Thursday, November 24, 2011

How do I avoid graininess and noise when shooting a video under dark conditions?

I want to shoot a video in pitch dark and only use spotlight on a certain subject. Example, half of the face of the subject I'm shooting. How do I do this without the dreaded grain or so called "noise"?|||There's no grain in the film sense - it's all noise, ie unwanted electrical energy in the sensor. In dark conditions there's not enough signal so you get a poor signal to noise ratio. The amount of noise increase with temperature, so keeping things cool may help a little. In practice it's not likely to be enough. You need to look at things like blue filters or skewing the white balance and post processing.|||Turn your auto or easy feature off. Read on how to focus a camcorder in manual mode a bit further down in this answer. Read your manual and see how you adjust exposure. Learn how to adjust exposure, practice it. That should help in low light situations.





Focus tip - set camcorder on a tripod or firm surface. Find something far away ( I use a Post it Note, on far wall above light switch) then zoom in on this object, all the way. Focus your camcorder on this object. Now return you camcorder to normal zoom, show the big picture. Now, if you do not turn the camcorder off, it will be in focus from the distance away your focus object was to the camcorder lens, at any zoom ( say your focus object was 15 feet, everything up to 15 feet will be in focus, anything beyond that 15 feet is not.)|||You'd have to get something from the B%26amp;H Candy Store or at least go for a visit to at least know what you're up against.

No comments:

Post a Comment