Manual gain on consumer Sony camcorders.

[Rar]

Some people probably already know this but I've just figured it out:
I've been experimeting with my Sony DCRPC110 and it seems to me that half of the exposure control actually controls the gain. It seems that only the first half of the "exposure" control actually controls exposure, after that it switches to electronic gain to make the picture brighter.
I took some footage using low light and high "exposure", and compared it to footage using high light and low "exposure". The high light and low "exposure" footage looked soo much better.There was less noise and the image was more vivid.
I've read a few websites that recommend using the highest exposure setting to increase depth of field, and improve picture quality, but I guess it doesn't really apply to certain Sony camcorders.



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[sn-films]

You're absolutely correct. With digital, you want to shoot "dark" and brighten subjects in post. The exposure/gain settings will perform a degree of interpolation on the incoming footage, and that will result in the "grainy" artifacts that you were referring to.

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www.sn-films.com

[steven_craig]

i kinda agree with sn here, but in digital cinematography a general rule of thumb is that you do as much as you can to alter the image before it hits the CCD...

so i reccomend using filters to sort out your problem, using an Natural Density filter can allow you to shoot with your exposure/apature to full (to get good depth of field) whilst reducing the amount of light entering the lens - they come in 0.3, 0.6 or 0.9, a 0.6 = two stops of exposure [eg. a point six ND]

this is a fairly standardised way of resolving this problem - by the way i own a sony PC110E and i understand your problem completely, but dont try and adjust the footage in post, a simple filter can save valuable render time...

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My preciousssssss!

[sn-films]

steven_craig:
Very interesting... My friend, I think you've just helped me figure out why our outdoor footage looks much better than our indoor footage. For everything we shoot outdoors now, we've been using a polarization filter. I didn't think of it at the time, but we undoubtably would have had to open the exposure up one or two stops to allow more light in. This sounds similar to what you're talking about with the neutral density filter.

For the purposes of clarification, what types of situations would you suggest using the ND filter (i.e. indoors, outdoors, highspeed action, hard light situations, etc.). I recently purchased an ND filter, but I haven't had the opportunity to play with it yet. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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www.sn-films.com

[steven_craig]

well, i would suggest experimenting first with your ND filter in different conditions as the results your looking for can vary to what im looking for, basically the ND filter reduces the overall brightness and all colours equally and as a result forces you to open up 'by one or two stops', which you might not want if you want to separate your subject from the background - i often use them when working with bright lighting or outside in sunlight where i dont want to stop down cause (as we have been discusing) it makes the image look shit... hope this sheds some light [pardon the pun] on the subject, happy to be of service
iv just been reading a book which discusses the "ProMist" filter i dunno where to get it - but the writer says he never has it off his camera. so if any of you have used it please post here and gimme your thoughts,

by the way sn, i like your website - wish i was in philadelphia cause i would love to work as a DOP on one of your shoots!

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My preciousssssss!