Shooting in the dark / candle lit without noise. Possible?

[Jake Wilganowski]

Try experimenting using mirrors.

[Christopher Mills]

+1... esp "dirtied", or flexible mylar ones, hand operated/manipulated in the beam from a tungsten source on a dimmer.

[Scott Crawley]

Hey guys, I'm trying to get some candle lit scenes and on my 17-50mm Red Zoom F/3 I'm not able to avoid noise. There are been a few post where people use just a candle and get a nice scene noise free.

If you were to post a frame folks might get a better understanding as to where your issues lie.

[David Mullen ASC]

Hey guys, I'm trying to get some candle lit scenes and on my 17-50mm Red Zoom F/3 I'm not able to avoid noise. There are been a few post where people use just a candle and get a nice scene noise free.

I am going to have to add extra light to this candle scene to avoid the noise correct?

I also tried filming at sunset and found my footage to be quite noise in the fading light. Shooting 5kWS, 6:1 24fps - 1/48 shutter.

I believe natural lighting can be the most magical in the world, I want to capture these difficult scenes for their beauty and power, with deep blacks and little noise. Is my answer going with faster glass?

Noise is dependent on the ASA rating and your exposure, so what ASA rating where you using and did you underexpose the image and have to bring it up?

You have to start with the ASA rating you want to work with to get the noise level you want, and that is determined by testing. Once you pick that, you would know how much light you need for a given f-stop and shutter speed. Certainly you can work at a lower ASA rating if you have faster lenses and/or more light. If available low-light shooting is your particular goal, fast lenses are an important tool.

[Matt Ryan]

Here are some shots from a short I was using the Red 18-85 exclusively. This is wide open at 800ASA with one 4 bank kino above the window and a bounce board for fill. That green light out the window was coming from the building across the street (practical).
Of course without any light I wouldn't have an image.

Here's the reverse at the beginning of the scene:


Here's another shot from the short with the same Red 18-85 with just the lamp as a light source. Shot at 800ASA wide open. No noise reduction was used on the film whatsoever. There was no noise...


Now the thing is with low light images your going to underexpose a lot of the image, so you have to remember to bring those areas down aka crush those areas in color correction so you don't get any noise. The problem is when you underexpose and try to bring those areas up ("brighter"), instead of bringing them down properly, that is where your noise will come from.

Having shot on film helps with exposure because you get used to the idea of careful exposure and an understanding if you dont expose it, you can't get it back... Same with overexposure, you blow it out, you can't get it back. You have to learn what is important in your images and what you need to expose for while at the same time learning what in the image to let go (underexpose/overexpose). Exposing is always a compromise unless you have the tools and the skill to get it perfect.