5d3 ISO 200 in dim light

[70MM13]

sometimes you want as much dynamic range as possible, even in very dim light, and with the 5d3 that means iso 200...

check out the beautiful detail on the LEDs in a nearly dark room, with the shadows severely lifted in post.

shot in 3616*1536 continuous (thanks bilal!), and upscaled to 3840 using sinc algorithm in resolve.

watch in 4k to avoid the horrible quality degradation of youtube imposed on videos with <3000 views.

best wishes to everyone!

[principleseemly]

That's amazing 

[70MM13]

there's more than one answer to the challenge of shooting in low light 

[ML700D]

congratulation.. 🥇

that's amazing stuff for 42 years..

[70MM13]

thank you!

by the way, i'm doing some new tests to try to completely eliminate the "pink sun" effect while filming.  in my latest video, i have the setting sun in the shot, behind my back, with no lights or reflectors, and i'm in the shadow of a huge tree!  now that is serious dynamic range!

so far, i've managed to get it down to just a few pixels, but i'm hoping to get it down to zero!

i'll be posting a video about this very soon, but i won't be sharing it on here.  anyone interested to see how i do it should subscribe to my channel...

peace to everyone!

I forgot to mention, watch the video in 4k!!

[ML700D]

is it possible using 700d?

[70MM13]

i really don't know...
once you see what i'm doing, you should try to reproduce it with your camera and hopefully it will become self-evident.  i'm optimising for resolve, and some of my camera workflow might be only possible on 5d3 at this time unless you can reproduce the setup on your 700d.  it still may "just work" (only for reducing pink sunspots)  if you follow the rest of the steps without the specific 5d3-only register settings.

it will make sense when you see the "how-to" video!

[ML700D]

ok thanks.

[ML700D]

hi 70MM13
I tried to figure it out by using dual iso and iso tweak in camera to -1 EV is equal to iso 200 (canon iso is 400)
no light in the room and quiet dim just using light source from right side windows that 4 meters away to the object with dark background.
I tweak a bit in mlvapp as the result below..


what do you think?
actually if I push a bit more exp. the noise is visible. 😅

[ML700D]

other sample before (just dual iso on) small pict and after adjustment in the same room as post above, it still gain some detail but the noise is visible if I rise exp. more.

[70MM13]

for dual iso in such an extreme situation the best results would probably be from a more extreme setting such as 100/1600...

but don't expect miracles from an unlit enclosed space and daylit scenery through a small window.  try adding very soft lighting to the room and a subtle key light to the subject to keep the "unlit" look and adjust the grading accordingly.

that will help more than anything else!

[ML700D]

ok. thanks for your advice.

[Bruno Italiano]

It seems for me DUEL ISO makes the result unsharp.

[ML700D]

I think no different.. I ever tried to compare it.
 

[vastunghia]

My understanding is that Dual ISO works by combining information coming from one row of pixels @low ISO and one @high ISO.

So in the midtones, both rows of pixels carry useful information. More specifically, on cameras equipped with ISO-invariant sensors (like all Sony ILC's and a very few Canons like 80D AFAIK) they do carry the *same* information actually (i.e. you can pump up low ISO image exposure and obtain same image as out-of-camera high ISO image, without additional noise). So no loss of details in this case. On the contrary with 5D3 / M etc (which are very far from ISO-invariant cameras), higher ISO always has lower SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) in the midtones: so this means a *slight* loss of detail in the midtones when using dual ISO.

In the deep shadows, low ISO is almost signal-less, and pumping it up will result in extreme noise. High ISO has noise of course, but a way higher SNR. So here dual ISO beats single ISO by far (as long as we are considering the case where single ISO = low ISO of course), as it will exploit way higher SNR for half of pixel rows (the ones @high ISO).

Exactly the opposite happens in the extreme highlights, where high ISO rows will be clipped (completely useless) and only rows @low ISO will be used to reconstruct the image => so in this case Dual ISO mode uses *half pixels* with respect to single (low) ISO.

Of course the 'de-interlacing' algorithm applied to reconstruct the image from Dual ISO mode is smart enough to try and exploit all available information capture on sensor. However, I think about Dual ISO as a small compromise on resolution to obtain a huge boost in dynamic range.

Sergio