How does this guy's camera get so bright at night?

I wish I had some footage to show but was not able to get any from him yet. But I viewed some of his night footage and it looks insanely good at such a high ISO, with very little noise. On a downtown lit street 800 ISO at f.1.4 is acceptable, but what about doing skyline shots?

His camera can open up to maximum ISO without noise, and with the aperture very sharp. It's a Panasonic video camera, but he did not remember the model number. But I saw it on a big screen HDTV and it looked fantastic. Any cameras I can get that hopefully are not too much that has such good ISO? Cause doing night shots of city skylines, are too dark with a DLSR. A lot of cameras have to be ordered, so I don't know what the ISO is like till I see that camera.
 
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I wish I had some footage to show but was not able to get any from him yet. But I viewed some of his night footage and it looks insanely good at such a high ISO, with very little noise. On a downtown lit street 800 ISO at f.1.4 is acceptable, but what about doing skyline shots?

His camera can open up to maximum ISO without noise, and with the aperture very sharp. It's a Panasonic video camera, but he did not remember the model number. But I saw it on a big screen HDTV and it looked fantastic. Any cameras I can get that hopefully are not too much that has such good ISO? Cause doing night shots of city skylines, are too dark with a DLSR. A lot of cameras have to be ordered, so I don't know what the ISO is like till I see that camera.

you want a cheap HD camera that performs really well at high iso? really?
 
Or a more expensive one if it's worth it. At night getting a lot of shots is tough, if not impossible. I have to buy or rent generators to power lots of light, but this guy's lens can do well under lower lights that do not require generators.

He might even be able to do get good shots of city skylines, where as when I try to do do it with my T2i, the Skylines, just come out pitch black, without some white dots, that are suppose to be lit windows.

Do you think I should buy a GH3 soon, or should I wait till even better low light cameras come out?
 
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Use a faster lens and lower your shutter speed, you won't get action shots and there's smearing, but it'll get you light with what you already have... learn to use what you've got... youtube and google search for low light exposure and learn the exposure triangle (ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed). The get lenses that will take you wider in your aperure (f-stop), letting more light in at lower ISOs thereby limiting the amount of noise in the image.
 
Do you think I should buy a GH3 soon, or should I wait till even better low light cameras come out?
If you just want low light performance, Nikon has better cameras, and the BMPCC should be better in lowlight. Granted, there are compromises. But as knightly, learn to use what you've got, first - there is a lot you can do to improve your image.
 
Use a faster lens and lower your shutter speed, you won't get action shots and there's smearing, but it'll get you light with what you already have... learn to use what you've got... youtube and google search for low light exposure and learn the exposure triangle (ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed). The get lenses that will take you wider in your aperure (f-stop), letting more light in at lower ISOs thereby limiting the amount of noise in the image.

For sure thanks. But even under realistic city light, a fast lens is still not enough:

http://youtu.be/yZOF4botrW4

All you can see is white dots in the building windows but the view is pitch black.
 
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This question is like:

'Hey guys, a friend of mine has this car that can go heaps faster than mine, mine can go kinda fast but I'd really like it to go faster. He's been training to be a race-car driver for a while, and I'm not sure what car he has but it's certainly faster than mine - I know it's got four doors. What car should I buy that will win against him, if not draw? There's not a lot of car dealers around here so I couldn't really test drive anything'

There's simply not enough information to give any sort of answer.
 
I'm amazed that bothered asking a question about that link, looks like it was recorded on an iPhone.. Jesus!


His point is still proven : a fast lens is not enough to get enough light at night.

We still need to know what he means by fast lens.

And we still need to see the kindda of footage he's going for.

And we also need to stop feeding the troll :/.
 
In the shot provided, the camera was focussed on the railing beside the car (about 6' from the camera). The lights in the background were also in focus (little pin points with almost no bokeh bloom at all), leading me to see either a tiny chip or lens stopped down. A stopped down lens (to get the long DoF that you would see in this image with a DSLR) will require that you change the shutter speed slower (making longer motion trails, which I didn't see) and/or increase the ISO causing grain (which I also don't see)... leading me to believe that this is shot with a camera with a tiny chip... like an camera phone - which was already mentioned and probably correct.

The fact that it's a camera phone is why it looks the way it does in that example... here's an image that was taken at night, with a Canon T3i (pretty sure that's the model - not going to go back and look it up, you can do that) and a moderately fast lens (low f-stop number): http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?p=320070#post320070

To get the forground out of shadow (since it's the part you can control, add light to it to match the exposure of the background... if you can't do it - you can stop asking how... because that's the answer... add light to the foreground to match the exposure of the background you're looking for as the camera can only catch a limited range of light/dark -- the DP's job is to get the scene into that range!
 
The fact that it's a camera phone is why it looks the way it does in that example... here's an image that was taken at night, with a Canon T3i (pretty sure that's the model - not going to go back and look it up, you can do that) and a moderately fast lens (low f-stop number): http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?p=320070#post320070

I'm pretty sure this photo is a long exposure one and has nothing to do with video.
 
I was using it as a counter example to the video (which is obviously bad). We expose to the light we can't control, then add light where we can control it. If you insist on shooting at night, you need to learn how or trust that you have hired someone who knows how (a show reel and personal recommendations from people they've worked with in the past goes a long way here). My wife came up with a fantastic idea: come to MN and pay me what you've agreed to pay all of these other DPs you've hired and I'll teach you how to shoot what you want to shoot rather than arguing with you... I won't shoot it, but I'll give you the tools to do it correctly. My day rate is $350 for a 12/hr day and we could get quite a bit of learning on in a day or two. I'll even feed you and give you a really comfy couch to crash on. Half up front, half at the end. Let me know before hand so I can get off the time at my day job.
 
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