How to – Shoot in low light and reduce noise on Cannon 550D

[Ali Hassan]

@Everyone

Wow! First of all I must say that the responses I have received in this forums are beyond outstanding from everyone!! I am so glad I posted my issue over here..

@Steve:
Yeah I think I will post my youtbe link here so that yo guys can see the videos, coz right now I agree with you its like shooting an arrow in the dark!! and thanks for retaining my confidence in my lens 🙂

Try this link, some videos are private coz I didnt want anyone to see them but a couple I shot last night should be public to all, lemme know if you guys have any problems viewing them..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be_TAzoEkVI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22McZw4fIBw

The link below was the first test sequence I had shot for my film to get the feel of the lighting…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rpIdetjAOk

-A

[Ali Hassan]

Can it be the Sharpness or the contrast settings on my camera, I have them set to the default value and I havent touched them.

I might play around with them when I go back home today…

[Ali Hassan]

Can it be the Sharpness or the contrast settings on my camera, I have them set to the default value and I havent touched them.

I might play around with them when I go back home today…

[Steve Crow]

Yeah, in terms of your camera settings – for a more filmic look dial the contrast all the way down, dial the sharpness all the way down, and then dial the saturation down two ticks. Of course you should shoot a 24fps and with a 50th shutter speed.

Regarding the video samples to my eye I am not seeing grain as much as a general “murkiness” and a green color cast. So go ahead and raise your ISO up as high as 800 – also be sure to do a manual white balance to to address the color cast.

[Kris Merkel]

In your menu settings, turn off Highlight tone priority. I am able to shoot with the same lens in low light at iso800 with little noise.

[Steve Crow]

Yes, I totally agree.

[Ali Hassan]

Lemme try all this and see if I can get better results!! All this info just makes me wana leave office now and head back home to play around with the camera but alas! it has to wait i reckon 🙂

Also other topic that I have been reading about are the custom picture styles that you can download and upload using the EOS utility to get that “Cine” look, did any one of you gys try it out on ur T2i??

https://marvelsfilm.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/canon-7d-picture-style-with-cine-gamma-s-curve-free-download/

[Steve Crow]

I’ve downloaded a few but for now am just making adjustments to the camera settings and then grading in post.

[Richard Van den boogaard]

The 2x framerate is indeed a golden rule for shooting with DSLRs. However, rules can be broken, given certain circumstances.

If low light is your issue and your subjects aren’t moving very fast, you can choose to lower your shutter to 1/30th. Normally this would result in some motion blur, but this is much less worse than having lots of noise from high ISO selections.

Richard van den Boogaard
cameraman / editor / video marketing consultant

Branded Channels
W: http://www.brandedchannels.com

[Richard Van den boogaard]

Jittery footage is quite the opposite effect – if you increase the shutter, you will get stroboscopic effects. Lowering the shutter speed will result in a bit of motion blur…

Richard van den Boogaard
cameraman / editor / video marketing consultant

Branded Channels
W: http://www.brandedchannels.com