How bad is it to not have any contrast in your color grading?

[harmonica44]

I was told that if I am shooting a microbudget film at night, under low light conditions, that I should shoot with no contrast in the camera. I did some tests, and no contrast does improve on noise. However, if I add contrast in post, there is just as much noise in post, as in camera at least. Not a lot of noise, but it depends on how much you add as well.

But I figure the less noise, the better. So I was thinking of just having my color grade, so their is no contrast at all, but will this give my movie a flat, lame look without any, or can it be considered cinematic still?

Thanks

 

[sfoster]

try a denoiser

 

[wheatgrinder]

obviously you have contrast in the camera or your shooting solid gray image. What you meant to ask is if you should turn of any contrast settings in the the picture settings.

Best to just try it. I had a night shoot similar conditions two weeks ago and I went down to the actual location a couple nights before with a model and took some footage at various camera settings... not too scientific but mostly ok.. I found the best settings, which still had plenty of noise, but cleaned up very well with a little Neat Video noise reduction.

Test test test.


EDIT: Discovered that setting white ballance to "indoor" reduced nose a bit.. seems most the noise on my camera is in the RED channel, so indoor white balance shifts everything a bit blue... less noise. I used some fluorescent and got a nice BLUE light in camera, I didnt even CC it for some of the shots as it looks good.

 

[harmonica44]

Okay thanks. I don't have neatvideo yet, but did some tests with the contrast down, like people say too do at night. It looks okay, but dull. I just wonder if denoising is better, cause people say denoising causes detail to be lost. I saw some footage that was denoised by a guy who shoots concerts, and I see what he means, all the details in faces, are gone, and people look too young or too smooth.

As far as contrast in the camera goes, I can shoot flat, and then raise it later. In the camera I settings, I find it's best not to go over -2 in the contrast, cause otherwise it's too much and looks overdone. However, even if I raise it to the same level as -2 in post and shoot flat, there is still some noise in post, so I wonder if denoising is worse than leaving it flat, and not grading any contrast in at all. I noticed that setting the white balance to 'indoor' or 'tungsten' as it's called on my camera, reduces noise as well. I wanted to have a red light look to make it look dangerous and gritty at night, but there is too much noise, and even though buildings look nice with it, people's faces are way too red, especially in the eyes, and it looks unnatural, so tungsten is best so far in my tests.

 

[Zororak]

The noise thats in the image is there because of the quality you are recording to. if you record a RAW format there will be less noise as the camera is taking in a lot more data

 

[mus]

have you made a film yet H44?

 

[WalterB]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2ICJBu3BZc

1 Shade of Grey
The world's first movie without contrast


@ H44

low contrast is something different than no contrast.

I think you've been obsessing too much about noise the past few years. I blocks you.
Live with it or don't shoot at night.

 

[Nikola Damov]

It's worse than being dead.