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Can I shoot film noir on a DSLR?

H

harmonica44

I met a guy who is really good at lighting and would love to make a movie. He read some of on of my scripts and was interested. He suggested that we shoot it film noir style. I think that's a good idea, but on a camera, Canon T2i, there is more noise in darker areas of the picture.

I don't want to have a guy with half his face lit, half not, with the dark half covered in noise, and not the brighter half. Every test I have done in dark lighting noise has come out, and it seems you have to illuminate everything on a noisy sensor. So is it worth shooting film noir on a DSLR, or will that just give a poor look?
 
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Shooting flat, and then crushing the levels will generally give you more noise...

I'd suggest just shoot it the way you want, and keep your ISO down as much as possible.
 
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no, use a 'levels' effect. Adding contrast will screw it up, yes. Levels won't. If you use it the way you intend, all it will do is make the darks darker, which will get rid of whatever noise may or may not be there
 
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mussonman said:
No, it actually does the exact opposite
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In theory, yes.

In practice, quite often not. I'm a proponent of nailing your look in-camera anyway (that's what us DPs are here for, no?), but yeah - I mean it depends. TBH, you're most likely going to get at least the same amount of noise, plus some banding issues and you'll end up with a similar looking image to what you would've got just shooting standard picture style anyway, just with heaps more work.

no, use a 'levels' effect. Adding contrast will screw it up, yes. Levels won't. If you use it the way you intend, all it will do is make the darks darker, which will get rid of whatever noise may or may not be there
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Again, in theory - yes. But in practice, you'll often find (at least in my experience), you introduce banding issues, as well as creating noise from the processing of the image.

YMMV - You may find that there is a slight improvement in noise, but in my experience, the difference is negligible, and often times shooting flat can introduce much more noise to your image than not. I would certainly say there's not enough difference to warrant the extra post time, but then I'm a 'nail it in camera' kinda guy anyway.



If you really want to avoid noise/get a better image - sell your T2i and buy a GH2 ;)
 
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Shoot at ISO 800 or less and you should have a clean, noise free image. I'm usually against adding contrast, but for film noir, that's what you need. I agree, use levels. I shot one of the first feature films to be done on the T2i, as well as countless shorts and trailers, so trust me, light well, keep the ISO low, and you'll be fine :)
 
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There is more contrast in the darker areas. I tried adding contrast to footage shot at 800 ISO, and there was more noise, but that could be cause of my lighting. It was noisy in the not so well lit background parts, but I cannot light everything so well, otherwise it would not be film noir.
 
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Okay thanks. That's a lot of light though. The guy who is interested in shooting it is doing tests. He never took any classes on using a DSLR though, just cinema cameras I think. It seems to me that you have to light up to a certain degree of brightness to get rid of the noise, but doing so means that everything has to be bright, and there cannot be any darkly lit areas, without being real black. But we'll figure it out.
 
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