Grainy footage in a dark club

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percoplus

Active member
I shot a band in a jazz club and it was pretty dark. I used a "low light" custom preset I found on another forum. While it boosted exposure a bit, it left a very grainy and saturated video that makes me cringe to watch. I couldn't even get a decent focus. I know I can't get a perfect picture in those conditions, but I would sure like to tweak the camera as much as possible.

I shot 30p with a 0 gain, 1/30 shutter speed, AGC off, f2.2-2.4

"Low light" preset:
GAM N
KNE A
BLK S
PED 4
SET 0
SHP 0
HDF M
DHV 7
COR 3
NR1 L
NR2 H
CMX 1
CGN 16
CPH 2
RGN 4
Everything else at 0

How can I have tweaked this preset?
 
Any footage you can share?

You might want to get an on-camera LED light. I've done a few shoots in clubs and trying to shoot with the available light always turns out bad.

You may also want to try the PFVISION preset. I've read its THE best low light preset.
 
Insufficient light=noise in the dark area. No way to get around it. If anything you have to crush the blacks as much as you can so the camera doesn't try to get information from there and that'll generate noise.
 
i have the same problem but worst. we shot in a large theater (650 seats) I had the DVX100b on a 15ft boom and we had a Canon XL2 on a tripod but the closest we could get the XL2 was about 200feet back from the performers (without blocking the view of the audience).

and it was my call to use 24p setting on both cameras to try to simulate film but the footage is too grainy for me.

the DVX on the boom had to be set to auto focus, auto exposure etc cause we had no way of controlling it on the end of the boom and I think the XL2 was having a hard time distinguishing the subject from the rest of the black room. One second its trying to focus on the subject under spotlights, then when we zoom out, I think it was picking up the shadows and trying to compensate. Im not thrilled with the picture myself at all.

surprisingly, the clients said they liked it! it was a charity event which I basically did for, well, charity! they wanted a dvd in time for Christmas and the event was shot late October! they received the replicated dvds a few days ago.

it was a month of every day editing, trying to work with the picture, trying to adjust levels, colour, gamma, AND audio from 4 sources! to make matters worst the lighting AND audio were only installed in the theatre literally HOURS before the premiere event and Im not sure that the sound guy knew how to work it! We were tapped into their board so I had to really do a number on the audio after.

I think after replication, we even loose more definition cause the replicated disks seem even more grainy.

Im wondering if anyone knows of any tips for the grainy footage? like some special FCP export settings given this scenario and 24p?
 
DHLOGAN said:
You may also want to try the PFVISION preset. I've read its THE best low light preset.
Click to expand...
I'm not really into the presets all that much, I usually stick to correcting in post, but I agree that this is very good in low light. Definitely brightens up the image and cuts down on noise a surprising amount.
 
That wasn't so bad. The biggest problem to me was the shaky camera movement.

That said, I'm sure you had clipped channels due to the colored lights. You could try the flattest most desaturated settings to try and minimize that.
 
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