Low Light Settings for Theater

[stuckfootage]

Hi there, HVX users and abusers,

Having been hired to shoot a dance performance and knowing
about the HVX200's poor low-light performance, I came up with
these settings to try to avoid using gain:

Shutter: 350°, for maximum light, not worrying about motion blur.

Gamma: High, for maximum overall apparent brightness, since
the loss of contrast isn't a problem in the high-contrast world of
theatrical lighting.

Zebra: 95%, to encourage me to push the iris open as much as possible.

Knee: High, just to save the shot when a dancer walks next to a light

White balance: 3.2K preset. Since most theater light instruments
are about 3.2K, and since their color temp varies when they are dimmed,
I did not do a white balance, and just kept it at this standard preset.
That way, I figured, there would be a constant color setup from night
to night, and the editors could color correct from the neutral viewpoint
of their nice monitors.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach?
So far I've been able to avoid using gain.

Les

 

[JitCam]

Bring down the master ped a bit also.. i have found that reducing it can cut loads of noise.. and can give a nice contrast also.. i usually bring it down to around -5,

 

[THoff]

Use B PRESS, it's the least noisy gamma curve. Also, if you can use 24PN, it's much brighter than 30PN because each frame can gather light 25% longer. That obviously affects the look and smoothness of the material, but consider it -- maybe shoot some test footage under the actual stage lights if there is a dress / tech rehearsal.

 

[ullanta]

I don't know if you should dismiss motion blur concerns - test it!

I've been doing a lot of testing this week at the opera, and though HIGH gamma is a lot less noisy, it really cuts down on what you see in the shadows... which is pretty important in many low-light settings. So my decision this time was to go with LOW gamma, which really lets you see all the shadow detail. Then, in post, it's easy to clean up the image exactly as much as needed/wanted by selectively crushing blacks a bit in different scenes. With HIGH, I was always needing to try to boost the blacks... which, of course, was ugly!

If this were a set with an all-black background, it wouldn't be an issue, of course... but theis set is covered with a drop of giant, readable newsprint which really needs to be seen...

 

[DavidBeier]

I agree about the motion blur. For some things you can tolerate it but if the rest of the stuff is in 24p 180, it may be very jarring.