Shooting in low light

Alec Delaney

I'm looking for help in shooting video in low light. Every time I look it up I get tips and tricks on how to brighten the shot but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking to shoot in a low light situation but get better picture quality and reduced noise. Would I do it in post or any other ideas?

partyatmygaff

You should always aim to get your exposure right while recording. Trying to correct it in post is both a nightmare and unless it's only very slightly underexposed, going to be fairly shoddy in terms of quality.

What equipment are you using to record? The best option is increasing/improving the lighting where you're shooting. Obviously that's not always possible... your other options are to increase the aperture (use a lower F stop on your lens) which has the (dis)advantage of shallow depth of field or to use a slower shutter speed. You can bump up the ISO but ideally you want to keep that as low as possible to keep the video clean.

Alec Delaney

I'm using the Canon 600D and the standard kit lens. I'm looking into a better lens, maybe something along the lines of this?

"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009XVCZ/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theadvofmat-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B00009XVCZ"

I'm trying to avoid adding much more light to keep it dark so I'm thinking a new lens is probably the only and best solution, thanks.

partyatmygaff

It's a good and very versatile lens. Opening it up to F1.4 will let in plenty of light but you'll very shallow depth of field (the background will be blur). That's very good for isolating subjects but obviously won't suit every kind of shot.

In any case, miles better than the kit lens when it comes to low-light!

Alec Delaney

Right well looks like that's my best option so, thanks for the help!

dwayned

The 50mm 1.4 would be good but there is also a cheaper 1.8 version available which I use for stills in low light.

50mm 1.8

Alec Delaney

Thanks, Just saved me a lot of money!

dwayned

lol no worries, its a great wee lens as well, i use it nearly all the time, in future i am going to be buying primes