Low Light Preset for Weddings

[Justin Kifer]

Hey All,

I love all the information available in this forum. Does anyone remember if there is a good low light preset for wedding ceremony and reception situations in dark locations? This is our biggest challenge and all my tests in low light have a lot of noise in the picture.

We have a wedding tomorrow and plan to use our three new A1's as we have another wedding with our VX2100's.

I do have the Low Light preset from the Preset thread but it cranks the gain to 12DB and understand that will cause noise as well.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Justin

[Bill Busby]

Originally Posted by Justin Kifer

I do have the Low Light preset from the Preset thread but it cranks the gain to 12DB and understand that will cause noise as well.

Presets do not add any gain. Just because a preset might be named +6dB or +12dB, etc. doesn't mean it adds gain. The users who create those simply named them that way as a reference and because they think that particular preset will be "ok" with those gain levels by the user.

Bill

[Justin Kifer]

Well, now that is good to know. I suppose I should have realized that as you can adjust the gain setting outside of the presets. Is the Low Light Preset any good?

[Don Palomaki]

It provides a reasonable starting point, and may be just what some folks want. IMHO it is far better than using out of the box defaults with 12 dB gain. Try it and see if it meets your needs before you rely on it.

Keep in mind that there is no substitute for adequate light with any camcorder, just methods to mitigate the lack of light and the artifacts poor light produces.

Better spent the rest of the evening checking it out before the shoot.

[Justin Kifer]

I played with it last night by passing the signal through to our Panasonic HD studio monitor and the low light preset does a great job! We'll see if we need it in the church today but I feel confident in it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Steve Montoto]

Originally Posted by Justin Kifer

I played with it last night by passing the signal through to our Panasonic HD studio monitor and the low light preset does a great job! We'll see if we need it in the church today but I feel confident in it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Keep us posted. I have a wedding next friday and was looking at using it.

Thanks,

Steve

[Jerome Cloninger]

JCDVlow1 - My best attempt at a really low light preset. I have to tweak some in post such as contrast, levels and/or some saturation... but its a good base. I constructed this in a room with only a computer monitor with white background (like dvinfo site) as the only light source.
www.jcdv.com/PRESET/PRESET03.CPF

[Steve Montoto]

Originally Posted by Jerome Cloninger

JCDVlow1 - My best attempt at a really low light preset. I have to tweak some in post such as contrast, levels and/or some saturation... but its a good base. I constructed this in a room with only a computer monitor with white background (like dvinfo site) as the only light source.
www.jcdv.com/PRESET/PRESET03.CPF

Jerome,

In what situations do you use your lowlight preset? Reception only? if so what do you usually use for the outdoor or in church?

Thanks for the info.

Steve

[Jerome Cloninger]

Originally Posted by Steve Montoto

Jerome,

In what situations do you use your lowlight preset? Reception only? if so what do you usually use for the outdoor or in church?

Thanks for the info.

Steve

I only use this in VERY low light, otherwise I use the day preset I made... replace PRESET03.CPF with PRESET02.CPF in the above url or search in the Preset thread... probably on page 5 or 6 of it...

I use 2 sony HC1 cameras along with the A1 and that daylight preset matches pretty close to the HC1 camera settings.

Basically, if the light meter (have to switch it on in display settings which shows up where the zoom position is located) falls to 1/3 or below with 60th shutter, iris wide open, and gain no more that 12db, I switch to the preset03. 12db is NOT that grainy in most situations, but I'm sure others will debate it. I am starting to prefer this over using a light in most situations, but sometimes its needed, but not as some others elude to needing all the time.

It all really depends on what environment you are shooting in and how well you know your camera and adjust for those conditions. There isn't a "magical preset" that will alleviate all problems and I STRONGLY suggest anyone to know the camera well BEFORE shooting something important with it... that goes for any camera and any operator.

Hope those presets help as a base for anyone.