Gain vs. shutter vs. DVX100 in lowlight

Jacob Nielsen

Active member
When I shoot under low light conditions, I tend to rather shoot 1/50 with some gain than 1/25 (shutter off) - especially if there is some motion or panning. I think the EX's gain noise is rather fine and grainy which doesn't bother me. In fact the gain noise looks a bit like my DVX100's native noise which I also liked. But what do you guys prefer for the best filmic look? I think 1/25 gets too blurry.

Just out of curiousity - why did Sony go for 1/25 shutter off, where Panasonic chose 1/50? Initially you would think the EX1 is even one stop brighter in one of the progressive modes when you first look at the lcd - but soon you realize the shutter defaults at 1/25 and not 1/50 like the DVX. The EX1 is very comparable to the sensitivity of my DVX which is really good, however you can apply a lot of gain to the EX1 before the noise shows up, so realistically we are speaking maybe two stops more effective sensitivity.
 
It only makes sense (at least to me), if you're shooting at 25, shutter off would be just that 1/25.
I'm not sure why the HVX200 is that way. I'm sure someone will jump in and offer this information.
My JVC HD100 behaves like the EX1.
 
Panasonic is the odd duck here. Shutter Off, in a normal broadcast camera, means that no shutter is employed.

With the Panasonic it should be thought of as "shutter DEFAULT" instead of "shutter OFF".
 
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