-
Brightening up dark video
Hello All,
I have some REALLY dark video footage that I need to lighten up. It is from a video shoot of a live concert and yes I know ALL the stuff about lights, lux, yada yada, but the director likes it DARK. So it is audience footage and quite dark, nothing I can do about getting MORE light…I can lighten it up a bit with Autolevels, and it is better, but whenever I use Sony Color curves and bring up the low end it helps but add noise (as I suspected). It was shot with Sony FX1’s, white balanced, shutter speed 60, no gain and auto iris. Please any help in getting some reasonable, workable footage would be much appreciated. Also, if you have any constructive input on helping with shooting dark areas (on the fly I might add, as the one cam was also shooting the stage at times)for the next shoot I do, would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
-
2 Replies
-
There is not a whole lot that you can do and it sounds like you’ve already tried curves and levels which is what should be used. Your only other option is to get a good denoiser because lightening dark video will always produce unwanted noise. Neat Video is about one of the best for getting out noise.
As for what to do next time… don’t accept jobs that expect you to shoot in the dark. Seriously, video needs light. If they want it recorded, they need to compromise to get a good recording. You could use cameras that have better low light characteristics but all cameras need a certain amount of light and the lower the light the poorer the color representation.
I’ve shot with a shutter speed of 30 with my Sony Z1U to get that extra bit of light but if the motion is too quick it looks unnatural. I would also crank up the gain. Yea it adds noise but better to have noisy video than no video at all.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks John…I have Neat Video and will work with that…as far as jobs..these guys are my biggest client, and this audience stuff is always a concern. I do 2-3 full DVD projects with them per year and it is a lot of dough…Everything else with the shoots is great!! Also the lighting guy uses a lot of LED lights instead of incandescent lighting, they look awesome on stage, but I don’t think they throw as much back onto the audience. I will try shutter at 30 and gain up next time. Good point about noise vs no video…should have thought of that!! Really appreciate your input!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up