Settings for Video in Low Light
 

Hi everyone,

I'm a new owner of the 5d mark 2 with the 24-105 lens and I've been messing around with it for a couple of days. I got it, primarily, for use in event cinematography - especially for its low light capabilities in comparison to my XH-A1 and HV30s. As a video camera I have experience with shutter/exposure/aperture and the like. But when it comes to ISO I'm feeling completely lost. I don't know the first thing about how to combine these tools/settings for quality, low noise, low light video shooting on the 5d. I've shot in the dark at at an ISO of 1600 and there's quite a bit of noise which I know won't come as a complete suprise to anyone.

I understand this is probably a basic question, and I've searched the web using all kinds of search terms to try and find out how people handle their settings for a low light situation. If anyone can provide guidance or even point me to a webpage that can give a newbie some down to earth, layman's explanation of combining the settings, I'd really appreciate it.

BTW, I shoot 30p I will use a camera light if necessary. But it looks like some of the video I've seen of wedding receptions is shot with only ambient light and it looks good (I could be wrong about only ambient light being used?) I'd love to be able to wander a dance floor and shoot people without a light so they just act naturally (read mostly really bad dancing).

Thanks very much.

The 24-105 is an f/4.0 lens. The 5D2 performs quite well in low light, but not with such a slow lens. Unless I had a lot of light, I'd never shoot with anything slower than f/2.8, and with available light you'll need lenses that are f/2.0 or preferably faster. We shoot receptions with our own lighting, we don't rely on available light, which would be inadequate. And don't forget that your video lights aren't just for illumination but also for simply controlling the light - the basis of cinematography.

So basically either invest in a lighting set-up or some faster lenses.

Other than than, shoot wide open and in your case with a shutter speed of 1/60th. Use a flat colour profile to retain detail in blacks.

Just the other day, I shot some test footage with a 17-40 lens, which also has a maximum aperture of f4, while driving on a street, with just the light of the street lamps and the results are just amazingly good. No noise at all. I also use the 5D MkII for my business, concert photography, always at 1600 ISO and also there, the noise is almost non-existant.

So if you have excessive noise in your footage at 1600 ISO, there must be something else wrong. Severely underexposed, perhaps? Or wrong white balance ?

The 5D mkII is world famous for it's good signal-noise ratio, and that's what I use it for, as well as a stills camera as as videocam (mainly B-cam on a Merlin steadycam).

Should work perfectly for you too.

It all depends on your subject matter and the way you want your 'end results' to look like.

I shoot a lot of low light video at dusk or during darkness, and even though I own fast lenses I rarely shoot wide-open. If I need extreme shallow depth of field, yes, I will shoot wide-open, but I more often require plenty of DOF in the picture – even at dusk, so will stop down the lens if I can, without upping the ISO too far into the 'noise' zone.

I prefer to film in natural light, but will sometimes use an extra on-camera video light and open up the lens aperture, or up ISO until some of the 'dusk' light is matched with the artificial light, just as you would with stills photography.

I've also found that footage filmed in extreme low light levels with the 5D Mark II at fairly high ISO - that looks terrible when you open up the raw HD files on your computer - can often be saved simply by lowering Gamma levels drastically during post editing until all or most of the background noise becomes smooth black.
A really noisy scene can be made to look very good with almost pure clean blacks without losing too much detail in the main subjects - Not of course with all my footage, but it works enough to let me know that it can sometimes be worthwhile to continue filming in available 'murk', and to capture footage that would otherwise have never been attempted with other video cameras.

Mike,

As Erik said, for wedding reception work you will likely need a much faster lens. I picked up a 50mm f/1.4 for low light. It's a pretty cheap lens, relatively speaking. Though I'm looking for something wider. I use a 17-40 f/4, and it really is way too slow for poorly lit conditions, and my 70-200 f/2.8 is only usable on a tripod. Even at that, the difference between f1.4 and f2.8 in low light is significant, never mind f4.

This clip was all shot (handheld) with the 50mm f/1.4. It's not great stuff but it was a family wedding and I was just messing around. It was the first time I'd used the 5d, and the 17-40 was not cutting it. I don't recall the ISO, but if anything I was a little hot still. The point is, with a fast lens combined with this cam, you can really shoot in places where you absolutely needed additional lighting with traditional cameras.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the responses. Alhough I knew I was in for a steep learning curve, I never knew how different a SLR would be from my video camera - with my XH I just tweak some dials for aperture/exposure, set the frame rate and I'm filming away. Now there's f-stop speeds, fast and slow lenses, ISOs, etc.

Ken, I looked into the 50mm f1/4 because I'd heard some others note that it's pretty good in low light so I'm going to be getting one tonight. Do you mind telling me how you have your settings in that reception material you posted. If so, I can gin them up once I get the 1.4 lens and then use that as a good starting point to begin understanding where to go from there.

Tony, great info - thank you for that. I'll try the gamma trick and see how that helps out with my footage.

Luc, I have to admit I'm shooting on full automatic so the camera is doing everything. It's only because I have no idea how to use the camera yet, and don't know which settings to tweak in full manual. It's definitely my goal to shoot entirely manual once I have a decent grip of the camera.

Erik, I'm all over controlling light. I'll probably be still using external lighting even with a 1.4 if needed. I just want to be able to use as little as possible. Like I said, the best receptions I shoot are ones that have enough light from uplighting and DJ systems that I can make my way around the dance floor and have no one even see me filming them.

Thanks again all.

Just did a ton of research on Youtube for the best lens when I buy my 5D in a few weeks and I have settled on the Canon 24-70mm 2.8. It's about $250.00 more than the 24-105 but the low light ability and the better DOF ability really sold me.

I shoot all commercial spots and I currently own the Canon XH A1s and it is a noise machine in low and even slightly low light without question even if all the settings are optimized.

I can't wait to get my 5D!

OK Mike,

what do you mean by 'full automatic'? Dial on 'P'? That's the worst solution you can choose! If you don't want to work on manual for the time being, please use 'A' for 'aperture preference' when shooting in low light conditions. Then choose aperture full open. This way the camera will never close it down to a smaller stop, which it could - and sometimes would - in 'P'. And set the ISO fixed to 1600 in low light conditions.

But of course, a camera like this needs to be controlled fully manually to take profit of all it's blessings. And there are many...

I had the 50mm 1,4 before, but I sold it because it's a very hard lens, with - for my taste - too much contrast. Plus 50mm is not an interesting angle for the kind of shooting I'm doing with the 5D mkII (steadycam).

Using aperture priority will lead to some weird footage as the shutter speed will be varied to get the correct exposure. The shutter speed when shooting video should almost always be set to 1/50 (for us in PAL land) or 1/60 for the US.

Agreed, Nigel, but in low light situations this is still better than having the camera in 'full auto' changing the ISO or/and the shutter speed.But as I said: full manual is the only decent way to go.

If you use AV (Aperture Priority) just point the camera at an average-lit scene and then press the Exposure Lock button. This works very well and I use it a lot for both stills and video.

Sometimes I use TV (Shutter Priority) for times when maintaining the shutter speed (such as 50th) is more important than a required aperture setting.

When I need everything locked at a preset aperture, shutter and ISO Value, then I'll use full Manual. I generally set the ISO to 160 when shooting in decent light as this gives the cleanest possible resolution.

Assuming you know what you are doing with regular video cameras it should only take you a day of messing around to figure another camera out. Don't waste time trying to figure out how to work around issues cause by the automatics, spend that time more productively learning how to use it in manual mode and you will get far better / more predictable results.

There are really only three things to learn.

• Shutter speed - which for you will be stuck at 1/60 most of the time

• Aperture - F4 is too slow indoors for most things - but if you need it on longer focal lengths for good DOF then the third option (ISO) is your only solution just like gain on a regular video cam. F1.4 can still give reasonable DOF if you are focussed a good distance away. We keep a chart / table I made up for all our lenses with us as a quick reference guide for DOF.

• ISO. I've shot the 5D2 at all ISO settings up to 2500 and got acceptable results with the help of Neat Video. Above that is useful in a pinch. For first dance I usually keep lights with us but don't always need them.

After that the manual K settings for white balance are a god send compared to regular video cameras.

For dark receptions we tend to use the 24 f1.4 (5D2) and 35 f1.4 (7D) with options of the 50 1.4 and 135 f2. The 70-200 f2.8 is the fall back when we are too far away but this presents big DOF problems at the longer focal lengths when wide open. If any one is moving back and forth during the speeches you can have serious focus problems. When there is reasonable light I tend to stick the 24-70 f2.8 on the 5D giving some zoom options (where we can't zoom with out feet) but the 24-105L stays in the bag for video (we use it for some photos), because I'm really not impressed with it.

Danny the DOF will be less wide open you understand right?

It's taken me a long time and a lot of buying and selling to get to the best work flow for me in terms of different lenses and levels of light. I think I've finally arrived at what works best for me personally. But this is entirely subjective and depends of course on what kind of work you do.

For low light work, I tend to stick to my fast primes, which are all manual Nikons and Zeiss glass in the mid-focal ranges 28 - 85mm - I don't own anything slower than f2 here and I absolutely love my Nikon 50/1.2 which I can only use with the Z-finder strapped on. For medium and good light I add my Canon glass to the mix which are zooms on opposite ends of the focal ranges. I have a 17-40/f4 and a 70-200/f2.8. I forgot to mention I do have one exception to this which is the excellent Canon EF L 14mm/2.8, (my new baby!) as I now need an ultra wide.

Even though some folk here have attempted to disprove any discrepencies between various ISO settings on the 5D2, I'm still not convinced and tend to stick only to the 'awkward' ISO settings. 160, 320, 640, 1250, etc. There are reasons for this which have had plenty of coverage in other threads, so won't bother going into here.

Good luck!

Hey Mike, just to get back to you, I don't know if you did get the 50mm f/1.4, it's handy to have for a relatively cheap price, though as others have mentioned, it's not wide enough to fly on a glidecam type of set-up. I always shoot in full manual and then play with either aperture or shuttter depending on what i'm trying to do. And almost always dial in the WB on the K meter. If I had the extra coin I'd get the 24-70 f/2.8. In the meantime, I'm keeping an eye out for one of the wider f/1.4 primes as well. Also picked up a couple of Fader ND filters (a 58mm and a 77mm), these are real handy for bright white dresses in the summer.

I'm wondering how you ever get anything in focus with all your lenses being that fast. I like to shoot wide open all the time but even with an f/4 I find it difficult to get the proper DOF for good focus at that.

f1.4 50mm even at 12 feet which I'm sure you'd want to be closer with the 50 only provides a DOF of 1.42 ft
That's less than 18" which if your subject is moving or a group of people need to be in focus is little wiggle room and a bear to keep subjects in focus.

How do you fast lens users handle DOF at those f2s and less?

I usually use IS with the 24-105 f/4L too. Seems like handshake would creep in here too with the non-IS lenses.

A 'fast' f/1.2-f/2.8 lens provides a much brighter viewfinder and therefore far easier to focus on subjects than a 'slow' f/4 lens (although this advantage is mainly during shooting stills and is lost to some extent when using Live View).

I do not use IS with any of my lenses for shooting video with the 5D Mark II.

I understand brighter for focusing. It's the DOF that these fast lenses provide is so shallow whether you have perfect light or not the DOF is going to be too shallow wide open....

Just because a lens opens up to f/1.2 doesn't mean that it needs to be used only at that aperture...

Plus that fact that DOF between a 50mm f1.2 or f/1.4 or f1.8 is not that different.

But between a 50 f/1.2 and a 50 f/4 at 12 ft it's about a three foot difference which would mean the difference in a group being in or out of focus. That's why I usually shoot at f/4 or so anyway...

Hi Harry,

To answer your questions, first of all I don't always open up to 1.2 on the 50mm, in fact I rarely do unless I'm doing something specific. For a start, it's not at its sharpest at 1.2 anyway. That particular lens peaks at around f2. This is typical of lenses where a lens may well be able to achieve 1.2, but it's at its best at f2. So you may well say, 'well why not save a bunch of money and get a 1.4', and the reason is that you have the same problem where you need to stop down a couple of times to reach that lens's peak performance. But you're right - at 1.2 you can turn a penny at an angle and the DOF is so shallow, some of it will be in focus and the rest won't be.

But what I said in my post, it does depend what your work is when selecting lenses. I don't do weddings, event work, etc. I usually only do commercial spots, drama, music promos, or corporate work. I spend an age setting up a shot that is going to be consistent and actors/artists on their marks where I want to completely throw the background (or foreground) out of focus. so either I pull focus or someone else does.

We use the Z-finder by Zacuto to help us achieve critical focus at various points throughout a scene most of the time and also not forgetting that it's not always crucial when making something artistic to have your subject stay entirely in focus anyway. Shallow DOFs are important to me from an artistic / storytelling viewpoint, so that's the reason I use fast glass and fader NDs to dial in our light thoroughput. But for more complex scenes where people are moving about, or whenever it's put on a steadicam or jib, I have the flexibility to go deeper by closing it up or using my wide f4.

Similar to what Kris says, you need to select the appropriate DOF for a given shot. You can most definitely shoot an event at something like f/1.2, the majority of events at say a wedding are quite static. Look at how photographers compose shots: everything important in one plane. Neat trick.

For moving subjects, use and wider lens and its hyperfocal distance to keep the subject in focus. When you need to be even more flexible, you always have the option of going to f/4.0 and beyond. But f/4.0 lenses like the 24-105 don't give you a similar option when you need more light ;)

Nearly two years ago when I first got my 5DII with the 24-105mm F4L kit lens I was quite disappointed at the low light performance compared to the amazing early samples that I had seen which had of course been shot with much larger aperture lenses. I was relieved when I bought some wider aperture lenses to find that I hadn't wasted my money:-) In low light situations an F2.8 (2X light gathering capacity of an F4) or an F2 (4X) let alone an F1.4 (8X) makes a hell of a difference.

The 24-105mm F4L is a lovely lens especially because of the IS but the maximum aperture means that you really cannot use it indoors without adding a lot of extra lighting. It';s fantastic outside in daylight though.

But that frame of mind is restricting you artistically. F/4+ is cool when you want to get the whole group in focus, but you can use and abuse shallow DOFs to draw attention to something, or take a more interesting photograph.

Let's say there is one man in that group of yours that is important. Let's say he's going to wink to the woman OS in front of him and you want to draw your viewer to that subtle interchange. You might use a really shallow DOF to throw the people in that group on either side of him out of focus to help your eventual viewer see the interchange you want them to notice. In this case, your aperature of 1.2 is telling a whole different story to f/4.

Or a photographer, who is taking a shot of a flower and wants to have the stigma super sharp and throw the petals out of focus, or an insect super sharp and its background a nice soft bokeh...

These are all reasons we use shallow DOFs which have nothing whatsoever to do with trying to throw more light onto the sensor.

I've been a professional photographer for many years so I understand DOF for stills. I know artistic merit and light x multipiers of the diff stops.
All I was talking about was DOF for filming with the 5Dmk2. Thinking of one performance in particular I shot in a dark dive in Nashville. Even at f/4 (which worked by the way) the talent was moving back and forth away from the mic and it was very hard to keep focus sharp. And yes one can always say the blur shots are art but as we all know many of them are us trying to scamble to pull focus.
Since that night I'm using a 7" external monitor which helps with focus alot.
Only reason I chimed in was the no lens slower than f2 comment which left me scratching my head about DOF cause it gets razor thin at those Fs.
I think we're all on the same page and no new news here. ;-) Just different ways to say it.
Happy New Year!!

Hey Harry,

Sorry if my post appeared to be stating the obvious. As with all these things, one can never guess the level of expertise of other posters.

As for DOF and pulling focus at razor thin distances, I think focus pullers are a whole different breed of people. I've worked with some that don't even mark the disk, they just seem to 'know' exactly where the focal point is and rack the focus perfectly. I never could quite fathom out how they do it!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to follow up on my original post and thank everyone for their input. I've been shooting manual mode now with a much better understanding of the camera and how to use the different settings. I've also developed a clearer idea of which lenses I'm going to be getting as money allows.

Thanks again!