Low Light Poor Quality Does anyone else experience a significantly lower quality recording in low-light conditions? For me the recordings are grainy and the colors vary wildly. Blacks for example range from black to purple to blue. Is this a defect in my camera, or is this standard operation? The picture quality in well-lit areas, especially outdoors in sunlight is amazing. Low Light Poor Quality Does anyone else experience a significantly lower quality recording in low-light conditions? For me the recordings are grainy and the colors vary wildly. Blacks for example... » Read More Low Light Poor Quality Does anyone else experience a significantly lower quality recording in low-light conditions? For me the recordings are grainy and the colors vary wildly. Blacks for example range from black to purple to blue. Is this a defect in my camera, or is this standard operation? The picture quality in well-lit areas, especially outdoors in sunlight is amazing. « Show Less
1466710
I really haven't seen to many camcorders not suffer in low light and I know mine does pretty bad.
1466711
Take a look at all my videos uploaded on my youtube channel. Everything from nightsight to sunset and every hour of the day and every lighting condition. This will show you how the HDR-SR12 can handle low light (and everything else).www.youtube.com/jgong8638
1466712
Watched and that is not exactly what I meant by low light since there were a few light sources. I meant if you are in your living room at night with a 40 watt light bulb in a lamp or even just a dimly lit area the fuzziness does occur and is grainy. Try taping something that comes from just the light coming from your television in your living room and you'll see what I mean. The lighting you had was the kind the camera is good at and I have used it like that before.
1466713
I have not tried night-time recording, but I will now that you mentioned it. My experience with poor quality in low light is in my basement. I have two lamps with 60-watt bulbs in a fair-sized room. The result is a grainy image and inconsistent color rendering.
1466714
I agree with j-rob. Does anyone know how the newer model (HDR-XR500V) performs in low-light situations? They claim the Exmor-R sensor helps with these situations. It's too bad there's no easy or cost-effective way to upgrade. I'm not in the position to spend another $1k+ for a new camcorder that handles low-light.
1466715
Hi Dennis,Low-light scenarios is a general issue with personal video cameras.Simply put, you can not expect the same video quality for low light conditions as for sunshine day recordings.I have Canons HF11 and am actually quite impressed how good the quality of the low light sensitivity became nowadays (I am recording fireworks). Under which conditions are you taking a video, whats the object ?
1117294
You will get the best results in normal daylight conditions. Not recommended for recording in low light conditions.
1146247
Hi there. I haven't checked the quality of the video with low light, if that is what you are asking.
381677
If you encountered this issue only under dark environment, when high ISO is applied to picture, the camera need to be fine tune it's dark noise. it is either need a parts replacement or re-calibrate dark level.If you were taking this purple color under day light, take a look if this picture is a flash picture. For some case, the color balance under day light with flash is difficult so that the Image Processor does not do a precise judgement. Turn off flash under day light will fix it.
638072
The camera gives you the option to use a higher ISO setting. Try using a higher ISO for moving subjects. Keep in mind the higher number may result in a grainy picture if the light is too low.
1735235
It's not the best, most of the pictures come out grainy, or dark. Messing with the brightness changes the darkness of it, but the grainy look remains. Also be careful of when the disk space is about 50 mb, mine will not take pictures if it's less than that.
576342
No.. I am not intersted to record videos. What's about the photo quality? almost same?
648774
In my personal experience, it's a bit difficult to focus in lowlight situations. If it's as dark as a room with very dim lights, then I do not recommend this. In addition, I try to keep the ISO at a max of 1600. If I have to, I will go up to 3200. The noise/grain is noticeable around 3200, and it is a bit noticeable even at 1600.
1227477
VERY IMPORTANT - Select the 'CINEMA' setting. In all the other settings, colors are off. But with the Cinema setting (I think that's what its called), colors are actually PERFECT! Amazing quality. At first I didn't know about this, but saw some discussion of it online. I am really very impressed with near photo-quality using this setting - but ONLY this setting has worked for me.
684990
I think the low light ability is fairly good. Once the light level drops below a certain level, the camera automatically switches to B/W.
2280339
Are you 100% sure it was ISO 640 and not 6400? I think at 640, shooting at 1.8 with a high amount of grain is unusual for this camera- especially since the D700 has excellent high ISO performance. I don't start to really notice grain until I'm shooting at ISO 3200 or greater. Did you happen to zoom in to the photos? Which could make the grain more noticeable..? Oh yea, check to see if your sensor or camera lens is dirty.
111693
Due to how you can't manually select the shutter speed sometimes it gets a little bit tricky to shoot in low light. You'll have to play with the iso and the exposure settings for a while before you get a nice result. The hand-held starlight mode doesn't always work. The night scene mode works fine but you'll need a tripod and ISO is auto so sometimes pics come out grainy. HD VIDEO mode works perfect in low light; I've been going to local band shows and the videos come out great. At the beggining I was a bit frustrated for not being allowed to manipulate shutter speed but after playing with the camera for a month or so now I get some really great results in low light. Due to how you can't manually select the shutter speed sometimes it gets a little bit tricky to shoot in low light. You'll have to play with the iso and the exposure settings for a while before you get a nice result. The hand-held starlight mode doesn't always work. The night scene mode works fine but you'll need a tripod and ISO is auto so sometimes pics come out grainy. HD VIDEO mode works perfect in low light; I've been going to local band shows and the videos come out great. At the beggining I was a bit frustrated for not being allowed to manipulate shutter speed but after playing with... » Read More Due to how you can't manually select the shutter speed sometimes it gets a little bit tricky to shoot in low light. You'll have to play with the iso and the exposure settings for a while before you get a nice result. The hand-held starlight mode doesn't always work. The night scene mode works fine but you'll need a tripod and ISO is auto so sometimes pics come out grainy. HD VIDEO mode works perfect in low light; I've been going to local band shows and the videos come out great. At the beggining I was a bit frustrated for not being allowed to manipulate shutter speed but after playing with the camera for a month or so now I get some really great results in low light. « Show Less
1121836
When there is adequate light you will see color. In the dark when it has to rely on IR video will appear to be in monochrome. This is the same behavior you will see from any color camera with IR.
1924986
It depends on the lighting. I have filmed indoors with decent lighting and when I upload it doesnt look hd either. Although when I am outside, the quality is very good
1816400
Well the HF200 does behave poorly in low light condition, even with the best aperture and frame settings, but I can't tell if it's worse than other HD camcorders.Also, make sure you didn't disable the autofocus, it's easy to make things worse. I don't mean the setting available via the standard FUNC menu, but directly with the Up and Down controls from the wheel, it's the third option from the bottom.The zoom may also affect grain and artifacts, use it sparingly.
592984
I have not used the playback on the camera but imagine it is the same -- all daytime pics come out in color on my computer -- nighttime is black and white
388179
I have found that it produces acceptable images in fairly low light. I don't try to take pictures in almost total darkness so I have no experience there. Under a full moon it took acceptable pictures of animals in my yard. HTH