open, and definitely not on the Cine-like gamma/matrix settings. If I remember correctly, the HD Norm gamma is the least light-hungry. As far as 720p vs 1080i, I'm not sure that matters. There may be some other scene file settings you could tweak to improve things a bit too.

As always, avoid using gain if possible, but noisy night time nature shots are commonplace, and usually forgiven by viewers for extreme graininess because what really matters most is seeing the critters as clearly as possible, not picture quality. So use it if you need it. If you get a noisy but workable shot, everyone should understand why it doesn't look like the evening news. After all, night-vision or infrared shots, while they produce viewable images too, look awful by any other standard.

Bottom line is, while there's no question the HVX is far from ideal for the situation, only you can judge whether its results make it worth doing or not.

Best of luck!


BrianF said:
I'm helping someone out with some shooting on a nature documentary. I'm all set for shooting daytime footage (tele converter, etc.).

But the best chance of getting footage of certain animals we'll be seeking is at night - without any lights (which would scare the animals away). There will be another shooter with a specialized thermal imaging setup, so that style of footage is taken care of.

I'm just wondering, could the HVX possibly be of any use at all in the woods at night, or should I just leave it behind at base camp on the night expeditions?

Is infrared a possibility? I'm not going to rent a separate camera like the DVC30 to take infrared footage, but I might rent just an infrared spotlight if there's any way to set the HVX to pick up that information.

Anybody ever shoot anything by moonlight with the HVX? Fwiw, there will be a full moon with likely clear skies on the night we'll shoot. And any footage of any quality will be worthwhile with some of these animals, which have rarely been shot in the wild.

Would appreciate anyone's two cents on this...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks all for some very helpful information.

The Engineer - I wasn't aware exactly why some cameras do IR and some don't. Thanks for the info on that. It's good to know how black and white (so to speak) this issue is.

Segarza - I'll try this as an experiment before I go. This is exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. If I end up getting a natural moonlit HD shot of a critter who stays still for a few seconds, and it looks better than the SD thermal-image shot by the other shooter, that would justify dragging the HVX and sticks out there.

Ted Spencer - Thanks. Your comment jogged my memory -- Barry's book/CD has a "LOLITE" sample scene file, so I'll try that in combination with the other techniques.

Again, I appreciate everyone's generous help on this question. Who knows, perhaps because of these suggestions I'll be the first to get an HD shot of some of these animals. (Provided that I, the HVX and the batteries survive all night in 20-degree weather.)
 
Segarza said:
Try the 2fps hack and dial in a 350d shutter...that will give you a 1/2 second exposure time per frame... and pray the animal lays still... :)
Click to expand...

By "2 fps hack" do you mean shooting at 30p with 16F interval (page 49 of Barry's book)?

I tried that, but unfortunately interval recording requires VIDEO CAM mode, and the 350d shutter requires FILM CAM mode. They seem to exclude each other. The longest exposure I could manage in VIDEO CAM mode was 1/30.
 
Nope, there's a post somewhere in DVXUser where it explains how to get down to 2fps in FILM CAM mode. You have to use an SD card and text editor program. Works in any of the 720p modes.
 
THE HVX will definitely work in the 20 degree weather. I just finished spending a night @ 12 degrees and worked like it was 80 out. Weather has little to no effect on its performance.
 
yeah the 2fps hack and a 350 degree shutter

then boost gain as needed....(if needed)

I've shot in damn near pitch black like this.....

.....its not the most beautiful picture but if you're doing a nature documentary its about the animals in their natural environment, you're not trying to win cinematography and lighting awards

and you can always slow the footy down in post, good luck
 
DelRio said:
THE HVX will definitely work in the 20 degree weather. I just finished spending a night @ 12 degrees and worked like it was 80 out. Weather has little to no effect on its performance.
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Mike Single used the HVX in Antarctica at the South Pole, 46 degrees below zero. He said it performed great, no problems whatsoever except that the LCD started to become a bit of an ICD ("ice"-crystal display)...
 
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