Low Light video - Kit lens T2i
 

Working with the kit lens right now and getting really bad results with low light video. The photos come out pretty good, but the video has a lot of grain.

Right out of the box I set it to manual and tried some low light footage at 1600 and 3200 ISO,...bad. Then went to the auto exposure the next evening and got better results, but nothing to brag about.

I have read today that you want to set the ISO between 200-800 in low light (have not had a chance to try this yet). Has anyone had any good luck with the kit lens and do you have a rule of thumb for low light\night footage?

Rule of thumb with the kit lens? Yes, remove it from the camera, and put it on Ebay. Use funds from sale to buy a decently fast lens, and watch problems disappear.

The kit lens is suitable for daylight footage or other similarly bright conditions. That is all. If you want good performance and you don't have a lot of light to work with, you need MUCH faster glass.

Scroll down in the T2i section and look for threads that pretain to lenses. There are all sorts of good lenses out there that people have experimented with and have had good results. You can find video examples (eventhough they are streaming youtube videos) of some lenses that people are using.

Thanks for the replies, heading down the lens replacement road as we speak.

Great forum here.

I bought he camera with the kitlens (thinking it was cheap) but I never use it. Should have just bought the body and a 50mm 1.8 lens.

I quickly learned quite a few years ago in still photography that I needed a 'fast lens' starting at f2.8 zooms. The cheaper kit lens will quickly show it's limitations in anything but good light. In a naturally lit interior it will struggle unless you add good artificial lighting. The kit lens at 55mm and F6 will make life difficult causing high ISOs and therefore grain.

Drew.

I don't agree. The kit lens is very good optically, just not very fast for low light situations. It performs very well outdoors, and has IS as well. I use it when I want to travel light.

Besides the 50mm 1.8, you need to spend some good bucks for fast lenses.

let me recommend spending a few extra bucks, not a lot, and skip the 50mm 1.8 and go with the 50mm 1.4 Stunning in low light, almost generates it's own and it's $350. I can't keep it off my camera! Super for video and almost as nice as my 24-70mm 2.8 L which was almost 4 times more.

Well if he should go to something in the $350 range then I suggest the Sigma 30mm 1.4

I set the camera to manual, then an ISO of 400 (200 was way too dark).
Very happy with the results, even with the kit lens. The lens was perfect in well lit areas and here is a frame grab of what I got in a pretty low light section of the building. The new lens is really going to help for sure and I am pretty happy with the results after getting the tips, thanks again.

Not to threadjack, but has anyone actually gotten just the camera body? I placed an order on March 6th at Amazon and it's still listed as a pre-order. Seems like that at other places as well.

Here's the thing - the lens you get is worth more then it cost in the kit - it has IS, nice (if not lightweight) construction, decent focal range.

But it's not fast. It won't win any "best of" contests, but it's a solid lens that has produced some stunning results.

But not at night on a dark street. Not in a dark room. I like the kit lenses; glad I own it - but I bought Canon's 50mm/1.8 three days after getting the camera. Great deal - very fast, nice and crisp. Buck 10 in local camera shop.

So for amounts to $210, you can have two very tight lenses that are made for the camera by the company that makes the camera. In other words, they work, no questions asked...

...And I think that's a pretty good deal. And for $500 more you can get into a very nice, quite fast, wide angle piece of glass (Sigma). So for under a grand, you can have some very nice options, all of which can produce professional results.

john

I got one from B&H 2 weeks back

Samy's camera had them in stock, the web page shows they are out, but taking orders.

If you call, they can check and see if there are any in.


Samys


I think everyone is having a tough time keeping this camera on the shelf.

Just to chime in on the continuing kit lens debate, I have to say, despite my earlier post about how disappointingly bad low-light video was using my kit lens, I've been shooting stills a lot with it (while I wait for my tokina 11-16... and wait...) and, for stills, it's pretty kick-ass. For a hundred dollar lens, I got some great shots at 3.5, iso 800, 1/2 second shutter speed- totally handheld, even, full manual focus. We're talking barely-lit here, yet sharp, warm photos.

Of course, those are stills. But there's clearly nothing wrong with that kit glass...

Interesting. I found the kit lens horrid, but that is in comparison to my Nikon 18-55 kit lens. The 50mm F1.4 is much better (but obviously of a different class).

Uhhh, did you just say you were taking 1/2 second exposure handheld stills? And they looked good to you? And it ISO 800?

Ok...

Thinking the same thing Perrone! HeHe!

Kit lens gave me a weird thing in video mode too, I zoomed in a bit and it seemed to almost strobe the lighting during the zoom. The particular instance about 8 sec in to the vid on this thread when I zoom out. It's not a function of compressing to web, the original looks the same.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/eos-550d...rk-sample.html

Is this a function of the f-stop changing? I'm rather new to this whole DSLR thing. When doing the same move with my 24-70 f2.8 or 70-200 f4 there's no weirdness. (yes, those lenses are in a different league) Those lenses have the ability to keep the f-stop constant through the zoom range though, right?

Yes, it is a function of the f stop changing during the zoom. There are warnings against zooming while recording video with zooms that do not have a constant aperture.

The two lenses you mention giving no "weirdness" while zooming are constant aperture lenses (I recognize the 70-200 f4 as probably being an "L" series lens) and that is because the aperture remains constant in those throughout the zoom.

The 18-55mm f3.5 - f5.6 "kit" lens for the Rebels is an economy lens that when used in sufficient light does an excellent job of providing a useful wide angle to moderate portrait telephoto range for those starting out.

In the mid 1970's I had to do just that with ASA 64 Kodachrome as the light failed between late afternoon going into early evening. I had been invited to photograph a unique ceremony by the head priest of the Buddhist Temple on Taiwan that had been selected to host it.

The ceremony was conducted by 7 priests of high rank and I chose not to use flash so my photography would not be intrusive. As the light failed I braced up as best I could, including a position with clasped arms and camera laying across left shoulder (135mm f3.5 lens) and shutter speeds down to 1/2 second. I still show scans of some of those images today.

I was not told the ceremony would run from mid morning through all afternoon and way into the night. The area of the temple where the ceremony was to be held was illuminated by sufficient daylight streaming in during the afternoon, by sunset and after the lighting was from flourescents overhead and candlelight on the tables.

What he claims can definitely be done.

Thanks! LOVE this forum! Learn something new every day.
yeah, both that I mentioned are L glass and look wonderful. The Canon 50mm 1.4 and Tokina 11-16 are constant aperture too. I decided it was worth investing in lenses and these seem to do every trick in the book for me!

And regarding the 1/2 second stills, maybe it's too much caffeine in my system to have that steady a hand! HaHa!

Yes, I've taken handheld footage at 1/30 on Pan-X in a dark auditorium... but that was back when I was a lot younger, and I was shooting daily. There is no way on EARTH I'd try to pull off taking unbraced, handheld shots at half a second exposure now.

But everyone is different.

This is a site I just found out. You may probably know it but has some lenses tests.
It has the kit lenses of the 550D as well. And it says that it is a very good one.
Pbase lens tests

The photo was of a sleeping mother & child, so I blurred the subjects since they wouldn't appreciate being posted on the web as the subjects of tech talk. Other than that, the photos are completely untouched. The only light was a tiny little lamp at the other end of the room- it was pretty damn dark in there. You can see the detail at 100% with all the camera specs next to it for reference. I bracketed just to see how much I could push the lens, and I have to say, even at a 3.2 second / 100 iso exposure, the photo looks great! The grain at 800 is completely passable- soft, even, rather than that digital harshness you get sometimes with cheap digital cameras. The kit lens went below my expectations for video, and above them for stills!

p.s. i used the live view for these shots, holding it over them at slightly lower my eye level, so that i could barely see the frame when i shot. Focusing was done by me hovering over them and magnifying to focus. From what I remember of the 5D, the screen is not as sharp as the t2i- i'm able to focus a lot easier right of the screen, even in broad daylight. that's a BIG plus for this camera and part of the reason why the kit lens "works" much better.

Speaking of low light video with the kit lens, here's a video I made.

I was showing my camera to a friend and he shot a few things out the window as I was driving around my city. I made a montage of it just for kicks:



I tried to cover up the low light noise with some film grain and color correction in post and I like the way the video looks small, but full screen it is very disappointing. I need faster lens.

Good Alex but leaving any camera on auto, can't give you the best of it.Or it was manual? I have seen shots with the kit @1600 ISO and I loved it.
See .

Yeah some of those shots look good... Anyways I haven't shot any of those scenes, my friend was just playing around so I just made a montage. It was on manual for the most part, I think he left the ISO on auto though...

But even in that video I see some annoying grain, but maybe I'm expecting too much from this camera/lens.

While this is compressed to fit on vimeo, where is the point that you see noise?
It is not my video of course. It is 4.18 minutes and it should be around 1.5g if it was online quality.
But it's only 67mb instead...

Don't get me wrong, it annoys me that his video looks better than mine even though mine went through some subtle post, and the only thing keeping me from hanging myself is knowing that I didn't shoot my video, I merely just pieced it together -- that is a compliment directed at the video you posted btw :P

I'm just saying in those really low light shots of buildings, I can see some noise.

Do not worry there are no bad feelings here. Those buildings are shot @1600 (ISO).And given that this is too compressed I think that this is marvelous. At the flowers shots you can't really tell if it was shot on video or film. And that video was untouched (expect from the compression...). This is too filmic. I love that colors.

Thanks for posting these (Alex / George). These answered a couple of questions I had :)

As you say, the kit lens is good enough for outdoor HD video during daylight. Many people are prejudiced against it because of the reputation of Canon's previous 18-55mm kit lens, which was optically inferior and had no IS.

Slow IS zooms are GREAT for walk about daylight shooting, for the money at least. I bought the 550d as a body only camera, but only because I already had an EF-S 17-85mm IS, which is even better. It is still slow, but is optically better than the kit and obviously has a bit more range.

As far as spending big bucks for fast lenses, I would have to differ. I have picked up a nice collection of (9) Takumar prime lenses from 50mm up to 300. All of which can be had for relatively cheap on ebay. They are all very fast, and amazingly well suited towards serious creative film making for a number of reasons:

Build quality - they are like tanks.
Colour rendering - I compared my SMC 50mm f/1.4 to my EF 50mm f/1.8: no contest Tak colours way better, vivid, saturated.
Sharpness - most of these lenses are sharp enough even wide open to exceed the resolution of 1080p images
Focus action - just try one. They have this amazingly retro feel. Superbly damped with lovely momentum.

For a wider fast prime, there is a gap in the affordable Takumar range, so I got a Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 close focus S/N 28### for £30. There are many 28mm Viv's on ebay, and not all are equal. The serial designates the manufacturer, and many are series 1 lenses in all but name.

The 85mm f/1.8 and the 50mm f/1.4 are legendary, and will set you back a bit more, but still good value. The 50/1.4 destroys the Canon 50/1.8 for video, and is cheaper.

Since I bought my lenses a couple of years ago, the prices have gone up considerably and continue to do so, but there are still stunning bargains to be had.

My top tip would be get hold of a 55mm Takumar. They are still very cheap, don't suffer from the yellowing or inflated prices that the 50mm/1.4 does, and some 55 f/1.8s are rated by many to be sharper and over all pretty close in performance.

I just checked ebay completed items, and on the first page, there are 2 55's which went for £16 (about $24) and one which went for £9 ($14) !!

If you do go for a 50/1.4 tak, you can clear the inevitable yellowing with a £10 UV party lamp in a few days, which will give you up to an extra stop of light.

Some Tak 50/1.4 footage which shows off the nice colours and contrast in low light:


I sincerely hope more people discover these amazing lenses.

Very good colors. But this is far from a low light scene. At least with the light kits I can see.

You are right. I just grabbed the first thing I found on Vimeo, and it's not a useful low light example.

I guess I will have to post my own example.

I ordered just the body from NewEgg, and they sent me the kit instead for the same price. Thumbs up to NewEgg.

A camlight can also be a perfect solution for nearby lowlightvideoshoots.

Not the best field test, but might provide you something:

The 50mm f1.4 lets in 16x more light than the kit lens at 55mm f5.6. It's a drastic difference in performance.

Hèhè, now i know what to buy next...
But what with it's DOF-value?
Is there a lens that does lowlight & great DOF at the same time?

Yeah, the 50mm. At F1.4, the DoF is amazing.