Filming with a 7d in a nightclub - advice needed please

A

Angelis

Active member
Hi

Any suggestions as to what lens and settings I should use on my 7d for filming in a night club?

I'm going to be renting a Canon 24mm F1.4L and a 50mm F1.2L

I've also got an 85mm F1.8 as well.

My initial thoughts are that I'll end up using the 24mm most of the time.
 
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Those are good.. I shoot w/ 17-50 f2.8 and 50 1.4... Maybe get some on cam lights just in case.. Try not to go over 1600 iso if it gets really dark..

here is an example..

 
it will depend a lot on how much light that particular place has

here in Spain they're usually very, very dark: with my T2i, on the place I like most here in Madrid, f/1.4, 1/50s, ISO 1600 yields somewhat underexposed images (skin tones around 30 to 60 IRE for the somewhat-lit parts, and 10 to 30 IRE for the bits in shadow) (sorry, no footage)

if you find this kind of issues, you can go for noise reduction plugins (neat video or MB denoiser will give you less sharpness but palatable noise levels at ISO 3200 on your 7D), or just rent a different body too (GH2 or NEX-5N); or you can just go for the dark aesthetic: keep stuff dark and use strobes to get detail (not always nice with rolling shutter), and color lights from the club to paint shapes (not easy)

with some luck, it will just not be so damn dark
 
I shoot with F1.4 lenses in night clubs mostly, I use a 30mm Sigma and a 85mm Bower. Between those two I like what I get. I've shot with F1.8 and it works okay, but anything slower in most clubs I have a hard time.
 
Thanks everyone

Kastro said:
Those are good.. I shoot w/ 17-50 f2.8 and 50 1.4... Maybe get some on cam lights just in case.. Try not to go over 1600 iso if it gets really dark..

here is an example..
Click to expand...

Thanks for the video.

I've got a 2.8 17-55mm which i'll take along just in case.

NormanBates said:
it will depend a lot on how much light that particular place has

here in Spain they're usually very, very dark: with my T2i, on the place I like most here in Madrid, f/1.4, 1/50s, ISO 1600 yields somewhat underexposed images (skin tones around 30 to 60 IRE for the somewhat-lit parts, and 10 to 30 IRE for the bits in shadow) (sorry, no footage)

if you find this kind of issues, you can go for noise reduction plugins (neat video or MB denoiser will give you less sharpness but palatable noise levels at ISO 3200 on your 7D), or just rent a different body too (GH2 or NEX-5N); or you can just go for the dark aesthetic: keep stuff dark and use strobes to get detail (not always nice with rolling shutter), and color lights from the club to paint shapes (not easy)

with some luck, it will just not be so damn dark
Click to expand...

Guess I'm just going to hope that I'm lucky. Not going to have time to go there in advance. Have used NEAT in teh past, so will use it as backup.

Rick Burnett said:
I shoot with F1.4 lenses in night clubs mostly, I use a 30mm Sigma and a 85mm Bower. Between those two I like what I get. I've shot with F1.8 and it works okay, but anything slower in most clubs I have a hard time.
Click to expand...

Looks like I wil be renting the 1.2 & 1.4 after all.

Thanks again.
 
NormanBates said:
it will depend a lot on how much light that particular place has

here in Spain they're usually very, very dark: with my T2i, on the place I like most here in Madrid, f/1.4, 1/50s, ISO 1600 yields somewhat underexposed images (skin tones around 30 to 60 IRE for the somewhat-lit parts, and 10 to 30 IRE for the bits in shadow) (sorry, no footage)

if you find this kind of issues, you can go for noise reduction plugins (neat video or MB denoiser will give you less sharpness but palatable noise levels at ISO 3200 on your 7D), or just rent a different body too (GH2 or NEX-5N); or you can just go for the dark aesthetic: keep stuff dark and use strobes to get detail (not always nice with rolling shutter), and color lights from the club to paint shapes (not easy)

with some luck, it will just not be so damn dark
Click to expand...

Thats the first time I've heard a GH2 suggested over a 7D for low light. Even with this new 12800 ISO it's going to be useless with the noise relative to how much image you're going to get.
 
the GH2 is much better than the 7D for low light

even before the hack, it has nearly-clean ISO 3200

the NEX-5N also has that, but the GH2 has an additional advantage: once ISO and noise are set in stone, having a smaller sensor is actually helpful for low light, in the sense that you can go for higher aperture and your DoF is not utterly crushed (relative to APS-C, you can open your lens half a stop more for the same DoF; relative to full-frame, you can open your lens two stops more for the same DoF)
(the tricky part is getting a small-sensor camera with clean high ISO, but the GH2 has that)

anyway, I'm certainly not the first to suggest such things, and the hack just gave it even more advantage
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?267504-Is-the-gh2-the-new-low-light-high-ISO-DSLR-king
 
NormanBates said:
the GH2 is much better than the 7D for low light

even before the hack, it has nearly-clean ISO 3200

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?267504-Is-the-gh2-the-new-low-light-high-ISO-DSLR-king
Click to expand...

Interesting. What are you basing this statement on? I am not disputing you, but was struck by your claim because I always thought the opposite, based on the 7d's larger sensor. Sensor size is one of the major influences on noise of course.

What do you make of this:

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Ca...d)/Panasonic/(appareil2)/619|0/(brand2)/Canon

Dxo seems to measure the 7d's low light performance as better. Can you explain?
 
that dxomark test is for stills, where you're using the full sensor in both cameras; in video mode, you're using the whole sensor on the GH2, and only 1/3 of it on the canon DSLRs (because of line skipping); I believe the NEX-5N is also using the whole sensor

as for where I got the info from, mostly from comments from people owning all of them, like Philip Bloom; I can't find the tweets now, but I read them at the time; and there are also some nice tests around the web:
http://vimeo.com/24369181
http://vimeo.com/17542556 (ISO 3200 test at the end)
http://vimeo.com/32248320
http://vimeo.com/29521919 (edited to add this one; it's not clear if it's ISO 1600 or 3200, but it's from a fellow forum member, you can get more info directly from him: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?263791-Who-s-using-Nex-5n)

(sorry for having derrailed the thread; at least we got to a closing point before that: the only thing remaining here is for Angelis to share his experience and maybe some footage!!)
 
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NormanBates said:
that dxomark test is for stills, where you're using the full sensor in both cameras; in video mode, you're using the whole sensor on the GH2, and only 1/3 of it on the canon DSLRs (because of line skipping); I believe the NEX-5N is also using the whole sensor

as for where I got the info from, mostly from comments from people owning all of them, like Philip Bloom; I can't find the tweets now, but I read them at the time; and there are also some nice tests around the web:
http://vimeo.com/24369181
http://vimeo.com/17542556 (ISO 3200 test at the end)
http://vimeo.com/32248320
http://vimeo.com/29521919 (edited to add this one; it's not clear if it's ISO 1600 or 3200, but it's from a fellow forum member, you can get more info directly from him: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?263791-Who-s-using-Nex-5n)

(sorry for having derrailed the thread; at least we got to a closing point before that: the only thing remaining here is for Angelis to share his experience and maybe some footage!!)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the data. Pretty sweet low light capabilities for GH2 users then!
 
NormanBates said:
that dxomark test is for stills, where you're using the full sensor in both cameras; in video mode, you're using the whole sensor on the GH2, and only 1/3 of it on the canon DSLRs (because of line skipping); I believe the NEX-5N is also using the whole sensor

as for where I got the info from, mostly from comments from people owning all of them, like Philip Bloom; I can't find the tweets now, but I read them at the time; and there are also some nice tests around the web:
http://vimeo.com/24369181
http://vimeo.com/17542556 (ISO 3200 test at the end)
http://vimeo.com/32248320
http://vimeo.com/29521919 (edited to add this one; it's not clear if it's ISO 1600 or 3200, but it's from a fellow forum member, you can get more info directly from him: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?263791-Who-s-using-Nex-5n)

(sorry for having derrailed the thread; at least we got to a closing point before that: the only thing remaining here is for Angelis to share his experience and maybe some footage!!)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the answer. I didn't realise the GH2 resampled from the whole sensor. So there must be almost no moire and aliasing.
 
jamesd256 said:
Thanks for the answer. I didn't realise the GH2 resampled from the whole sensor. So there must be almost no moire and aliasing.
Click to expand...

That is definitely not true. The GH2 does alias. When I was comparing it to the AF100, I found tight high spatial frequency lines aliased very easily actually. In particular, the fins on an air conditioning system on the side of a house.

I am not sure what Panasonic does to reduce the resolution, but whatever it is, it's definitely taking some sort of shortcut. It's definitely better than the Canon method, but I found the AF100 performance on aliasing to be MUCH better.
 
ok, so let's leave it at: GH2 seems to use the whole sensor, but the debayering or downsampling could be better, so it still has some aliasin - in any case, the thread is completely derailed... Angelis: did you shoot this already? how did it go?
 
NormanBates said:
the GH2 is much better than the 7D for low light

even before the hack, it has nearly-clean ISO 3200

the NEX-5N also has that, but the GH2 has an additional advantage: once ISO and noise are set in stone, having a smaller sensor is actually helpful for low light, in the sense that you can go for higher aperture and your DoF is not utterly crushed (relative to APS-C, you can open your lens half a stop more for the same DoF; relative to full-frame, you can open your lens two stops more for the same DoF)
(the tricky part is getting a small-sensor camera with clean high ISO, but the GH2 has that)

anyway, I'm certainly not the first to suggest such things, and the hack just gave it even more advantage
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?267504-Is-the-gh2-the-new-low-light-high-ISO-DSLR-king
Click to expand...

I have Gh2 and 7D and 60D, I like GH2 for what it is, but please don't spread misinformation like this around, ISO 3200 is noisy as hell and yes I'm using the hack, and it ain't better than 7D in low light, more noise than 7D for sure, the only better thing is noise on GH2 is more black and white and 7D is more color noise, I understand the enthusiasm of such a good camera for a low price but saying ISO 3200 is nearly clean and better low light than 7D is just plain GH2 fan boys talk, btw the link you posted, the video has been through a noise reduction software, not true representation of noise of the camera.
 
PSA1 said:
I have Gh2 and 7D and 60D, I like GH2 for what it is, but please don't spread misinformation like this around, ISO 3200 is noisy as hell and yes I'm using the hack, and it ain't better than 7D in low light, more noise than 7D for sure, the only better thing is noise on GH2 is more black and white and 7D is more color noise, I understand the enthusiasm of such a good camera for a low price but saying ISO 3200 is nearly clean and better low light than 7D is just plain GH2 fan boys talk, btw the link you posted, the video has been through a noise reduction software, not true representation of noise of the camera.
Click to expand...

Although I would add there is nothing wrong with using noise reduction software if you can get a good final result with it. I've used it before with 7D footage and at least Neat Video does a good job.
 
mmm... very sorry if this is not true, I read from other GH2 users that ISO 3200 was, at least, clean-ish, and definitely better than on the 7D (edit: for example here: http://vimeo.com/17542556 ) - my bad if that's not the case - any samples we can look at? (also, I have MB denoiser, and of course it helps, but I think we were all talking about pre-NR footage; following my link there's a very long thread with lots of samples, some with NR and some without it)
 
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NormanBates said:
ok, so let's leave it at: GH2 seems to use the whole sensor, but the debayering or downsampling could be better, so it still has some aliasin - in any case, the thread is completely derailed... Angelis: did you shoot this already? how did it go?
Click to expand...

I'm shooting it next thursday.

Will report back after the the party. Never done anything like this before so excited but also dreading it.
 
Relax.. You'll be good man.. You have some 1.4s and you can go up to like 1600 iso and be ok.. Unless you plan on delivering on some other medium other than the web.
 
Kastro said:
Relax.. You'll be good man.. You have some 1.4s and you can go up to like 1600 iso and be ok.. Unless you plan on delivering on some other medium other than the web.
Click to expand...

It's all for the web.

Haven't really done anything like this before and haven't used the 7d much. My main camera is a Canon XF300.

Did a test shoot with it on Halloween. Most of it ended up out of focus.

Used a Canon 17-55mm 2.8 lens. Will use a Cineroid and a monopod on thursday.

PS. The Police set up a road block and stopped 15 cars, including mine. Gave us a stern warning.

 
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