Quick night test / City Lights Boston

[DutchFX]

Lenses:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8
Vivitar 28mm f/2.8
Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm f/4.5

AF100 settings:
Film Cam
PH 1080/24p
Detail -7
V Detail -7
Coring 0
Chroma 0
Master Ped 0
Gamma: Cine V
Matrix: Norm 2
ISO 500 and 3200


At 3200 ISO at f/4.5 it got noisy, but not as much as I expected. I had a hard time getting the focus right (as seen in the shot with the restaurant sign), it was just too hard to judge from the screen. Eventually I have to bite the bullet and get me an external monitor.

 

[Stu Siegal]

Looks good, you're a North Ender I take it? I'm pretty sure I read Noel post elsewhere that 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 are cleaner than the in-between iso, so 400 or 800 might have been better on the low end, but it still looked nice. Have you tried the focus in red yet? It's quite good, particularly when on a shoot like this where you might not want to be moving around with a monitor.

 

[DutchFX]

Hey DrHST, yest I'm in the North End, I guess the shots of Hanover Street gave it away ;-)
I've tried the focus-in-red in daylight and indoors, which works great, but on this occasion it was hard to distinguish it from the lights , and on the viewfinder it was very hard to figure out where it was focusing on (I've got it set on b/w).
I will try the 400/800/1600/3200, that seems interesting. Any idea why that would make such a difference?

 

[Stu Siegal]

You can desaturate the LCD too, which might work well at night and on shots with a lot of red. Since the EVF is more color accurate, I keep that one in color and B&W the LCD. I don't know why those ISO's are preferred, but it's worth a try. Great part of town, BTW, just moved my best friend out of an apt. he's had on Clark St. for 20 years, been meaning to come in and shoot some broll there, but have been too lazy to brave the cold.

 

[DutchFX]

You can desaturate the LCD too, which might work well at night and on shots with a lot of red. Since the EVF is more color accurate, I keep that one in color and B&W the LCD. I don't know why those ISO's are preferred, but it's worth a try. Great part of town, BTW, just moved my best friend out of an apt. he's had on Clark St. for 20 years, been meaning to come in and shoot some broll there, but have been too lazy to brave the cold.

Interesting approach, B&W the LCD, I'll need to try that out.
The North End is great indeed. I learned the hard way shooting at night right now, I could barely use my fingers to change lenses.. I'm putting off any outdoor shooting till spring!

 

[Benjamin Eckstein]

OT, but I'd be interested in meeting up with other AF100 users in Boston if you guys are interested. I know one other in the area.

The DSLR folks have their cliqueish meetups, so we can too!

 

[Stu Siegal]

Interesting approach, B&W the LCD, I'll need to try that out.
The North End is great indeed. I learned the hard way shooting at night right now, I could barely use my fingers to change lenses.. I'm putting off any outdoor shooting till spring!

.99 knit gloves from the hardware store with the fingertips snipped off help.

OT, but I'd be interested in meeting up with other AF100 users in Boston if you guys are interested. I know one other in the area.

The DSLR folks have their cliqueish meetups, so we can too!

I'm in for sure, PM and let's set it up.

 

[DutchFX]

Count me in!

 

[groveChuck]

I'm pretty sure I read Noel post elsewhere that 400, 800, 1600, and 3200 are cleaner than the in-between iso, so 400 or 800 might have been better on the low end

I thought I had read this somewhere also (like the 5D sweet spot ISOs), but Barry denies this is true. I haven't found it to be the case either (not that I've specifically tested for it, just random observations).

 

[Barry_Green]

I thought I had read this somewhere also (like the 5D sweet spot ISOs), but Barry denies this is true. I haven't found it to be the case either (not that I've specifically tested for it, just random observations).

It's not so much that I'm "denying it's true", it's that there's no truth to it. I think people are confusing the notion of how a Canon DSLR creates its 1/3-stop ISO increments, with how other cameras do it. On the AF100, every bump in ISO adds a tiny bit of noise, linearly. The only real difference is that there's not much if any difference between 200 to 800 ISO, but after that the graininess increases linearly.

You can see exactly how much noise there is (or isn't) at every ISO, in this vimeo video I did:

 

[Stu Siegal]

Thanks for clearing this up Barry, it's great to know, and it also makes me want to access the iso function via the wheel or knob even more. FYI, took a look back and it was Noel who had different results in the wishlist thread.

just a FYI, plugging the AF100 into a Pana Pro Plasma through HD-SDI and testing all the ISO settings I found through all exposure levels that 800ISO was cleaner than 500 or 640.