Low Light - HVX200

B

Ben_McElroy

Active member
Hello everyone, This weekend I was on a wedding shoot as a guest shooter (thankfully) to try out my new HVX200. The location was indoors at night, the room was primarily lit by Christmas lights and a few dimly lit overhead lights. The whole place was almost at candle light level. Needless to say I was having lots of problems trying to get good low-light footage.
I was shooting 1080i/60i and everything else was on auto. The camera could not seem to brighten the footage up automatically so I tried to use the gain feature and that made my footage terribly grainy. The whole night was a nightmare, I could not find any setting in the camera to brighten up the footage.
My entire time researching this camera I could not find any complaints about low light with this camera. I’m very disappointed in the HVX200. Is there something I’m doing wrong? Are there any settings that you could lend me to get decent looking low light footage?
Thank you.
 
I would be interested in knowing what tricks and techniques there are but I am guessing that you would basically just need to go into manual and turn the gain down to near zero and just have the image very dark.
 
Thanks for the response John, although the “image very dark” is unacceptable. Do you (or any one else?) have any low light experiences you would like to share with me. I’m missing?
Thanks.
 
Therer may be different mode settings? I am not experienced with the camera yet.

I should be getting one soon though :)
 
Ben_McElroy said:
Hello everyone, This weekend I was on a wedding shoot as a guest shooter (thankfully) to try out my new HVX200. The location was indoors at night, the room was primarily lit by Christmas lights and a few dimly lit overhead lights. The whole place was almost at candle light level. Needless to say I was having lots of problems trying to get good low-light footage.
I was shooting 1080i/60i and everything else was on auto. The camera could not seem to brighten the footage up automatically so I tried to use the gain feature and that made my footage terribly grainy. The whole night was a nightmare, I could not find any setting in the camera to brighten up the footage.
My entire time researching this camera I could not find any complaints about low light with this camera. I’m very disappointed in the HVX200. Is there something I’m doing wrong? Are there any settings that you could lend me to get decent looking low light footage?
Thank you.
Click to expand...

There are much better experts on this board than me, but in the month I've owned an HVX I've found that 720/24p at a shutter speed of 1/24th and a wide open aperture gives the best low-light HD performance without using gain. I believe Barry Green's book also suggests an optimum scene file for low light, and I'm sure it's not Cine-like D, which has the worst low light performance of all the scene files.

As I understand it, only the HVX's 24 fps rates allow the 1/24 shutter, which produces a very noticeably brighter result than even the next speed up (1/30). When each frame is fully exposed for its entire 1/24th of a second you're going to get the most light into the camera. Of course, a 1/24 shutter is pretty bad for motion scenes, including camera motion itself, so you'll need to be slow with pans and tilts, and fast action scenes will be somewwhat problematic.

If it's any comfort, I think all the "affordable" HD cameras are pretty bad in low light compared to similar 1/3" SD cameras (like a DVX100 for example), basically because of the larger number of much smaller pixels being crammed onto the same sized chip. Smaller pixels = less light output, and the increased number of them doesn't fully make up for it, thus the poorer low light performance.

Someone will correct me on any of this if I've got it wrong, I'm sure...
 
My initial reaction is that the 1080 60i mode is one of the least light sensitive settings in the HVX. The 1080 30p setting is a stop or more brighter. Combine that with the LOW-NOISE or LOW-LIGHT settings from Barry's HVX book, and a 180 degree or maybe slower shutter and you can (in most cases) get by with the gain set at 6 db to keep the noise down a bit.

If you must have 1080 60i foorage, the 1080 30p footage will convert nicely in post.

I've never shot a wedding so I can't quite feel your pain but keep in mind that the HVX is a very light-hungry camera. A dark wedding, especially a reception setting is going to push the limits if you have no control over lighting.

Shooting a wedding in low light combined with the limited P2 capacity, you may want to find a camera that is a match for what you are doing. The HVX isn't the camera for all situations. No camera is.
 
From the test that I have run, when shooting progressive with the HVX you need about a 32 footcandle minimum key when wide open at the short end of the lens, at the long end its closer to 64 footcandles.
 
1080/60i and 720/60p are darker than 24p or 30p modes.
Cinelike-V is darker than other gammas. Cinelike-D is the darkest of them all.
"High" is the brightest of the gammas. Toggle between CINE-D and HIGH and you'll see a huge boost in brightness.
 
Thanks for all the responses…. I must say that I was using a FS-100…. Not a p2 card and still got the same results…. I guess the obvious conclusion is that you can not!!! get footage from the HVX2000.. in low light???!!! Is that what everybody’s conclusion is??? Nobody has anything different to add????
 
The term "low light" is subjective, but the HVX isn't a camera that I would choose for this characteristic. You might find that some of the ENG style 2/3" cameras would do a much better job in low light situations. I have used the SDX900 a number of times and have always been impressed with its low light capabilities.
 
It's not a fast camera. It certainly wasn't designed to shoot weddings. There has been a ton of information available since release about how it is at least a stop slower in low-light performance than even the DVX100. Recording to a Firestore or P2 would make no difference. It's all in the sensor. You have the same options available to you as with any camera, and must make the same compromises. But I certainly wouldn't choose it for available-light shooting in night interiors. It's just not part of the spec.
 
Ben_McElroy said:
Thanks for all the responses…. I must say that I was using a FS-100…. Not a p2 card and still got the same results…. I guess the obvious conclusion is that you can not!!! get footage from the HVX2000.. in low light???!!! Is that what everybody’s conclusion is??? Nobody has anything different to add????
Click to expand...

The fact that you were using a firestore and not P2 has nothing to do with the brightness of your footge if that is what you mean.

By the way, do a search. There are very recent threads that cover this topic like this one: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=79588

The short answer is yes you can get useable footage in low light but with any small chip camera there are tradeoffs. You have to decide what is important to you and find the settings that give you what you want.

Spend some time learning the camera. Preferably before you shoot a wedding.

Don't just whip out the camera in a low light environment and flip the gain switch faster than you can find your butt with both hands. - Learn how to set it up.
 
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