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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Monstro & Gemini in Low Light

steve green

steve green

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Heading out on a job in the snow with lots of magic hour and beyond scenes. Firelight, dim skys, moody dining, We have both Monstros and Gemini's on board.....Wondering if Monstro at 8K, 3200 is similar to Gemini at 3200. Or should I switch to Low light OLPH in order to shoot with the Monstro at that iso. I've shot Monstro at 1600 with no issues in the past, just want to know if folks are comfortable going 3200 with the Standard OLPH.
 
I shoot a lot at 3200ISO with no issues. It´s more depending how far off your color temp is from where you want it than the actual amount of light. Like if your light is at the temp that you want it to be then things will hold up really well, but it you shoot under tungsten light and want a cold colored image then it breaks up a lot earlier. So if you are out in the snow I assume you want quite natural but exagerated colors, then I would say standard olpf at iso 3200 would do fine... But ofcourse not bad to pluck a lowlight olpf in there if you have it, even though I find the difference in sensitivety to be quite slim.
 
Björn is pretty spot on in his advice... but to essentially reiterate his point... 3200 is fine on Monstro if you like the image you are seeing not too far from the native colour temp range of the camera (it changes slightly with OLPF) and aren’t pushing things UP allot... pulling is fine pushing could be tricky. A dramatic CT shift often involves what amounts to a multiple stop push on a colour Chanel.

Also some peoples post ‘looks’ can involve significant Chanel boosting .... and if this is applied to image that is a bit under it can render a image some will find too noisey...

Björn is also both skilled with redcameras and post techniques... so my guess would be it would take him less than 5sec to do a not too invasive de-noise on just the blue channel shadows if he felt the image needed that... and maybe do a lesser demonise on another channel with a tiny bit of bandwidth restricted sharpening after to balance... do you have time in post to treat underexposed footage?

... therefore my best advice is to have a quick test if possible...and push the image through your post path
 
Björn Benckert said:
I shoot a lot at 3200ISO with no issues. It´s more depending how far off your color temp is from where you want it than the actual amount of light. Like if your light is at the temp that you want it to be then things will hold up really well, but it you shoot under tungsten light and want a cold colored image then it breaks up a lot earlier. So if you are out in the snow I assume you want quite natural but exagerated colors, then I would say standard olpf at iso 3200 would do fine... But ofcourse not bad to pluck a lowlight olpf in there if you have it, even though I find the difference in sensitivety to be quite slim.
Click to expand...

Great tip on the color temps, I'll be sure to stay on top of that......What's been you experience with the Gemini? Can you shoot that at 6400 ISO without issues?
 
steve green said:
Great tip on the color temps, I'll be sure to stay on top of that......What's been you experience with the Gemini? Can you shoot that at 6400 ISO without issues?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it for sure is more noise then if rolling with 200 iso so all is relative. But I say you still get a usable / rich image as such low exposure. Even though when having such high iso all light differences becomes quite drastic. when you point the camera towards a lightsource than that is way bright compared to the unlit backround as an example.
 
It's looking a lot like the max we can comfortably shoot at is 3200 iso on both the Monstro and the Gemini. I'm going to keep it there and not go pushing the Gemini into the 5000-6400 range. Also, I'm going to take the advise of watch CT closely, black shading in the field, and run a test though to post. Thanks everyone!

Any other tips always welcome!
 
Here, a little lens test I did with my new set of atlas anas during the hollidays. No super high iso’s but when developing tungsten stuff at 2500K and and 10000K and 400iso its much more noisy than 1000 iso at 4000K. Simply if you miss one or more of the 3 color signals of r,g,b then stuff gets more sensitive for noise. So if shooting in 5600K and having some fill so the sensor is not hitting the noise floor anywhere in the shot, then im not worried to push monstro to 6400ISO.... but in my tungsten kitchen, not so much.

 
Depends on your taste in degree of noise and if you don't mind some de-noise in post. Bjorn is spot on, don't expect to lift shadows / put a heavy grade on your image once you get into the 3200 and beyond range without some sacrifice in IQ. No personal experience with Monstro but Gemini is very usable at 6400 compared to my experience with dragon or helium which would be unusable but there will be noise obviously which for me has looked surprisingly filmic on the Gemini. I have tested LL6400 specifically for a candle lit scene and it turned out okay after de-noise in post where it would have not been possible with other sensors in my opinion. We had a scarlet-w as b-cam on that shoot and it was unusable.
 
Gemini 6400 is pretty similar to Monstro 3200, but of course you have less resolution.
Personally I would say Gemini 6400 and Monstro 3200 is usable, but borderline, even with heavy noise reduction.
I also depends on the topic, if there are many dark elements in the image like trees there will be so little light in those areas so then the noise goes up a lot, however if you are filming mainly brighter areas like sky then they will have much less noise.
This is a very rough guideline in my head, I use higher numbers than these, but then I know there will be noise.
Helium. ISO 1000. I use up to 1600 once in a while and in emergencies 2000, but not more.
Monstro 2000
Gemini 4000
Take it with a bit of grain of salt. I only film with Helium, but have tested Monstro and Gemini specifically for noise in dark situations. Bjorn has more experience.
I would recommend the low light OLPF, they give you 1/3 stop extra. It is only the highlight OLPF that has more advanced filtering that improves glare, the standard does not so does not add that many benefits vs lowlight OLPF.
Andreas
 
steve green said:
Heading out on a job in the snow with lots of magic hour and beyond scenes. Firelight, dim skys, moody dining, We have both Monstros and Gemini's on board.....Wondering if Monstro at 8K, 3200 is similar to Gemini at 3200. Or should I switch to Low light OLPH in order to shoot with the Monstro at that iso. I've shot Monstro at 1600 with no issues in the past, just want to know if folks are comfortable going 3200 with the Standard OLPH.
Click to expand...

It depends on your personal tolerance of lost detail and mush coming from UHD+ cameras and where the material is heading.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't go past 3200 on LL mode on Gemini and 1600 on Monstro. And past that I'd flag them in QC for broadcast and cinema purpose.


...


Btw

Denoise doesn't bring back the detail which wasn't captured, remove the effects of compression on top of noise, nor bring back lost bits from two stops under nor fix tonal offsets from stretched image data.

So no, that won't save you from a messed up image and you are effectively throwing away spatial resolution from that UHD+ camera and tonal resolution from that 16bit capture with additional bonus prize of messed up texture.


Also, depends on low light type, natural light gives superior results.
 
Just back from my shoot in Canada......We never shot the Gemini or the Monstro above 3200 iso. But I have to say the footage at that high iso was impressive. Very usable, not to much noise even in the dark night sky. It's a great tool to have in the kit to be able to shoot that iso with confidence. Thanks everyone for the suggestions!
 
Great detailed thread, I love how informative it is. :smash:
 
In my experience, in a 4k timeline, the Monstro is another beast.
 
Bjorn,
Over the last 11 months with Monstro I have shot many scenes that go from daylight, through twilight to darkness (darkness= ~1 hour past sunset). I have seen no contradiction to the principle that ISO is metadata and has no influence on the raw data - ISO only affects the interpretation/display of the data.
Most of the time I shoot at ISO800. I "chase" the light as it falls off by adjusting ND and aperture while watching the GIO scope and the goal posts. My observation is that it is critical to keep the left goal post free of redness if you want to avoid noise. At some point, even with no ND and fast lens I have no more adjustment and I run out of light. The left goal post fills with red and noise severely increases. Adding light would be the only way to keep going but that isn't practical for big landscape scenes (like mountains and canyons).
I've tried ISO1600, 3200 and 6400 with the result that noise is easy to find in low light as ISO goes up. In my opinion if one needs 6400ISO to see the subject, you'll see noise too.
Do you agree? Am I missing something?
 
Mark A. Jaeger said:
Bjorn,
Over the last 11 months with Monstro I have shot many scenes that go from daylight, through twilight to darkness (darkness= ~1 hour past sunset). I have seen no contradiction to the principle that ISO is metadata and has no influence on the raw data - ISO only affects the interpretation/display of the data.
Most of the time I shoot at ISO800. I "chase" the light as it falls off by adjusting ND and aperture while watching the GIO scope and the goal posts. My observation is that it is critical to keep the left goal post free of redness if you want to avoid noise. At some point, even with no ND and fast lens I have no more adjustment and I run out of light. The left goal post fills with red and noise severely increases. Adding light would be the only way to keep going but that isn't practical for big landscape scenes (like mountains and canyons).
I've tried ISO1600, 3200 and 6400 with the result that noise is easy to find in low light as ISO goes up. In my opinion if one needs 6400ISO to see the subject, you'll see noise too.
Do you agree? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

I would love to hear the answer to this.
 
Hrvoje Simic said:
It depends on your personal tolerance of lost detail and mush coming from UHD+ cameras and where the material is heading.

Generally speaking, I wouldn't go past 3200 on LL mode on Gemini and 1600 on Monstro. And past that I'd flag them in QC for broadcast and cinema purpose.


...


Btw

Denoise doesn't bring back the detail which wasn't captured, remove the effects of compression on top of noise, nor bring back lost bits from two stops under nor fix tonal offsets from stretched image data.

So no, that won't save you from a messed up image and you are effectively throwing away spatial resolution from that UHD+ camera and tonal resolution from that 16bit capture with additional bonus prize of messed up texture.


Also, depends on low light type, natural light gives superior results.
Click to expand...


Good response.
 
Mark A. Jaeger said:
Bjorn,
Over the last 11 months with Monstro I have shot many scenes that go from daylight, through twilight to darkness (darkness= ~1 hour past sunset). I have seen no contradiction to the principle that ISO is metadata and has no influence on the raw data - ISO only affects the interpretation/display of the data.
Most of the time I shoot at ISO800. I "chase" the light as it falls off by adjusting ND and aperture while watching the GIO scope and the goal posts. My observation is that it is critical to keep the left goal post free of redness if you want to avoid noise. At some point, even with no ND and fast lens I have no more adjustment and I run out of light. The left goal post fills with red and noise severely increases. Adding light would be the only way to keep going but that isn't practical for big landscape scenes (like mountains and canyons).
I've tried ISO1600, 3200 and 6400 with the result that noise is easy to find in low light as ISO goes up. In my opinion if one needs 6400ISO to see the subject, you'll see noise too.
Do you agree? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...


What you're describing is the way ISO is supposed to work. Prioritization of the left goal post should be your primary concern. There's also been mention of color temperature in this thread. Again, none of that matters unless the temperature is off and a channel is underexposing on the left goal post. Your theory on exposure and it being the dictator of noise rather than ISO is correct.

ISO's importance is related to how the sensor's light sensitivity is spread out. The lower the ISO the more RED's sensor sensitivity sits below middle exposure. Therefor, the way to achieve the best low-light footage is recording at the lowest ISO with the best left goal post exposure.
 
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