1080 vs 4k for low light???

[WildcatDave]

Hi Guys,

I have a project soon that will be shot indoors of an event that will be quite dark. I went and did some test shooting at 4k/60, and the footage was not too noisy, but my big concern was how soft/blurry the video looked. It made me think the Air 3 was doing some heavy noise reduction while saving the file. Would I be better to shoot in 1080 instead? I can't got down to 30fps (which I understand would bump the shutter speed down and increase light to the sensor) as we will have some action and will likely need to slow down in post depending on client desires. I expect to downsize the 4k footage anyway as it will mostly be for social media and web promo.

Does the Air 3 bin 4 pixels in video if you select 1080 instead of 4k, thereby "boosting" light gain? I cannot seem to find any definite answer. If not, seems like it would be best to shoot in 4k and then (hopefully) gain back some sharpness in the downsize to 1080.

Opinions...

 

[Meta4]

Hi Guys,

I have a project soon that will be shot indoors of an event that will be quite dark. I went and did some test shooting at 4k/60, and the footage was not too noisy, but my big concern was how soft/blurry the video looked. It made me think the Air 3 was doing some heavy noise reduction while saving the file. Would I be better to shoot in 1080 instead? I can't got down to 30fps (which I understand would bump the shutter speed down and increase light to the sensor) as we will have some action and will likely need to slow down in post depending on client desires. I expect to downsize the 4k footage anyway as it will mostly be for social media and web promo.

Does the Air 3 bin 4 pixels in video if you select 1080 instead of 4k, thereby "boosting" light gain? I cannot seem to find any definite answer. If not, seems like it would be best to shoot in 4k and then (hopefully) gain back some sharpness in the downsize to 1080.

Opinions...

If you reduce the frame rate you will be able to shoot at a slower shutter speed and get twice as much light through to your sensor.
Shooting in 1080p vs 4k shouldn't make any difference to exposure issues.

 

[WildcatDave]

If you reduce the frame rate you will be able to shoot at a slower shutter speed and get twice as much light through to your sensor.
Shooting in 1080p vs 4k shouldn't make any difference to exposure issues.

Right, I stated that I couldn't go to 30 FPS because of necessity for 60 FPS and that I understood It would allow a lower shutter speed which is more light on the sensor. Thank you for reiterating that but I was clear on that point. My significant question was when you shoot at 1080p does it bin four pixels together (2 in each direction) to create a bigger effective sensor site, or does it just interpolate and take every other pixel versus when it's in 4K.

At this point I will not have another opportunity to test shoot the venue. Otherwise I would go back and shoot it at 1080p to see for myself. So I was wondering if we had anybody here that had experience in this scenario and could give a definite answer.

 

[Meta4]

Right, I stated that I couldn't go to 30 FPS because of necessity for 60 FPS and that I understood It would allow a lower shutter speed which is more light on the sensor. Thank you for reiterating that but I was clear on that point.

I read you, but was pointing out that if low light is the #1 issue, you have to deal with that.

What ISO are you using?

My significant question was when you shoot at 1080p does it bin four pixels together (2 in each direction) to create a bigger effective sensor site, or does it just interpolate and take every other pixel versus when it's in 4K.

If it makes any difference, it won't be enough to make any significant difference to exposure issue.
But it might help reduce graininess slightly.

 

[WildcatDave]

I read you, but was pointing out that if low light is the #1 issue, you have to deal with that.

What ISO are you using?

If it makes any difference, it won't be enough to make any significant difference to exposure issue.
But it might help reduce graininess slightly.

Gotcha. I really don't think 30fps is workable at all. I expect we need to capture at 60fps for this event. There will be "athletic" performances that need to be clear. And they will want to do some slo-mo for effect as well.

Currently using "Auto" settings as I did not seem to get better results when running with manual settings. I also read (from multiple sources) that at 30fps (for some weird reason) the Air 3 applies MORE noise reduction than at higher fps settings.

I did read there are sharpness and noise reduction settings in video settings (style parameters?). I will have to tinker a bit and see if I can get closer to what I expect from this sensor.

Thanks for your input and help!

 

[Meta4]

Gotcha. I really don't think 30fps is workable at all. I expect we need to capture at 60fps for this event. There will be "athletic" performances that need to be clear. And they will want to do some slo-mo for effect as well.

Currently using "Auto" settings as I did not seem to get better results when running with manual settings. I also read (from multiple sources) that at 30fps (for some weird reason) the Air 3 applies MORE noise reduction than at higher fps settings.

If you have srt files corresponding to the video files, and play the video from the same folder as the srt file, you can see the ISO settings that your camera has used
Like this:

ISO is the sensitivity the camera uses and this can affect graininess or noise.
ISO 100 is the lowest setting available for your camera and it gives the least noise.
In low light your camera's auto settings will have to increase the ISO up to a max of 6400.
The higher the ISO, the more noise.

The ISO setting your camera was using will probably explain the noise you've seen.
But if the ISO setting is already high, there won't be much you can do apart from having supplementary lighting.

 

[WildcatDave]

If you have srt files corresponding to the video files, and play the video from the same folder as the srt file, you can see the ISO settings that your camera has used
Like this:

ISO is the sensitivity the camera uses and this can affect graininess or noise.
ISO 100 is the lowest setting available for your camera and it gives the least noise.
In low light your camera's auto settings will have to increase the ISO up to a max of 6400.
The higher the ISO, the more noise.

The ISO setting your camera was using will probably explain the noise you've seen.
But if the ISO setting is already high, there won't be much you can do apart from having supplementary lighting.

Thanks for the info about the SRT file - I have seen those. I am quite familiar with camera settings (ISO, SS. Aperture, etc.). I have been a professional photographer for over 20 years - just new to the drone side of things as relates to video. Been a stills photog, this is my first video project that isn't a simple outdoor shoot.

Not expecting full-frame quality, but would like to get some files that are a bit sharper. Probably should have gotten the Mavic 3 Pro, although the larger sensor is negated somewhat by the smaller max aperture 2.8 vs 1.7 on the Air 3.

I am going to the venue early (it happening this evening) and going to check through the styles page to see if I can lower the NR. I can always clean that up in post in DaVinci.

Appreciate all your help!

 

[WildcatDave]

Hey guys I thought I would report back after finishing up the event. I shot a little over a hundred clips in considerably low light in a large theater for with performers. I left the camera on auto the entire time as everything exposure-wise looked good on the screen. Doing some pre-test shots before the event kicked off everything seemed to be within reason of what I and the client were expecting. For note: at someone's recommendation on an older thread I did go into video options, style, and set noise reduction to -2 which is low as it could go and left sharpness on zero. This gave me a very clean starting file without any of the blurryness I had seen a few days previous when shooting test clips. The default setting of noise reduction zero really blurs high ISO videos. I highly recommend setting that to -2 if you have to do low light shooting and using some good noise reduction in processing later.

Once I got back and loaded the clips into DaVinci I noticed they had some small amount of luminance noise but almost no chroma noise. I ran the clips through DaVinci with some slight noise reduction and they cleaned up very well. They now look very good (clear and sharp) and have barely any visible noise and no apparent loss in sharpness that I could detect when comparing to the original clips. I'm extremely happy with the Air 3's video quality considering I believe it was running ISO 6400 the entire time of shooting. When I would switch to pro mode temporarily it would auto load the auto settings and it seemed to be always on ISO 6400. At this point I will continue to shoot events like this at: auto, 4K/60 and don't feel any need to look for another drone to produce extremely high quality video for clients.

I will talk to the event director once he has gone through everything to see if the clips are shareable and post some of them up so you can look at them and we can have a further discussion about what could possibly be done better and what your opinions are.

 

[cneedelman]

How did the drone handle indoors in low light. Assuming you had no GPS.

 

[WildcatDave]

How did the drone handle indoors in low light. Assuming you had no GPS.

It had ZERO issues. I was quite pleased (amazed) how well it hovered and moved without any GPS. Videos are smooth with no noticeable difference compared to outdoor flight. Once or twice (over the six hours I was using it) it would drift a tiny bit. A quick tap on either stick would get it to lock position. However, I believe this was due to the fact they had HUGE stage fans/coolers for the performers and it would get caught in the crosswind.

Occasionally it would grab a few satellites, but the icon was always red and I would commonly get the reminder that it had no GPS. Be aware, if it warns you of no GPS then it limits the height (above launch height) to 5 meters. This was not an issue for me, but might be for some. I could launch it near a outdoor doorway and it would have enough GPS to not complain about this. But as I flew around the theater it would drop GPS and warn me about this. After a few flights with everything working smoothly I would launch anywhere in the theater confidently.

I always used Cine mode (not Normal which it defaults to at every launch). I wish it would launch with whatever position the switch is in, but I assume this is a safety precaution so you do not launch in Sport mode.

It does enable the downward LED light automatically, which is very bright. It did warn that obstacle avoidance would be disabled due to limited light. This was great as it allowed me to fly very close to subjects and land right at my feet.

Overall, it overperformed for what I expected. Even the iso6400 video (used Auto settings) turned out very good. Waiting to hear from the event director so I can share.