Yet Another F3 Low Light Test

[Aaron Newsome]

I wasn't planning on filming this, but I was giving my friend a DJ lesson and I figured what the heck, let's roll with the F3 and see what it looks like. There was no lighting plan or setup for this one. The lights in my house were complete turned of so it was dark.

The light sources are as follows: iMac on my desk, behind my friend. The screen happened to be on. The DJ equipment has small lights and LEDs, there is a MacBook Pro in front of the DJ gear providing some glow. There is a lightpanels mini off to the left with a CTO and 1/2 white frost wrapped over the front (sapping more than half the light from this tiny fixture).

Please remember people, this is footage STRAIGHT FROM THE CAMERA, zero tweaks in post, no color grading whatsoever and it's purposely balanced warm. I don't own any SxS cards to record onto, so I used my Cinedeck, recording to ProRes 422 HQ. You can download the H.264 right from Vimeo. If you guys want the entire raw ProRes, just as it came out of the camera, please let me know.

The lens is the Sony 50mm if I recall correctly. I was wide open at T2. Surprisingly, the gain was only at +6db. Remember +9 and +16 are also available and have ridiculously low noise.

The mattebox was taken off the lens on purpose, hence all the flaring.

I really had no intent to post this when I decided to roll camera, but then I remembered how much people love footage, especially footage taken in the dark that really shows how ridiculously sensitive and low noise this camera is. If I had intended to post it, I probably would have been thinking to nail the focus better and faster :-)

Love it or hate it, comments are welcome.

PASSWORD is winning

This is a password protected video on Vimeo

[Monday Isa]

Very nice low light footage. Pretty clean gain there. Thanks for sharing

[Aaron Newsome]

I actually redid the test with ZERO lights. None, two candles only.

[Monday Isa]

I look forward to you posting it.

[Aaron Newsome]

An absolute torture test really. Zero lighting. 2 candles only. Zero grading. This is straight from the camera.

Vimeo

[Timur Civan]

+6db gain?

[Aaron Newsome]

The 2 candle test was max gain, lens wide open. The tiny bit of noise I could easily kill in post but I wanted to show the unmodified look. The high quality H.264 can be downloaded right from vimeo, I can link anyone to the source file who really likes pixel peeping. I will say though, at viewing distance on my 50" plasma it looks clean. I know people inspecting footage don't do that though.

[Timur Civan]

Originally Posted by Aaron Newsome

I know people inspecting footage don't do that though.

Indeed. A working ISO800 is FAR more than enough speed, i'd be surprised if on a job you ever went above 800, unless it was magic hour and you need one last shot... i mean, I have Panchros, a T2.8 set of lenses, and i find myslef stopped down to a T5.6 @ ISO800 after turning on one lamp. Infact i wish i could drop down to ISO100, with no penalty in the highlights. Though i suppose thats what the built in ND is for, though it would be nice to have perfectly spotless footage with no highlight penalty.

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

could someone post what the settings you guys are using for low light? I'm having major noise issues with my camera and wondering what it could be.

[Aaron Newsome]

Did you black balance? I'm also using CINE1, which helps I think. I actually haven't tested the noisiness of the different curves. I should. I'll check my settings and post back.

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

I did, I am actually tempted to do it again. I switched my settings and reshot some stuff and it looked much cleaner, just learning the matrix and settings is a pain with no info to go on.

[Timur Civan]

i keep mine in Cine2, Detial OFF. and black balance everytime you turn the camera on or off.

[Andy Shipsides]

Cine 1 and 2 put your grey point fairly far down the curve, great for highlights but not leaving that much info in the low light area. I suggest Cine 3 or 4 in low light spaces. Cine 4 puts the grey point around the same level as you get in 709 (Std5).

[Giuseppe Pugliese]

Originally Posted by Aaron Newsome

I actually redid the test with ZERO lights. None, two candles only.

Can you please post what settings the camera is at?

[Timur Civan]

Originally Posted by Andy Shipsides

Cine 1 and 2 put your grey point fairly far down the curve, great for highlights but not leaving that much info in the low light area. I suggest Cine 3 or 4 in low light spaces. Cine 4 puts the grey point around the same level as you get in 709 (Std5).

Does Cine4 still offer a decent amount of highlight protection? I dont have a waveform, only False color on my monitor, i cant really tell.