Shooting video in low light

Dylan

Hi, I'm trying to shoot video in low light - and it supposed to be dark! I am using M mode, ISO 100, F 3.5, 1/60. I am having two issues:

1. I am getting a lot of "grain" in the black and darker areas of the shot. All of the info I have found online talks about getting more light into the shot to prevent this, the problem is, I want large parts in the frame to be dark (there's just a little bit of light on the character's face), so adding light defeats the purpose.

2. I have noticed that when the character moves through the shot, the camera is changing the exposure and getting brighter and darker in the Liveview. This wouldn't be a problem, but it is showing up in the actual footage too. I thought by shooting in M mode, exposure etc would not change. Why is it doing this and how can I prevent this?

Thank you very much.

ohyeahar

I've answered someone a while ago who asked the same things you just did. See here:
(see here)

For your specific scenario about wanting to keep the dark scene dark, you should follow my steps in the link above but then also use exposure compensation. Try it at -1.0 and then adjust as you see fit.

Dylan

Thank you so much! This really helped.