Manual adjustments for low light?

[Laurence Spiegel]

OK, this might be obvious, but after reading the manual again it's still not clear what will actually work.

Last night when I was attempting to tape video in moderately dim conditions ( I could see fine, though the area felt dim ) the 852 showed some parts of the action as shadows - I just got a grey shape rather than a normal image. This depended on the subject's position - a foot or two more away from the overhead light and they become a grey blob. I was suprised, since with some tests around the house it seemed to work in dimmer conditions than last night. I had it set to auto, with the backlight function on.
1. Would gain up (if the cam has it) fix this problem, or was it just out of the ccd's range, period?
2. I don't see an option to set the shutter below 1/60th. 1/30 would blur too much, but I could try 1/50.
3. What does the 'Iris' function actually do? It sounds like the gain adjustment by another name.
4. If Iris is actually Gain & I use it, does that also cancel all other exposure adjustments? I still need the cam to auto-adjust for different degrees of dimness, and still need backlight mode. Even with backlight mode on, the subjects are too dim since the cam is trying to compensate for the incandescent light bulbs. I don't care about anything other than the subjects - if those bulbs get ugly so be it.
5. I could get away with a small, soft cam mounted light if there's no other way. More gear is not better, it could mean losing a shot while fiddling with the gear. Any thoughts?

thanks,

Larry

[Frank Granovski]

Laurence, you have one of the best low light cams out there!

How are you shooting? If you use a tripod and use auto settings, except for having the OIS engaged, the shutter should slow right down to 1/15 or 1/7.5 if the cam "thinks" it needs to.

I almost always use 1/60 with NTSC and 1/50 with PAL.

Regarding adding light, what is your subject?

[Laurence Spiegel]

It's a great cam, I'm hanging on to it. From reading here I'd say the mfs move away from tools and towards toys in the consumer market.
I don't use a tripod, that will be a obstacle for my purposes and no one else does - I'd feel weird. I do have OIS on - can I turn on electronic IS only, or should I just do without it?
I'm guessing I need the shutter faster than 1/30th. So far the frames are sharp using auto mode.
Subject: I'm shooting Salsa ( latin dance ) and want to see details in each frame. A little blur won't kill it, but it's annoying when viewing by frame.
I'll avoid the light if I can - it's run'n gun and besides that I'd need a bigger gear bag.

[Laurence Spiegel]

Funny... I played back that cut again and did not see the ghost effect. I'm viewing via the LCD since I've never been able to capture to a PC ( and the TV is so old it has no AV inputs ). I was close to 90 to the LCD, but a few feet back. Some quirk perhaps.
The subjects were a bit dark even with Backlight on, I think it's intentionally trying to balance the image.
I think the cam has enough capability for the job. It's a matter of tweaking it.

Q1: Can I restrict the shutter speed so that it stays above some value (say, 1/30) if I turn off OIS?
Q2: Can I use no OIS but still some other stabilization? I might zoom up to 4x or so, though I can stay at 1-2x if need be. Mebbe the cam has elecronic IS also, though that's not in the manual.
Q3: With the Iris adj <I think that's actually Gain> can I raise it a little to force more exposure and still have automatic function otherwise?

- tx

Larry