Tips on shooting in the dark

[grifter09]

This may be a problem in the adjustment of the monitor.

the computer monitor? i hope so. i suppose all logic suggests it is but
like i said i played with the levels and the info just ididnt seem to be there. its the strangest thing.
Im going to investigate further.

I suppose this should be in a seperate thread. Apologies to all. But we are in the same ball park of discussion.

 

[PerroneFord]

And back to the original question - if you are using this camera to shoot night scenes then yes you should acquire a faster lens (1.4/1.8). You can get old nikon manual primes with 1.4 for a hundred bucks and use with a 10 dollar adapter from ebay. this will save you a considerable amount of iso / noise.

Good note on the histogram. I forgot it was there. We didn't use it a single time on our recent 5D shoot, but if I hadn't had a light meter, I would have lived on it.

If you take a look through the threads in wedding sections, and on these 35mm DSLR areas, you see a constant theme. Shooting in "low light". The problem is that "low" is never defined. Low light to one person may be 24FC, while to someone else it may be 3FC. I recently shot a scene in a nightclub where I metered the scene (without lights) at .8FC I don't care WHAT lens you buy that scene would have been unshootable without lights.

So while the general recommendation to go buy the fast glass is good, I hate offering it without the caveat that it is not a cure-all. And I don't want someone going out and spending $1500 on a piece of ED or L glass and being mad that they can't shoot in 3FC of light without it looking like garbage since they are shooting 3200 ISO.

For fun, I am attaching a frame grab from a shoot we did on Sunday. Shot was taken 55 minutes after sunset, so it was NIGHT. There is a single 1k being bounced onto the subject to make the exposure. We are at F2.8, ISO 640, shutter 1/60 on the 5Dmk2.

 

[PerroneFord]

the computer monitor? i hope so. i suppose all logic suggests it is but
like i said i played with the levels and the info just ididnt seem to be there. its the strangest thing.
Im going to investigate further.

I suppose this should be in a seperate thread. Apologies to all. But we are in the same ball park of discussion.

No, not the computer monitor, the LCD of the camera. It reads about 2 stops low by default (if the 7D is anything like the 5D). It in NO WAY can be used as an accurate indicator of the exposure you're about to get.

I remember shooting a scene at morning golden hour a week ago. I metered the scene, and gave the settings to the camera operator. He said it was too dark. I told him to trust me. He said he couldn't even SEE the edge of the frame where our subject was exiting a car. I told him it was on the money for exposure. When we hooked it up to our monitor for playback, it was exactly where it was supposed to be and the subject was properly exposed. The subject was not even visible in the 5D monitor.

Do *NOT* trust the on-camera monitor for exposure.

 

[yachtclubav]

perrone - yes indeed some scenes are too dark to shoot. some scenes aren't too dark to shoot. a faster lens sees more light. it will be better in said scenes. even the picture you posted was shot at 2.8 and the guy posting here has a 3.5 min. and no you don't have to spend $1500 on L glass to get a low f-stop. buy nikon manual glass for next to nothing. it looks good. or get the canon 50mm 1.8 USM - it looks great and is super fast.

 

[PerroneFord]

Yes, we had a F1.4 Nikon for our shoot as well, and it looked lovely. My point wasn't that you had to buy ED or L glass, only that you could spend a boatload on those lenses, and still not achieve the desired result of the level of lighting was simply too low.