I am getting 'noise and grain' when filming

[johnm57]

Hello,

I am a wedding videographer, using an apple imac (2.66 ghz), a 500gb external usb hard drive. I am using a canon xm2 for my weddings. All films are edited using Adobe Prem Pro CS3 and Encore for DVD titles. My concern is that when I film in not much natural light, i get 'noise and grain'. I do not film in auto - everything in manual on my camera. I alter exposure and iris to get more light, but end up with 'noise and grain'. Can anyone help?. My imac runs very smoothly with Prem Pro CS3 ( i also know that i can buy a plugin from Red Giant called 'Magic Bullit Steady where it filters out noise and grain, but this is expensive).

Thanks.

John

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

My first inclination would be that it is the camera causing the noise but the xm2 is suppose to be a good camera. I would say to double check your camera settings. If the settings look fine your only option may be to get the plugin that you mentioned which may or may not be worth the money.

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you controlled the Gain settings?

My experience with the XM2 was more than subpar, every time it was switched off, I had to repeatedly set it up again, even effing white balance.

So the Gain setting could be set of the chart too.

 

[cpcarrot]

Normally this is caused by electronic gain being added. Have you got the Gain control set to zero? If it’s left on auto it will add a ton of gain in low light conditions and give you all that “Noise and Grain” you are getting.

 

[johnm57]

Have you controlled the Gain settings?

My experience with the XM2 was more than subpar, every time it was switched off, I had to repeatedly set it up again, even effing white balance.

So the Gain setting could be set of the chart too.

I looked up the gain setting on the xm2 and was '0'. As regards to the setting up of the white balance, my xm2 has the facility to 'lock' your settings with the 'lock' switch located just behind the 'red recording button'. this feature is a god-send with me and works fine.

When i said about low light, think of a couple having the first dance on the dance floor and lights go down..........i have not got much time to set everything up (wb, shutter speed etc). I am very new to this work, primarily video weddings (and I have not had a single complaint yet!) using only one camera (but having someone with me), the audio is fine in manual (i use soundbooth to enhance or get rid of a certain sound).

thanks

 

[cpcarrot]

For that sort of thing, have you tried the spotlight setting on the XM2? It's basically designed for just that type of shot and really helps to eliminate the noise you can get.

 

[LethalWolfe]

An insufficient amount of light will cause any cameras image to become noisy.


Lethal