Low Light Environment Tips

Hey everybody, fairly new to AV. Just bought myself a Lumix G7 for 1080p-4K vlogging. I'm loving it good light scenarios. It seems like various test videos show it can do decently in low level light environments but despite the tips I've picked up, my footage still looks super dark.

I would normally use my own lighting but outdoor events during the evening I wanted to record I can't really control the lighting so much.

I am just using the stock lens. I put the camera mode in iAS so it'll adjust my aperture and shutter based on exposure. I cranked up the ISO to 25k.

And interestingly the OLED LCD monitor shows a passable, colorful image. The second I hit the record button that image shows the true footage of mostly blackness. I did turn on that constant feature for the monitor to show the live footage. Is the colorful LCD  prerecord image a pipedream? If so, how can the simple monitor do the processing to make it look good?

Hi, and welcome to the forum. This thread belongs to the micro four thirds talk, and not the Panasonic Compact talk. Let me move it for you.

Hi

The camera is using settings that it knows to display the scene as best it can. When you start recording, it is using the settings you've selected !

I would recommend you read through this recent thread which was also asked by someone new to video. I think the thread and my couple of posts in there will help jump start your questions.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4310703

Mark

What is the iAs mode?

Do you mean hitting the Red REC button to start recoding?

Going to ISO 25,600 will guarantee a serious noisy footage having most detail be erased by noise reduction (NR).

To start and stop a video by the red REC button, will indeed start your shooting in full automatic mode. It is quite basic for Panasonic, and I found it does not response quick enough on various ambient lighting condition. So, might use iA+ (hit the iA button, and select iA+), which will response much better and will use various pre set scenery mode whenever G7 thinks fit. It can guarantee you a nice footage.

When you feel comfortable with G7, can move on to use manual video for more control (select the Creative Video Mode on the dial).