[trclac]

Just purchased my HV20 and took indoor video in HD 24p last night, without using the zoom function (but with all the house lights on in the area I was shooting). When connected to my Sony HDTV via HDMI, the video appeared quite grainy. I was using the Auto setting.

I've noticed elsewhere on this board that people encounter grainy indoor video, but does using 24p make indoor video worse in that respect? Or is there any difference between 24p and non-24p?

Also, are there any manual controls that can be used to make the video less grainy when shooting indoor scenes? Outdoor scenes look great with 24p and using the Auto mode.


Thanks.

 

[pokerDawg]

Noise (or grain) is a result of the camera increasing its sensitivity to light (via GAIN) to give you a picture to see. Since you used [auto], the camera will use it whenever applicable like the situation you were shooting. Since the HV20 is not a pro level camera, you can not control the use of gain nor does it have fully manual controls.


There many write ups on the HV20 on how to FOOL the camera into not increasing gain. Here is one that is a good read for a better understanding of it all. This person have come up with a way to fool the HV20 into NOT increase GAIN so there is little to no noise (grain).

http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/


Hope this helps.

 

[Cyrano]

That's a pretty good link. When (and if) I get an HV20 I'm going to try out this method.

 

[barryz]



Quote:
Originally Posted by pokerDawg /forum/post/0


Noise (or grain) is a result of the camera increasing its sensitivity to light (via GAIN) to give you a picture to see. Since you used [auto], the camera will use it whenever applicable like the situation you were shooting. Since the HV20 is not a pro level camera, you can not control the use of gain nor does it have fully manual controls.


There many write ups on the HV20 on how to FOOL the camera into not increasing gain. Here is one that is a good read for a better understanding of it all. This person have come up with a way to fool the HV20 into NOT increase GAIN so there is little to no noise (grain).

http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/


Hope this helps.

I have little experience with videocams, however, with Canon's still cameras, which also use the CMOS type sensor, gain is a good thing. It's called ISO and with the DSLRs it can range from 50 to 3200 ISO. No purpose is served by deliberately underexposing a shot. The noise buried in the darker image will always be greater than the same image with camera gain (increased ISO) applied.


The Canon HV20 has an amazingly fast lens; maximum aperture f1.8. On a DSLR this would give you a very shallow depth of field, but with the tiny sensor in the HV20, depth of field is still quite good at this aperture; maybe equivalent to about f8 on a DSLR.


If you are having trouble with grainy footage with the HV20, the first thing I would recommend is setting the videocam's aperture to f1.8 (aperture priority mode) and let the camera work out the other appropriate settings such as shutter speed and neutral density.