cinematography Question about aperture and ISO.

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harmonica44

What should I turn up first to let in more light, aperture, or ISO? I tries shooting the the same shot at the same angle. Once with the aperture at 2.0, and the ISO at 400. Then with the aperture at 2.2. and the ISO at 800. Both shots looked exactly the same so how do I know which one to turn up first, or which is more appropriate for what type of shot I want to convey?
 
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harmonica44 said:
5D is cleaner? No one told me that, if I knew I would have heavily considered a 5D or something different. Well I'm shooting in a bit and use do what I can in and use both lenses. Probably end up choosing a noisy look over a blurry DOF look. I disagree that noise is uglier than film grain, they both look beautiful in there own ways.
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The 5D is at least a full stop better in the noise-quality department -- ISO1600 on my 5D MkII looks similar to ISO800 on the 7D that I traded in after two weeks for the 5D. :)

As for dealing with grain/noise (which is inevitable at times) I use NeatVideo. This is one of those must-have filters and is available for FCP, Premiere, and a few others (both Mac and Windows versions).

As for the grain vs. noise label, noise is just digital grain. I see no reason to get dictionary-silly over it. :) I am, however, in full agreement that while film grain can be aesthetically-pleasing, digital noise just sucks.

5D DOF: I actually greatly prefer the shallower DOF at the same effective focal length as compared to crop-factor sensors. My 50mm wide-open on a full frame beats the pants off of a 35mm on a cropped sensor when it comes to the visual look of the thing.

5D Rolling Shutter: Worse. I may be plunking down the $500 for The Foundry's Rolling Shutter removal filter.

CineStyle (any modern Canon DSLR): Technicolor's CineStyle color profile results in a flat, full-latitude video that gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility in post. (eg. the video that comes out of the camera looks flat and ugly, but you can easily correct that and you'll have the maximum range from shadow to highlight to work with, avoiding crushed shadows and blown-out brights.)
 
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harmonica44 said:
Some of those grain/noise remover programs can cost a thousand dollars though, and I don't have that kind of budget for post right now. Or at least that's what a DP I talked to told me.
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I've never seen a thousand-dollar noise suppression program. NeatVideo only costs $99 for the full version, and it's the best program of its kind I've ever seen. Worth every penny, I promise you.

Makes me wonder how knowledgeable your DP is... :P
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay. Does it get rid of that red noise too, when it comes to being too dark, or just the white noise, if that makes sense?
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It analyzes the noise in the image directly, and works on both luma and chroma noise. The best way to use it is to aim it at a solid grey card at the beginning of the shoot so you have a spot where you can tell NeatVideo "that there is supposed to be a solid color" and then NeatVideo analyzes the noise and then applies that to the entire clip.

You can save noise profiles too, which is handy when you have a lot of shots all done under the same conditions and camera settings. Analyze once, apply many times.
 
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I've been using an 18% photography gray card, but I'm getting the impression that a card with black, middle-gray, and white would be best. You would profile on the gray as your primary noise, and then use the manual touch up feature on the black and the white so that NeatVideo gets a noise profile across the entire luminance spectrum.

If you wanted to get really fancy, you could print out your own card with the black-gray-white and then squares of red, green, and blue. If that kind of card fills the video frame that will give NeatVideo plenty of information to work off of.
 
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You're best off starting with middle-gray. The way NeatVideo works is that you drag a little square on the screen over a part of the image that is supposed to be a solid color. NeatVideo then treats all deviations in color and brightness as noise and builds up a mathematical profile it can use over the entire image which is why it can remove noise while still leaving in a lot of detail.

When shooting your graycard (or solid colors), it's best to do that slightly out of focus so that NeatVideo doesn't think that in-focus paper texture is part of the noise.
 
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Okay thanks. I'll try to remember, as I already have to remember to bring everything else to the shoots. How do I make it look like the grey card paper is naturally part of the scene? What if I just put a grey prop in there, and use the color from the prop, such as a backpack or a book, or something?
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I'll try to remember, as I already have to remember to bring everything else to the shoots. How do I make it look like the grey card paper is naturally part of the scene? What if I just put a grey prop in there, and use the color from the prop, such as a backpack or a book, or something?
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You don't. You shoot it as a separate take (or at the beginning of one), and then remove it.
 
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