Grainy with ND filter

ripupthehwy

ripupthehwy

Well-known member
Ok, I could really use some input from you who have used the HD100 extensively. Last month we shot a local drama television show. We shot in 4:3 SD but used 24p and cinelook settings. After some color correcting in post, the show looks pretty good. This month we decided to shoot in HDV. Our first shoot day was on a boat on a sunny day. We used ND filter 1 and 2 settings. Now, I never use auto iris (on a dv camera, are you kidding??? they're always overexposed). I like to shoot with a low iris, especially with bright sunlight because overexposed areas just scream "Video look" which is not good when you are going for a film look. I like to crank the iris down just below the zebra patterns. Still with me? Ok, when I went back and watched the footage on an HD monitor, wow it was soft and grainy. I know these 1/3 chip cameras tend to be more grainer than bigger chips but im thinking this is just looking bad! Should I go ahead and shoot with more exposure and risk the look of video in the hot/bright areas of the picture? Any suggestions? would an external screw on ND filter look better than the built in filters on the HD100??

Thanks for input.
 
From my experience, on a really bright day, the built in ND filters were not enough. We just use a screw on filter in addition to the built in ones. Get yourself one or 2 screw on filters so you can cope with any reasonable amount of light - in combination with the built in ones you can really cover a lot of levels.

Lenses tend to get softer at some point with a small enough aperture due to diffraction. On these 1/3" HD cameras, I've heard that point is somewhere around f/8. If you're up at f/8, slap on another 2 stops of ND to bring you back down to f/4. Or even 3 stops to get to f/2.8. If my math is right :)

Just for the record, the two levels of ND built into the camera are 1/4 and 1/16. An additional 2 stop screw on filter will give you the ability to get 1/4, 1/16, and 1/64 which should be enough for most shooting. If you need different values, get some different ND filters.

Get good ones too.
 
Also don't forget about your shutter speed's. Try a higher shutter speed to work with bright sunlight and over exposure.
 
ripupthehwy said:
would an external screw on ND filter look better than the built in filters on the HD100??
Click to expand...

We've been having great luck in very bright light with a Heliopan ND9 in addition to the built in ND's. I've read posts that indicate shooting at F8 and higher causes worse images but I haven't really tested it myself. Sounds like you just did though. :-)
 
No 1/3" HD camera does well at f8 or smaller (meaning f/11 or f/16). In fact, the Canon stops the iris at 9.5, and the Sony has a menu option to limit how small the iris can go (choices of f/4, f/5.6 or f/8 I believe).

You don't ever want to use f/11 on your lens when shooting HD. F/11 = softer footage. f/16 = really, really soft. Stick to f/8 or more open than f/8, and that applies for all the 1/3" cameras.
 
ripupthehwy ,
I've found that in hard mid day light, I tend to over expose just a tad.
Set the zebras for "0ver 100" and only let very small amounts of the image (things that are not of concern) over expose.

Due to the limited lattiude of 1/3" cameras, bright outdoor shots need to be carefully set. Of course, this depends on the shot, but be careful trying to get
no zebras in broad mid-day light. You may find you under exposed most of the shot. Also, experiment with settings like black stretch to pull the most detail out of the shadows.

We've been doing a lot of experimenting preparing for upcoming work. I'm not sure if Joel has announced this, but he has an HD100 on order. He also owns the HVX200.
 
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I think you will find that HD100 to work best in the F4 - F5.6 range (at least with the stock lens).
 
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