GH2 What's the Highest ISO That You Would Shoot Video at ?

T

TheDingo

Veteran
I was DOP on an Indie short this weekend, and yesterday due to no time and little budget I shot at 1600 ISO using the Quantum 100 patch, and was very impressed with how good the footage looked. The grain was minimal and the image was very good.

Previously I've tried shots at 3200 ISO and the image was hideous, so I am thinking that 1600 is going to be my cut-off point for low-light filming with the GH2.
 
Take a grey card or any solid color and shoot it at a slight angle with a bit of shadow and check the noise pattern, just like checking the WB. You will see right away what your noise is, and whether it is OK (some are bothered by it more than others). If you shoot a row of books on a shelf, you might get the noise pattern in the shadows, but it may not be intrusive, If you shoot a piano, you will get aliasing on the curves, and noise on the flat blacks, but it is still not that intrusive because the noise gets lost in the blacks a bit. Shoot a bright red solid color and it is a different story. For me, if I have flat or curved surfaces in the video, I will get intrusive grain that is marginal at 640. Of course, it can be removed with NeatVideo. Sort of. So for me 640 is the limit unless I want to use some NR. If I shoot the same video with the HF G10, no noise, virtually no aliasing. So then it becomes an issue of whether that tiny bit of extra sharpness, or the ability to push the grading, is more important than the small-but noticeable--grain or aliasing. But then there is the issue of, say I really need the 1600, or even higher, and there the GH2 will have the grain, but with a fast lens outperform the G10. If you need to use it, you use it. OTOH, if there are no panels or curves, or other things that the camera does not like, you can go higher and not really see the grain so much. Adding light, even a few 32 watt high CRI cfls, almost always makes the video better, unless you want a special effect.
 
Heh. I was thinking of shooting something entirely in just one ISO, and using ND filters. That posed the issue of what ISO. For the unhacked GH2, I picked 800. But hacked... I just don't know, and with every new update from Driftwood it keeps changing.
 
The range of 200 to 1600 is fine, what's more important than ISO is getting light to the sensor.

What also is pretty important to realize is that alot of stuff you've watched since the advent of noise reduction methods has noise reduction applied in the post process. Knowing how to properly reduce noise is important, and you should not be afraid of it.

Shooting GH2, IMO and from my testing and adventures, the last thing you want to do is under expose anything important to your scene. At night, if you have to shoot 1600 ISO to expose, do it. And denoise later.

if you have to go above 1600 ISO then you may want to start adding lights.
 
Probably 1600 ISO is a solid ceiling performer. 3200 ISO is usable, but not without heavy post processing (i.e. Noise reduction)
With various patches you can get good results with the higher ISOs, but 1600 is about where I feel most safe.
I have a pretty good video light, so if im around 1600... ill pull that out for anything darker.
 
I find anything up to 800 to be good. 1250-1600 are still usable, but that's where noise starts to creep in, plus I find the green/yellow shift to be noticeably more pronounced.

3200 is garbage, regardless of exposure, imo. I'd use it for a doc where that was my only option, but I'd never bother for any controlled set up.
 
Kholi said:
The range of 200 to 1600 is fine, what's more important than ISO is getting light to the sensor.

What also is pretty important to realize is that alot of stuff you've watched since the advent of noise reduction methods has noise reduction applied in the post process. Knowing how to properly reduce noise is important, and you should not be afraid of it.

Shooting GH2, IMO and from my testing and adventures, the last thing you want to do is under expose anything important to your scene. At night, if you have to shoot 1600 ISO to expose, do it. And denoise later.

if you have to go above 1600 ISO then you may want to start adding lights.
Click to expand...
Amen to that. This is a point that so many people miss. The single most important thing when shooting in low light situations is to get the image correctly exposed. It really is no good underexposing thinking that you can bring it up in post as it will look like crap. It's far better to use a high ISO & have a nice image even if it is a bit grainy. To get the correct exposure your variables are the lens aperture, the gain aka ISO & lights. You can also drop the shutter speed if necessary as depending on the scene it may be better to have extra motion blur instead of grain.

Adding light as necessary is also vitally important. With low light the scene will be very flat & lacking in contrast. Even a small lamp can add some extra modelling & really make the image zing.
 
Shooting 3200 is fine with the Nokton 25mm 0.95, a patch suited to lowlight (see personal view) and placement of the subject under existing lights (eg. street lamps).
 
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