Shooting a low light concert
 

Hello all. I will try to be as brief as possible. I got my GL2 about 3 weeks ago and I have been messing with the Camera like crazy so I can learn what all of the features can do. I have to say though, I am not as impressed with the low-light shooting as everyone else seems to be. I had an Elura about 5 yrs. ago and to be really honest the overall picture seems a little bit clearer on that camera. Where I need help is this...just by complete luck (in the right place at the right time) I was asked to help out on a DV shoot of a concert indoors in a Los Angeles venue. It is a very well known artist and they want many camera's going as to get many different angles, etc., etc. I want to know from those of you who KNOW. Please help me to set the camera up in manual or even just auto mode for shooting a concert indoors under not very bright lighting. I want my footage to look good because I want them to use my stuff but I don't know the best way to shoot a concert. Thanks for help.

The stage will be lit. Spot light mode is easy and should produce a good result. You could always change the frame rate to 30 if needed but that will mean a lot less resolution and choppy effect but they may like a bit of that for effect.

thanks for the advice. only thing is I will most likely be walking around shooting the crowd as well as the stage.

also a related question is...
does it make a difference if the DV tape that I am shooting on has been filmed on a number of times? In other words, if you reuse DV tapes (filming over previous stuff) alot, does it affect the quality of the footage?
thanks

Use new tape, particularly if the event is important and non-repeatable. Tape eventually wears out. Many, if not most, serious shooters only use a tape once. It's a good policy. Tape is cheap.

ken, thanks for your response to my question. could you address the main issue in my first post? I trust your opinion on this matter. Thanks.

Try do a practice shoot in a similar environment, especiallt with regard to lighting, if you can to determine whether or not you get satisfactory results. Also, it lets you try different settings.

A small (few watt) on camera light may help for crowd shots by providing fil light.

The GL2 does a good job in poor light for its price point, but low light performance is a trade between getting any sort of image and getting an image with good color and low noise. To do better overall you probably will spend more money.

I'll take your used tapes!
 

" Many, if not most, serious shooters only use a tape once. It's a good policy. Tape is cheap."

If any of you out there do this please let me know I'd be more than happy to take your once used tapes off of your hand, I'll pay shipping, I use them sometimes 10 times before I notice any dropouts or problems with them.

Eddie,
Just getting back to this thread. I am not highly experienced at shooting stage events such as concerts or plays so take my remarks with that caveat.

It sounds like you will basically be shooting as part of the audience rather than the crew, yes? As such, you have no opportunity to to adjust your exposure and white balance ahead of the event? I'm also assuming that the action on the stage, rather than the audience, will be your primary subject.

This will be hard conditions to get good results from frame 1. First, use Manual mode. Not knowing the exact lighting conditions I would start from the tunsten preset white balance and then watch closely to see of the white-lit shots look too blue. If so, switch over to daylight preset. Try to keep you shutter at 1/60, and certainly do not go below 1/30. From that point your challenges are confined to your iris and focus, as they should be. Use your iris to basically expose for the highlights; that's about all you can do. Yes, you may have some dark fall-off in the background but it will be preferable to haging the highlights (ie. the main stage subjects) blowing-out.

If it's a rock-type concert where the color and directionality of the lights are all over the map you will have quite a time keeping up. Just don't let your thumb overreact on that exposure wheel from moment to moment. Let your eye-brain determine an average exposure direction and adjust the iris very sparingly. The only thing more distracting than watching a badly exposed piece of footage is watching one in which the operator keeps hunting with the iris.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. It should be, at least, a good learning experience. Be sure to get some practice with Manual mode before you walk in to the concert!

Thanks Ken. I will follow your hints and see what results I can get. I enjoy messing around with all of the features on the new GL2 but it sometimes seems a bit overwhelming. Everything I have shot (for some strange reason) looks very noisy and grainy. Maybe it's my Sony 57 in. rear projection television but I am in sort of a quagmire. This camera HAS TO produce better images than I have been able to get. Anyone with an opinion please help with advice.

When you see grain, it means you have gain - plain and simple. The operator is, generally unskillfully, allowing the camera to auto-gain.

Comparable Sony's are a small step ahead with respect to low-light shots. But it's a small step.

Short answer: Learn to manually manage your exposure and, indeed, the whole camera. Dial-in MANUAL mode and then break the dial. Yes, it takes time and practice to develop these skills.

An astonishing number of prosumer camera owners with whom I correspond never take the time to learn to use their camera properly, become frustrated that they can't reproduce The Matrix with it, stick it in the closet and then come to discussion boards to gripe. Eventually they may buy another camera that's "better in low light" and nearly always repeat that cycle. It's very tiresome to see.

Don't fall into this cycle. It's far more satisfying to learn to use the tool properly and well.

Addendum
Eddie, it's only fair to add, in response to your upcoming event, that there are limits to what the GL2 (or any video camera) can capture without employing gain. I wouldn't imagine the stage show would fall into this category if you get the hang of properly managing your exposure. But the audience shots might. A 1/4" 3-CCD camera is simply no match for professional 1/2" or 2/3" cameras in such situations. Let the band hire pro shooters if they want pro results.

thanks Ken. I don't want to sound like I am complaining. I am trying to get familiar with the manual settings, etc., etc. Question: Would I be better off (in manual mode of course) using NO gain at all? If I set the speed to 1/30 and the aperture to around 1.8 or so, will this be adequate in lower lighting situations. The gain being kept at zero with the sharpness turned down a notch or two. How does that sound? What is the deal with the Gain anyway? What does it mean? What does it do? Do I need to use it if I can get adequate shots without it? Thanks for the help as usual.

Gain is analogous to "gain" in radio technology. If you've ever worked with radio gain you may recall that increasing gain makes the sound lounder but eventually also introduces more noise. The same is true with video gain in all cameras.

For the smoothest shots always try to shoot with 0dB gain. If absolutely necessary bump it up one notch. But in all cases make sure you're making those decisions, not the camera.

I wouldn't recommend messing with sharpness right now. You can always soften in post if necessary.

Ken please . . .
 

"Dial-in MANUAL mode and then break the dial. " - Ken, I've been wondering what you meant here. Please explain? I relaise it is nothing violent . .

Sometimes I think I'm getting there . . and other times I think I'm not. Please help.

Grazie

For camcorders, is this generally an analog gain preceding the A/D or is it just a digital multiply on the data ?

Gain amplifies the signal, all signal including noise, read from the CCD before it reaches the A/D converters. In low light, the desired signal caused by light is very close to the level of noise just naturally generated in the CCD.

It also amplifies the differences in dark current of the individual pixels in the CCD, and that appears as a fixed grain pattern in the image.

Gain with a camcorder is a bit like like push processing of film.

You can use gain in the camcorder, or use gain in post production, to brighten an image. Using camcorder gain may be more effective preserving shadow detail

Keep in mind that in many cases a noisy and grainy image is better than no image.

As to recycling tape. Occasionally people have reported problems with incomplete erasure. and bits of the earlier shoot may show through. For important work safer to use fresh tape.

You pays your money and takes your chances.

Graham,
My remark about "...break the dial" was strictly metaphorical. Meaning: generally forget about program modes and take direct control of the camera.

As always, Don is completely correct by remarking, "...in many cases a noisy and grainy image is better than no image."

A key consideration with respect to the acceptability of grain, however, will be the target viewing venue of the footage. If the target will be a compressed medium, such as Web or DVD, grainy footage may be a nightmare. Grain can wreak havoc with heavy compression on two fronts. First, because it adds an enormous amount of random detail, it can really bloat a compressed file and take quite a while to compress. Second, during viewing (decompression) the grain tends to become magnified and more pronounced. There are ways to soften and smooth-out some grain during compression to mitigate these consequences. But it would take a real pro to make such adjustments, particularly if your footage is cut among other smooth footage.

Thanks Ken. I've never come across this term before.

Concert done already
 

Hi,
I was just wondering if the concert had already taken place and how the results were with hat settings?
I tried to do the same thing on my very first night out with the camera (ok, I had put everything on automatic, it was only a test) but the results were far from what I had hoped for.

Yea me too wondering how concert turned out.
Ive only done one concert that was actually in a cinema. I used two borrowed cameras and it turned into a blundering nightmare! Firstly the 'spare' camera was set on a tripod at wide angle. I selected low light mode, and autofocus. This was great with the lighting before the show. But when the show started and there were human faces on stage, they were all over exposed, white blobs, and i should have used 'spotlite mode'.
Incidentally this worked a treat on the sony vdx2000 i had borrowed for use as the main camera. Only wish i had white ballanced it before hand, tho was ok. Audio. I had planned to use a mini disk as a sound source, i checked the levels when the music was on before the show, and they were fine. However when the show started all of the volumes were turned up louder, and i ended up having to use the audio from the camera!
With hindsight id say, use auto focus, and auto levels for your audio, if your results are important, unless you are able to monitor it, are comfortable with it, or have someone else to help out. I like the idea of having a spare camera left alone on auto, so if you mess up the clever shots you have something to fall back on. Shame id set up the spare camera wrong!

You can see a sample of XM2 on night outdoors concert and can compare with two other cameras:
(the compression isn´t very good)

See it on browser http://www.def3ct.com/federico/videos/haro.htm

Download it http://www.def3ct.com/federico/videos/hdsl.wmv

All the shots that look from down below were done with my XM2.
Exposure and Aperture manual, auto white balance.

All the On-stage shot were done with a really smal miniDv from panasonic... (don´t know the model) fully auto...

All the Far-Wide Shots... were done with a Panasonic DVX-100, I don´t know the settings.

Since the light changed so much and so often.. I underexposed the XM2 a bit to avoid a lot of "burned" whites, for some reason that day I thouhgt I´d preffer to loose the shadow details than the highlight details.. It was impossible to have both.. and the plans were to correct on post... but...
I didn´t edit the footage... and I´m 120% sure that no color correction or deinterlace or anything was donde to the image, so that´s pretty much how it looks raw (and compressed).

Excellent comparison test. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Grazie

<<<-- Originally posted by Graham Bernard : Excellent comparison test. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Grazie -->>>
No problem at all.. For me the problem to post is not a matter of time.. but a matter of space... WEBSPACE...

I´d love to upload a whole bunch of shooting I´ve done with the XM2... and have it discussed, but at this moment I can´t afford more webspace.

But in 2004 I hope stuff comes better for me (and for all of you too) so we can do a whole lot of posting...

I wanna know who this well known artist is you shot???

How did the shoot go by the way?

Murph

That´s a band called H from La Rioja here in Spain... They are a new band so at this time they are nobodys struggling up... (like me).
There were 5 bands that night.. Including the BIG one.. It´s called Macaco.. but I didn´t want to post a part of them because, they, and their agent were a little "Stars" that night, so I don´t want any problems with Labels... Besides I like H music better...

The shooting was very good... it was the first time I tested my XM2 in live event... And it performed like I expected (love my Generic Brand big battery, It lasted more than 7 hours). The low light performance was not as bad as I thought... It is actually pretty good. And besides a little weird issue with the grip zoom (there´s a thread about it here)..overall I´d say it was an A day.

My experience in doing camera work for concerts is mixed. Some groups will have a "stage wash" of white light which helps getting a good video image. Other groups have light directors who are more theatrical and use large color washes and dramatic lighting cues. Its hard to get good images with a smaller chip camera especially, when there's low light, and its all red as well.

One of the other arguments to using manual aperture is that light levels will jump, and if the camera is in auto iris, you'll get blooming or hot spots and the iris will adjust a lot.

Talk to the lighting guy before hand and find out what kind of light show they have. If you can. Can you get into he space ahead of time? Do you have more han one camera?

good luck!

Jeff Patnaude