Low light capabilities of the 7D

[ScottNelson]

Over 7 nights I shot over 3000 exposures (10 sec @ f2.8, 640 ISO ) and combined them in FCP7 to create this timelapse using both the Tokina 11-16 and 16-50. With a full moon, night becomes day.

With the full moon I needed to add contrast to the grading in order pull the stars out of the sky, hence some additional grain. In the RAW images, the stars were hardly visible. It's virtually a 'night for day' vs. the standard 'day for night'.

Tried the long exposure NR but with RAW, the NR took as long as the exposure and left too long a gap between intervals. As it was, I shot 10 sec exp. every 12 seconds. I re-encoded the video with less grading and contrast and reduced the noise somewhat.

One difference was the effect of the full moon. Before grading, most of the stars were invisible.

Thanks for comments,
Scott

 

[callumjbuckley]

Over 7 nights I shot over 3000 exposures (10 sec @ f2.8, 640 ISO ) and combined them in FCP7 to create this timelapse using both the Tokina 11-16 and 16-50. With a full moon, night becomes day.

Nice shots but looks very grainy?

 

[Fellipe]

sorry, but a 10sec exposure is not a capability of the canon 7d.
What I mean is, since you used the shutter speed to achieve the desired exposure, you could pretty much have the same 'low light' quality with any digita and film average camera.

Have said that, what a wonderful video you've made!

 

[TooTallTim]

Nice, but you could make a much cleaner image by shooting at a lower ISO and lowering your shutter speed even more. Don't forget that because you're shooting stills rather than video, you can also use the long exposure noise reduction feature of the 7D to minimize the digital noise you're getting in this.
Saying that, some of that noise might be down to the compression you've used, some codecs hate graduating exposures such as skies.