shooting moon -> lots of grain

[Rob Lohman]

Howdy...

Yesterday evening I saw a perfect moon outside and
thought lets tape it. I had the XL1S set up in full manual
mode (including gain & whitebalance) but could not
see the moon's texture. I only saw a white "light"...
Te keep the scene from gettnig too dark I had opened
up the camera. When I closed it down a lot I started
to get a beautifull moon! Only one problem, there was
A LOT (and I mean a lot here) white grain on the blacks
surrounding the moon, going around like nuts. I used
a shutter of 1/1000 at around an f stop of 8.2. Gain was
set to +6 db or +12 db I think.

Any idea? Am I doing something wrong here? Because
I saw some moon footage last year on this board which
looked gorgeous with no grain whatsoever?

I would show it in a picture, but the board doesn't allow
for pictures. Chris? You also still on that pictures page
of the other guy that wanted to mail around pictures?

Thanks for any help

[Rob Lohman]

I watched the footage on a widescreen TV, somehow
this made it look more bad (and the noise was bright
white here) then when I watched it on my computer
monitor (allmost unnoticable) or on another TV (normal
4:3 TV, saw noise, much less then the widescreen though)....

It might be a thing I can clean up in post. I'll play
around some with it. I have the idea that it might
have been caused by the +6 db gain. Since there
isn't much to gain it would probably have been wiser
to set the gain to +0 and open the lens a bit more...

anyone else has some thoughts on this?

[Chris Hurd]

Rob, instead of full manual mode, try the "Spotlight" program mode. Also try a higher f/stop, like f/16 or so. The "grain" is coming from the gain -- I'd leave it at 0db if I were you.

Will try to contact that guy about those images -- I've got a lot to do, that's for sure.

[Don Palomaki]

As Chris notes, be sure gain is at 0 dB. That will reduce the noise level in the image.

The moon is a bright object on a very dark field. This can fool weighted average metering in the camcorder so you may have to use manual settings if spotlight mode still leaves the moon's face washed out. Also, keep in mind that the image may fool the video AGC on TV sets and caus th meeon to washout and the surrounding sky to be too light.

[Ozzie Alfonso]

Today I saw the most beautifully shot MiniDv footage I've ever seen. My old friend Fred has been shooting for years. About 15 years ago I met Fred when he had a screening of a film he had shot in the Sahara Desert. The footage was incredibly beautiful and it was shot on his format of choice at the time - Super 8 film. A few years ago he switched over to DV and his footage still has that incredibly smooth quality one never expects from Super 8 much less from MiniDV. His blacks are pure and noise free. His colors, vibrant.

His secret? - and this is what got me - underexpose. He shoots everything at -3db. Outdoors he also uses a polarizing filter when necessary. The stuff he showed me was shot in Las Vegas for the Travel Channel. The footage ranged from bright neon against pitch black backgrounds, to bright sun lit desert scenes, to dark smokefilled bars.

I watched the footage right off FCP2 on a hires monitor. And it all looked beautiful. I'm going on a little about this because his technique is a little counter intuitive. To reduce the gain even in dark places by -3db. To Fred that's exactly when the gain should be lowered.

Just thought I'd pass this along as a response to several inquiries about noisy blacks and blooming whites. A little underexposure, and a great deal of skill, does the trick.

I shoot a lot of my footage in -3dB now because of this very fact. The picture is a lot cleaner looking.
You can shoot in -3 and turn the frame rate right down. This will brighten it back up again and give you very low grain but still quite bright. Especially good for just looking at the moon and night lights and not panning the camera.

[Adrian Douglas]

Paul, by "Turning the frame rate right down" I figure you mean the shutter speed, i.e 1/6sec digital effect.

I've used this to shoot a lot of really low light stuff and combined with the gain at -3db it looks really good. A definate manual focus job though as the auto focus will hunt in low light. I was going to post a clip on my site but with the compression it was a pointless exersize.

[Rob Lohman]

Ozzie,

Thank you for sharing this with us! Greatly appreciated!
Perhaps this is asking for a lot, but is it in anyway possible
to see some pictures? In e-mail, on this excellent site or perhaps
on another? It would be great if perhaps he or you could
write a bit more on this, would be excellent help and insight
into things!

Thanks again!

[Rob Lohman]

Thanks for all the responses. If we have another clear night
I will try to shoot again at 0 or -3 db and see where that
leaves me with some things. I'll probably hook the camera
up to my TV whilst I am filming to see a bit more resolution.

Thanks for the tips!

[Ozzie Alfonso]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Ozzie, Perhaps this is asking for a lot, but is it in anyway possible to see some pictures? In e-mail, on this excellent site or perhaps on another?
Thanks again! -->>>

Fred is in Vegas shooting pickups and the footage is property of Discovery Networks. The best I can do is let you know when the two episode series will air. I believe it's slated for next Fall (in the US - I don't know when it airs internationally).

I'll see if there's anything Fred can part with when he gets back.

[Rob Lohman]

Ozzie,

Thank you for trying :) Would be nice if he could
talk some more about settings and experiences
with the format. I understand that you can't show
the footage... too bad.