I would learn to work in fully manual at all times, riding the iris and focus controls (auto focus is okay and handy for certain situations though it works better outdoors - beware of relying on it inside particularly when there are persons/objects or any detail behind the subject).

You say your video was 'not smooth' in manual mode - have you checked your shutter speed? In the USA you should be 1/60 - any lower (including Frame Mode) will cause strobing/stutter with reasonable camera or subject movement. Also, check the 'stabiliser' option is off. In darker environments try a lower 1/30 shutter for shooting fairly static subjects with little camera movement - the light gain is significant, and no added grain.

Take a look at the Neat Video plugin by all means - but first I would try some test burns of the existing grainy footage to examine on your television. The encoding to MPEG will take care of a fair bit of grain. Also your editor should have a 'soften/blur/gaussian blur' filter - apply one of those in different degrees to chunks of the affected footage and again examine a test DVD on your television to gauge which gives best results.

Taky: what is the purpose of negative (-3db) gain? I have noticed some grain can appear when editing at 0db, though it is not enough to bother about. Setting to -3db will help eliminate this? So the Canon's setting of 0db is not actually zero gain, or how else is -3db accurately explained?

Yeah, it's very interesting for Canon to determine 0db should be grain free. But it isn't the case. -3db will be really noise free

When we are filming, we are already at the 54 Db gain - so -3dB would reduce are starting point to 51dB.

Regards
Shelton.

So far, I've been VERY fortunate. None of my clients has objected to an on-camera light, and I've been able to talk most of them into slightly turning up the house lights at receptions. Every bit of light helps.

I put together a quick demo on how the Comer light works well at reception


Here's another video showing it lits up a wedding reception. Without the lights, audience don't even know where the live bang was singing.

The 0 db point was probably selected as the overall sweet spot in terms of available dynamic range of the sensor balancing noise, shadow detail and highlight detail/head room. Departures from that point compromise some aspect of the image, but that may be ok for the shot at hand. It is not grain free, but the grain may be acceptable for many purposes.

The fixed grain is due to the variation in dark current and sensitivity of the individual pixels. Using a slower shutter speed will tend to increase the visibility of this fixed grain pattern.

rule #1 No auto gain on this camera
 

I second what Taky said. These are the settings to use. Set manual gain and then set the low medium and high settings to -3db, 0db and +3d

and leave it there. Outdoors, use the -3 and indoors the 0 or +3.

You'll love the results.

you can use for lowlight:
- normal gama
- SET 0 (!)
- PED -3
- gain +6dB with HDF M (important - less noise visibility)
- NR1 - 0 (!), NR2 - 0, COR - 0
- wide angle of the optics
- shutter speed 1/25
- light

Alot of ppl like the PFVISION preset. It was designed for low light receptions.

Hope this helps.

where exactly do I find the PFVISION on the camera? I've gotten pretty familiar with the camera and almost all the footage I take has a little grain to it..i've tried all kinds of settings... is it me or the camera?

Downloadable presets are in the "sticky" at the top of the threads list in this forum. For PFVision and a ton of others:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-xh...rary-copy.html

anyone have a good preset for weddings...usually low light.

shoot low light "without" presets
 

I have been shooting regularly with my A1 for approx 10 months and have come to the conclusion that it is best NOT to use presets when shooting indoors, especially in low light. Shooting indoors low light for me means shooting presets off, Manual setting, aperture wide open, 1/25 shutter, HD at 25F not 50i. I have gotten excellent results with these settings even at +6db gain.

I shot an event in a terribly dimly lit venue a few days back using these settings, but with the addition of a CN126 LED light, and plan on tweaking the image in post. I will put some examples up once I'm done.

I noticed, even you can get good low light settings for your camera, without any additional light, it just makes the event less interesting. I have been to weddings (as guest) in dim ballroom where the photographer didn't prepare any additional light. When there are speech, toasting, games, and even introducing family members, the audience didn't really know where it is happening.

ok... I have been messing around with some settings....got everything looking pretty good, except for blacks and shadows...they are really grainy..almost cartoon looking... here is a pic from some footage I took. Shooting Auto, Manual white balance, Auto gain off.