Noise at ISO 1250

Si I'm trying to figure out why I would be getting noise in my images shooting at ISO 1250.

Attached you'll see an image of the scene just for reference. It has no grade on and was shot in B-Raw 12:1. There's also the waveform added for reference.

As far as my research and knowledge goes ISO 1250 is the second Native ISO and should show very little to no noise. You can't tell from the images but once I add a LUT, the noise shows a lot over the entire image and especially in the shadows.

Or am I understanding this wrong? How do you film a low-light scene without getting noise? Or do you always light the scene very well and then edit it to look like night time in post?

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND.

Si I'm trying to figure out why I would be getting noise in my images shooting at ISO 1250.

Attached you'll see an image of the scene just for reference. It has no grade on and was shot in B-Raw 12:1. There's also the waveform added for reference.

As far as my research and knowledge goes ISO 1250 is the second Native ISO and should show very little to no noise. You can't tell from the images but once I add a LUT, the noise shows a lot over the entire image and especially in the shadows.

Or am I understanding this wrong? How do you film a low-light scene without getting noise? Or do you always light the scene very well and then edit it to look like night time in post?

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND.

Hi and welcome to the forum Heleen!

While ISO 3200 is the second native ISO (besides ISO 400) which does show less noise than ISO 1000 of the first stage, it is a common misconception that this will show little noise - even at ISO 1250.
The reason of this misconception is, that most camera manufacturers are implementing heavy post noise reduction into their cameras - like Sony does with their Alpha series. Initially this makes high ISO shots look surprisingly clean but upon closer inspection you will see this comes at the cost of the loss of image texture details. Everything tends to look like smooth plastic.

Blackmagic has another approach to this and does no (cameras before BRAW) or very little noise reduction in camera (cameras with BRAW) and therefor gives you the option to do that later in post with a high quality tool which does way outperform current in-camera solutions.

Another misconception is to film planned low-light scenes in low-light. That is not the way to do it.
The better approach - and like most high-end film productions do it - is to light the set quite bright, but take care of the relative light ratios and then use lower ISO settings and/or lower the brightness in post. That way you will get super clean shadows and better control of the end result.

BTW, if you want others here to evaluate your shots, please post image samples in native resolution or even better post short original source clips to download.

The reason of this misconception is, that most camera manufacturers are implementing heavy post noise reduction into their cameras - like Sony does with their Alpha series. Initially this makes high ISO shots look surprisingly clean but upon closer inspection you will see this comes at the cost of the loss of image texture details. Everything tends to look like smooth plastic.

Blackmagic has another approach to this and does no (cameras before BRAW) or very little noise reduction in camera (cameras with BRAW) and therefor gives you the option to do that later in post with a high quality tool which does way outperform current in-camera solutions.

Sorry but i think that Blackmagic can not to make a camera with a good clean image at high ISO like Sony. They just don't own this noise reduction in camera technology and this is the reason why they offer free Davinci Resolve to solve their lack internal noise reduction.
Look at this 2 links and tell me if i wrong.

Sorry but i think that Blackmagic can not to make a camera with a good clean image at high ISO like Sony. They just don't own this noise reduction in camera technology and this is the reason why they offer free Davinci Resolve to solve their lack internal noise reduction.
Look at this 2 links and tell me if i wrong.

I am not sure what exactly you want to tell me with those two videos?

I am not sure what exactly you want to tell me with those two videos?

I want to compare 2 cinema cameras, in same price range, with 2 different results in high ISO range. If you shooting with UMP G2 at ISO 3200 and use in post production a software denoise (DaVinci Resolve) you get a usable image like FS5 Mark II at 12800 ISO with in camera noise reduction? Only i wish is a more clean image at high ISO on Blackmagic cameras.

If you shooting with UMP G2 at ISO 3200 and use in post production a software denoise (DaVinci Resolve) you get a usable image like FS5 Mark II at 12800 ISO with in camera noise reduction? Only i wish is a more clean image at high ISO on Blackmagic cameras.

Robert explained above that on close inspection you can see that in-camera noise reduction is inferior to noise reduction in post.

Robert explained above that on close inspection you can see that in-camera noise reduction is inferior to noise reduction in post.

Please help me! How i can shoot at 10 bit with UMP G2 at 3200 ISO and can denoise the picture in post production with DaVinci Resove and get a clean and superior to Sony FS5 / FS7?

Robert explained above that on close inspection you can see that in-camera noise reduction is inferior to noise reduction in post.

Please help me! How i can shoot at 10 bit with UMP G2 at 3200 ISO and can denoise the picture in post production with DaVinci Resove and get a clean and superior to Sony FS5 / FS7?

By buying an FS5/FS7... Why would you want one camera do what an other camera does? Isn’t that what the other camera is for?

By buying an FS5/FS7... Why would you want one camera do what an other camera does? Isn’t that what the other camera is for?

Because i love Blackmagic color science. Because i have already a ursa mini 4K, BM viewfinder, BM shoulder mount, BM Vlock battery plate and i dont want to trow in the bin this accesories. Because i belive in Blackmagic "revolution", i like that Blackmagic offer 10/12 bit, RAW, at decent price. All i want is a little moore clean image in low light.Asking too much?

Get Neatvideo.

Sorry but i think that Blackmagic can not to make a camera with a good clean image at high ISO like Sony. They just don't own this noise reduction in camera technology and this is the reason why they offer free Davinci Resolve to solve their lack internal noise reduction.
Look at this 2 links and tell me if i wrong.

You're wrong. This videos does not tell me anything.

By buying an FS5/FS7... Why would you want one camera do what an other camera does? Isn’t that what the other camera is for?

Because i love Blackmagic color science. Because i have already a ursa mini 4K, BM viewfinder, BM shoulder mount, BM Vlock battery plate and i dont want to trow in the bin this accesories. Because i belive in Blackmagic "revolution", i like that Blackmagic offer 10/12 bit, RAW, at decent price. All i want is a little moore clean image in low light.Asking too much?

Then you have the wrong expectations. The FS5/FS7 are really for ENG use while the BMD cameras are for narrative filmmaking. So if you use the BMD camera, light your scenes. For low light, use faster lens, shoot at native ISO, etc.

See this post as well. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=101735

Hi Helen, can you specify the values of the shot? I mean, aperture, shutter... Lense used. Even, I can't find where is the focus. Appear an image that need an ISO 3200 to downgrade the value in post at around 1250.
In that way, the shadows and mid tones can have very low noise and great contrast and blacks.

Tiger Lily, I wish you had posted two weeks earlier. I’m also concerned about noise and tested by BMPCC4K thoroughly after receiving it at the end of June. I certainly compared the ISO 400 and ISO 3200 ranges for noise and tonality. I could see that the higher ISO range did have more noise, but likely it would be manageable in post. I had planned to use ISO 3200 band when I recorded a musical theatre production at the end of October.

At the last moment I decided I need increased depth of field since this was a large production with lead characters moving all over the stage. And I wanted clean results so I went with ISO 400 at T5.6 and shutter angle 180 degrees. On the URSA Mini 4.6, I would have been using ISO 800 at T4/T2.8 and shutter angle 360 degrees. So I was really pushing the histogram well into the lower quadrant. But the image looked good in the theatre so I gambled.

Initially in post things looked quite good on the characters, but then I started noticing problems in the low lit areas that abound like the backdrops and reflections off the black floor. They were very noisy. Even after applying heavy noise reduction (that beautifully fixed the noisy reflections) the low lit areas often had artifacts. And sometimes the faces of the leads had artifacts.

It wasn’t always my ‘fault’ as I have no control over the lighting which had large swings in levels and I can see the artifacts completely disappear in the same scene as the lighting director increased the lights.

But it is my ‘fault’ because I know what a challenge recording with this theatre crew can be. And my guess how to minimize occasional blown highlights was right on for the BMPCC4K as they weren’t an issue this time. But I didn’t place enough importance on the light levels of the lower mids and shadows. My bad.

For my next performance in December, I’m going to shoot with T4/T2.8 and 360 degrees shutter angle and feed the sensor more light. Of course I’ll have to be more careful about focus a land in post I know I’ll have some very bright highlights. But t better the occasional momentary clip due to bright saturated LEDs than these ugly artifacts!

The first exposure lesson we learned on the BMCC half a dozen years ago is really still true: feed the sensor! And the best way to judge if the sensor is well fed is looking at the histogram frequently and the false colour occasionally. Keep light levels at least in the second quadrant or middle of the histogram generally depending on the scene. And try to avoid blue false colour and ideally have only dark grey, green, medium grey, pink, and light grey with occasional highlights in yellow.

I didn’t follow my own guidelines and had too much blue in the frame last month which is where the noise became so strong. Hopefully in December I only have dark grey through light grey. I also expect I’ll use both cameras so the URSA Mini 4.6K increased latitude will help with those hot highlights.

Si I'm trying to figure out why I would be getting noise in my images shooting at ISO 1250.

Attached you'll see an image of the scene just for reference. It has no grade on and was shot in B-Raw 12:1. There's also the waveform added for reference.

As far as my research and knowledge goes ISO 1250 is the second Native ISO and should show very little to no noise. You can't tell from the images but once I add a LUT, the noise shows a lot over the entire image and especially in the shadows.

Or am I understanding this wrong? How do you film a low-light scene without getting noise? Or do you always light the scene very well and then edit it to look like night time in post?

PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND.

Hi and welcome to the forum Heleen!

While ISO 3200 is the second native ISO (besides ISO 400) which does show less noise than ISO 1000 of the first stage, it is a common misconception that this will show little noise - even at ISO 1250.
The reason of this misconception is, that most camera manufacturers are implementing heavy post noise reduction into their cameras - like Sony does with their Alpha series. Initially this makes high ISO shots look surprisingly clean but upon closer inspection you will see this comes at the cost of the loss of image texture details. Everything tends to look like smooth plastic.

Blackmagic has another approach to this and does no (cameras before BRAW) or very little noise reduction in camera (cameras with BRAW) and therefor gives you the option to do that later in post with a high quality tool which does way outperform current in-camera solutions.

Another misconception is to film planned low-light scenes in low-light. That is not the way to do it.
The better approach - and like most high-end film productions do it - is to light the set quite bright, but take care of the relative light ratios and then use lower ISO settings and/or lower the brightness in post. That way you will get super clean shadows and better control of the end result.

BTW, if you want others here to evaluate your shots, please post image samples in native resolution or even better post short original source clips to download.

Thank you so much for this! I just want to be sure I understand this correctly. If I'm shooting a low light scene I have two options: Light the scene quite bright and bring it down in post OR shoot a low light scene at 400 which will give me very little noise because it's the camera's first native ISO?

Then, am I correct in saying that ISO 400 and 3200 will give you the least noise, because it's the native ISO, with ISO 400 giving less noise than 3200?

I was under the impression ISO 1250 will give you less noise than ISO 3200 because it's the first ISO once you've crossed over to the second ISO range. Is this wrong? (See chart, if you're not already familiar with it.)

With all that said, and taking from this forum and learning from my mistakes: could the biggest take-away here be that anytime you have an image with parts of the scene falling below green (middle grey) aka in the dark grey, blue, and purple range on the false colour chart, you simply will get noise because BM doesn't implement in camera noise reduction? However, the noise should be easily removed in post? If I take your advise of shooting ISO 400 and shadow parts of the image fall in the blue range will there inevitably also be noise?

Thanks in advance?

...Then, am I correct in saying that ISO 400 and 3200 will give you the least noise, because it's the native ISO, with ISO 400 giving less noise than 3200?

The ISO 3200 range appears to have more noise than the ISO 400 range. Shooting and exposing for values above either range’s ‘native’ ISO value increases the noise.

I was under the impression ISO 1250 will give you less noise than ISO 3200 because it's the first ISO once you've crossed over to the second ISO range...

You will get less noise shooting at 1250 than 3200 if you adjust your camera exposure for 1250 because the sensor is receiving 1 ⅓ stops more light at 1250.

... anytime you have an image with parts of the scene falling below green (middle grey) aka in the dark grey, blue, and purple range on the false colour chart, you simply will get noise because BM doesn't implement in camera noise reduction?

Like smog in a city, sensor noise is always with us, but likely won’t be an issue when the noise floor is well below the levels of the frame you want us to see.

Please avoid purple at all costs unless you want it to look close to black in your deliverables. That’s legitimate but only when there’s no detail that you want to see in those areas.

However, the noise should be easily removed in post?

Maybe but remember the side effects. Too much medicine can be bad for you!

If I take your advise of shooting ISO 400 and shadow parts of the image fall in the blue range will there inevitably also be noise?

Yes, but should be manageable either with noise reduction if you need to see details and by lowering your shadows (the Lift wheel in the Lift, Gamma, Gain colour controls).

Best thing is shooting tests and playing with camera exposures and settings and then trying various corrections in post.

All the best.

A tiny bit of noise reduction in Resolve and you will have a clean image at 3200. Deciding how much NR you want yourself gives you much more control over the image than letting the camera manufacturer decide. There are loads of YouTube videos that will explain how to use NR in resolve in a minute or two.

I am intrigued by other peoples' views on what consitutes noise and would be interested to see some of the footage that you have found unacceptable.

I shoot live music / events and routinely use ISO 1250-3200 with no issues at all. I used ISO 8000 for part of one live music event and only gave it the barest kiss of noise reduction.

I can see a fine grain in some of my shots but it looks oragnic and like the film I grew up shooting. I frequently see posts and threads like this and wonder if I have a particularly good camera, a high visual tolerance for noise or if those finding fault prefer a more video-ish image with solid colours and little texture to the image.

This isn't in any way meant as a criticism. Everyone is entitled to seek the image quality that they prefer, I am just genuinely curious.

One thing I would say about shooting live music or events with bright / spotlights on the talent is to protect your highlights. If you blow out the highlights (or get close to it) the transition on the faces in particular is very harsh. The P4K is not a camera that suits ETTR. It is better to be on the money with your exposure to protect the highlights and the shadows will look after themselves. More and more in use I am finding myself pulling the exposure down to levels that would make me worry with previous cameras but when I get the footage home it looks great with a lot of detail in the shadows.

I echo those conclusions and found no issues staying below the halfway point on the histogram. Only one brief scene intended for a laugh, that was intentionally very dark, was too low to give a clear render. I left it too dark so the lighting director would see the scenes like that aren’t going to look good in video. All other underexposed scenes on the BMPCC4K are fine. By comparison, I would NOT want to expose that way below the mid-point on the URSA Mini 4.6K for fear of FPN marring the shadows in all scenes.

I’m just editing my September music video where I did expose well over the mid-point of the histogram. Having to bring exposures down and seeing some thinness in the highlights from the URSA Mini 4.6K ProRes 444 whereas the BMPCC4K BRAW Q0 seems to be easier to manage.

There's a breed of shooters who are really looking for plasticy smooth images. I'm certainly not one of them.

At some point noise can become so strong that it takes away from the image, but as long as it's not compression artefacts I think I'm pretty tolerant.

Today's higher resolution cameras have noise that is pretty fine and 'organic' (in lack of a better term), as mentioned above.

But there is no right or wrong here. People need to decide for themselves.

I think there is something to be said about really studying images though: see what gets lost in those noise free images (because they aren't simply noise free, they are just more or less smeared out) and see if you win something back if you can accept some of the natural texture of the camera/sensor.

Also, if you're shooting in a more documentary style, letting some noise creep in there can provide meaningful context for the audience.

I think it's often a matter of age: people who grew up on film projection tend not to admire or strive for hyper-clean images, but much of the younger crowd is obsessed with noise, as if its absence is a marker of image quality.

So half the world is using film grain plugins and the other half can't get enough Neat Video and won't
stop ETTRing, then complains about "highlight rolloff".

Robert explained above that on close inspection you can see that in-camera noise reduction is inferior to noise reduction in post.

Please help me! How i can shoot at 10 bit with UMP G2 at 3200 ISO and can denoise the picture in post production with DaVinci Resove and get a clean and superior to Sony FS5 / FS7?

Light your subject!

I recently got my BMPCC4K, and I'm learning working with it little by little.

I was aware that for low light scenes, the camera might be tricky and would need light.

But here is a daylight graded clip from a recent shoot, BRAW UHD @1000ISO, correctly lit and exposed.
You can clearly see a lot of noise at the base of her hair
at that ISO I'm quite surprised ! what do you think ?


pwd : test

But here is a daylight graded clip from a recent shoot, BRAW UHD @1000ISO, correctly lit and exposed.
You can clearly see a lot of noise at the base of her hair
at that ISO I'm quite surprised ! what do you think ?

There's nothing surprising about it. ISO 1000 is the noisiest setting in the 100-1000 iso range. You need to go back and read the the material on dual native ISOs.

There will be less noise at iso 1250 than iso 1000, though at the expense of some dynamic range and with a bit more contrast at 1250.

I recently got my BMPCC4K, and I'm learning working with it little by little.

I was aware that for low light scenes, the camera might be tricky and would need light.

But here is a daylight graded clip from a recent shoot, BRAW UHD @1000ISO, correctly lit and exposed.
You can clearly see a lot of noise at the base of her hair
at that ISO I'm quite surprised ! what do you think ?


pwd : test

I am not trying to be a jerk here but dude, try lighting and shooting at the native ISO instead of ISO 1000. There is this very silly thing people assume about shooting braw at ISO 1000 and exposing for middle gray in that it will give you a better image than shooting native ISO (400). It isn't true at all. The ISO setting affects the curve and is different for exposing for middle gray at those different ISOs and can be helpful when there are a lot of highlights in frame for the sole purpose of allocating more of the dynamic range AT that curve to the highlights while sacrificing detail and noise in the shadows.

Technically there is no difference in the dynamic range when shooting braw while within the low gain (100-1000) or high gain (1250-6400) settings. The actual captured information is the same when shooting braw and only changing ISO within those settings with the pocket 4k. ISO 1000 is inherently going to have more noise in your situation because you likely under exposed your shadows on purpose to fit middle gray at that ISO. Exposing for middle gray at ISO 400 will yield a much cleaner result.

Expose for ISO 400, adjust lighting to fit what you want, and watch your highlights using false color. You will have less noise than exposing for middle gray at ISO 1000, guaranteed.

This might be a helpful way of thinking about exposure and noise:

1. Noise is most prevalent in underexposed areas, regardless of ISO. Properly exposed images will always have less noise than underexposed images.

2. The camera only has two "real" ISOs*. All other ISOs are adjusted previews.

Soooo...

If your image looks properly exposed at ISO 1000, what that means is that you have a very underexposed image. You can tell this by viewing it at the "real" ISO 200.

Between ISO 200-1000 you are applying more and more gain (more and more noise.)
At ISO 1250, the gain is reset and increases again from there.

---

* If 200 and 1250 are the "real" ISOs, then why are 400 and 3200 referred to as "native"? Put simply, they are the settings that BMD felt offered the best overall balance of noise, dynamic range, etc.

You have options when you are not able to adjust the lighting for your scene rather than going to ISO 800 or 1000 on the BMPCC4K for example.

If I need one more stop of light, cannot increase the aperture, and the scene does not have significant motion (and you are locked down): I increase the shutter angle to about 360 degrees. In many situations I won’t notice any image degradation and it’s an easy option.

As mentioned, you can increase the ISO to 1250 and expose for ISO 1250 to put your sensor in the 3200 band. That band will have increased noise over ‘native’ ISO 400, but it’s usually very easy to manage compared to ISO 1000.

You can set the ISO to 400 on the BMPCC4K and use False Colour as your guide. If important areas of your scene are purple, this isn’t a good option. But it you can keep your shadows in blue and dark grey, you’ll be surprised at the quality of your results. If your subjects are often green or dark grey, you’ll still have a decent image.

In post you can boost exposure a stop again and possibly more. I did this recently and had to apply noise reduction to some scenes (that were blue), but most scenes had zero noise reduction. For that shoot 360 shutter angle wasn’t used due to the degree of motion in many scenes.

Compared to the URSA Mini 4.6K, I find the BMPCC4K sensor more tolerant of low light even when shooting ISO 400 versus ‘native’ ISO 800 on the 4.6K.

There's nothing surprising about it. ISO 1000 is the noisiest setting in the 100-1000 iso range. You need to go back and read the the material on dual native ISOs.

There will be less noise at iso 1250 than iso 1000, though at the expense of some dynamic range and with a bit more contrast at 1250.

Ok maybe you didn't get what I meant.

I've used a lot of different cameras over the years. Last ones I owned (not mentionning all the ones I rented) were C100 MKII and GH5S. GH5s was dual iso, and I did get very decent results event at non base ISO.

What I mean, is that, it is not possible, at least for my needs and means, to stay at 400ISO all the time. The exemple I posted was light controlled but a small budget and I really can't rent and have the time and crew to use 4K's HMI at each shoot I'm doing, as well as, I suppose, many other BMPCC4K owners : if, like me, you can't pay more than 5K over a camera, you really can't pay a full crew and lighting gear to have the luxury of staying at ISO400.

1250ISO shows a real drop in highlights dynamic, hence my need for iso 800-1000.

All other cameras performs quite well in that range, what I meant is I'm quite surprised of the amount of noise I'm getting at ISO 1000, in this day and age, where all other cameras are showing 1000ISO without any hussle.

Even if I shot at ISO 400, underexposing by 2 stops shoudn't bring that much noise.

I've used a lot of different cameras over the years. Last ones I owned (not mentionning all the ones I rented) were C100 MKII and GH5S. GH5s was dual iso, and I did get very decent results event at non base ISO.

What I mean, is that, it is not possible, at least for my needs and means, to stay at 400ISO all the time. The exemple I posted was light controlled but a small budget and I really can't rent and have the time and crew to use 4K's HMI at each shoot I'm doing, as well as, I suppose, many other BMPCC4K owners : if, like me, you can't pay more than 5K over a camera, you really can't pay a full crew and lighting gear to have the luxury of staying at ISO400.

1250ISO shows a real drop in highlights dynamic, hence my need for iso 800-1000.

All other cameras performs quite well in that range, what I meant is I'm quite surprised of the amount of noise I'm getting at ISO 1000, in this day and age, where all other cameras are showing 1000ISO without any hussle.

Even if I shot at ISO 400, underexposing by 2 stops shoudn't bring that much noise.

Other cameras typically do a lot more internal noise reduction than BMD cameras, but at the expense of texture and detail, though I haven't done any studies of the GH5 or the Canon C100.

In the end, you have a choice with the BMPCC 4K: satisfy the lighting requirements of iso 400 for maximum dynamic range and minimum noise, or gain a few stops at the expense of DR, by moving to the higher circuit. I also assume you're aware that when shooting braw, the actual camera ISO setting is not of any consequence, apart from which circuit you're in. What matters is what ISO you meter for. Any any given f-stop, the sensor captures exactly the same data, whether the camera iso is set to 100 or 1000.

Hard to say from that clip without knowing what your exposure was like. Can you post the media for us to see?

Other cameras typically do a lot more internal noise reduction than BMD cameras, but at the expense of texture and detail, though I haven't done any studies of the GH5 or the Canon C100.

I've been reading this aroudn here but to be honest that seems to be an odd argument : my GH5s, ok it was not raw, but it has really less noise, shooting at non native ISOs, and I don't recall finding any loss of texture and detail !

Other cameras typically do a lot more internal noise reduction than BMD cameras, but at the expense of texture and detail, though I haven't done any studies of the GH5 or the Canon C100.

I've been reading this aroudn here but to be honest that seems to be an odd argument : my GH5s, ok it was not raw, but it has really less noise, shooting at non native ISOs, and I don't recall finding any loss of texture and detail !

Victor, why is that an odd argument? One camera system does noise reduction in camera, the other one doesn't. When comparing both images there is no surprise that the first one has no visible noise and the other one got some in the shadows?

I am shooting alone all the time and almost always set some light because it looks so much better than when shot with available light only.

I've been reading this aroudn here but to be honest that seems to be an odd argument : my GH5s, ok it was not raw, but it has really less noise, shooting at non native ISOs, and I don't recall finding any loss of texture and detail !

There are few possibilities here: the other cameras actually are better in low light, the differences in texture are there but you haven't noted them, or you'd trade texture for noise even if you did notice.

Your worries over highlight loss in the higher circuit seem to indicate you're dealing with scenes with very high dynamic range -- too bright for 1250, but too dark for 400. The way out of that one is usually lighting, to bring up the shadows. Or just letting things clip, which has been a norm of art photography and feature filmmaking for 100+ years.

If what you want most of all is clean, low-light images out of the camera, the BMPCC 4K may be the wrong choice.

I've been reading this aroudn here but to be honest that seems to be an odd argument : my GH5s, ok it was not raw, but it has really less noise, shooting at non native ISOs, and I don't recall finding any loss of texture and detail !

There are few possibilities here: the other cameras actually are better in low light, the differences in texture are there but you haven't noted them, or you'd trade texture for noise even if you did notice.

Your worries over highlight loss in the higher circuit seem to indicate you're dealing with scenes with very high dynamic range -- too bright for 1250, but too dark for 400. The way out of that one is usually lighting, to bring up the shadows. Or just letting things clip, which has been a norm of art photography and feature filmmaking for 100+ years.

If what you want most of all is clean, low-light images out of the camera, the BMPCC 4K may be the wrong choice.

The exemple I posted, I had an Aputure 300D outside throwing through the window, and a 45x60 LED panel to wrap the face inside the room, I consider this lighted don't you agree ?

I don't specifically deal with scenes with high DR, in the exemple above, the window was blown up, but it was out of frame so I didn't care, I just noticed that when switching to ISO 1250 the picture looses the softness of contrast and tone I liked about it and made me switch from my GH5s to BMPCC4K.

This is one exemple where I did have some lighting, but most of the time I'm alone doing run and gun documentary, so I can't light anything.

I might be discovering that this camera is not made for this at all.

But I'm a bit surprised to you all saying it's perfectly fine to have that level of noise, that is ugly color noise which is not pleasing at all and does not go away with NR in resolve, while shooting at a very decent ISO, with a fair amount of additional light.

You have options when you are not able to adjust the lighting for your scene rather than going to ISO 800 or 1000 on the BMPCC4K for example.

If I need one more stop of light, cannot increase the aperture, and the scene does not have significant motion (and you are locked down): I increase the shutter angle to about 360 degrees. In many situations I won’t notice any image degradation and it’s an easy option.

As mentioned, you can increase the ISO to 1250 and expose for ISO 1250 to put your sensor in the 3200 band. That band will have increased noise over ‘native’ ISO 400, but it’s usually very easy to manage compared to ISO 1000.

You can set the ISO to 400 on the BMPCC4K and use False Colour as your guide. If important areas of your scene are purple, this isn’t a good option. But it you can keep your shadows in blue and dark grey, you’ll be surprised at the quality of your results. If your subjects are often green or dark grey, you’ll still have a decent image.

In post you can boost exposure a stop again and possibly more. I did this recently and had to apply noise reduction to some scenes (that were blue), but most scenes had zero noise reduction. For that shoot 360 shutter angle wasn’t used due to the degree of motion in many scenes.

Compared to the URSA Mini 4.6K, I find the BMPCC4K sensor more tolerant of low light even when shooting ISO 400 versus ‘native’ ISO 800 on the 4.6K.

Yes I mostly used zebra to expose but I hear your advice, I should use False Colour a lot more with this camera. No purple !

All other cameras performs quite well in that range, what I meant is I'm quite surprised of the amount of noise I'm getting at ISO 1000, in this day and age, where all other cameras are showing 1000ISO without any hussle.

As a GH5 owner, and an occasional GH5S shooter, I can understand your expectation. Panasonic has pretty damn good in-camera noise-reduction. The GH5S gets plasticky at the highest ISOs, but otherwise it's very natural looking.

But, what you're missing in-camera on the P4K is intentional. It is designed to yield an image with minimal processing to preserve choice in post. So you gain flexibility and quality, and you lose the more efficient workflow. (i.e. noise-reduction in post is slooooow unless you have a powerful workstation.)

Which approach you prefer is a personal choice, and you should pick the appropriate tool for your preferred workflow, but don't make the mistake of comparing apples and oranges.

How is RED's in-camera noise reduction? How is Alexa's in-camera noise reduction? What about Sony's Venice or F55?

I've been reading this aroudn here but to be honest that seems to be an odd argument : my GH5s, ok it was not raw, but it has really less noise, shooting at non native ISOs, and I don't recall finding any loss of texture and detail !

There are few possibilities here: the other cameras actually are better in low light, the differences in texture are there but you haven't noted them, or you'd trade texture for noise even if you did notice.

Your worries over highlight loss in the higher circuit seem to indicate you're dealing with scenes with very high dynamic range -- too bright for 1250, but too dark for 400. The way out of that one is usually lighting, to bring up the shadows. Or just letting things clip, which has been a norm of art photography and feature filmmaking for 100+ years.

If what you want most of all is clean, low-light images out of the camera, the BMPCC 4K may be the wrong choice.

The exemple I posted, I had an Aputure 300D outside throwing through the window, and a 45x60 LED panel to wrap the face inside the room, I consider this lighted don't you agree ?

I don't specifically deal with scenes with high DR, in the exemple above, the window was blown up, but it was out of frame so I didn't care, I just noticed that when switching to ISO 1250 the picture looses the softness of contrast and tone I liked about it and made me switch from my GH5s to BMPCC4K.

This is one exemple where I did have some lighting, but most of the time I'm alone doing run and gun documentary, so I can't light anything.

I might be discovering that this camera is not made for this at all.

But I'm a bit surprised to you all saying it's perfectly fine to have that level of noise, that is ugly color noise which is not pleasing at all and does not go away with NR in resolve, while shooting at a very decent ISO, with a fair amount of additional light.

You have options when you are not able to adjust the lighting for your scene rather than going to ISO 800 or 1000 on the BMPCC4K for example.

If I need one more stop of light, cannot increase the aperture, and the scene does not have significant motion (and you are locked down): I increase the shutter angle to about 360 degrees. In many situations I won’t notice any image degradation and it’s an easy option.

As mentioned, you can increase the ISO to 1250 and expose for ISO 1250 to put your sensor in the 3200 band. That band will have increased noise over ‘native’ ISO 400, but it’s usually very easy to manage compared to ISO 1000.

You can set the ISO to 400 on the BMPCC4K and use False Colour as your guide. If important areas of your scene are purple, this isn’t a good option. But it you can keep your shadows in blue and dark grey, you’ll be surprised at the quality of your results. If your subjects are often green or dark grey, you’ll still have a decent image.

In post you can boost exposure a stop again and possibly more. I did this recently and had to apply noise reduction to some scenes (that were blue), but most scenes had zero noise reduction. For that shoot 360 shutter angle wasn’t used due to the degree of motion in many scenes.

Compared to the URSA Mini 4.6K, I find the BMPCC4K sensor more tolerant of low light even when shooting ISO 400 versus ‘native’ ISO 800 on the 4.6K.

Yes I mostly used zebra to expose but I hear your advice, I should use False Colour a lot more with this camera. No purple !

If the noise isn’t going away you’re not using Resolve properly... the NR is like magic and can clean up very very noisy footage...

This is an old post, but if someone is confused and happens to land here, then I hope this helps. I am a professional cinematographer that owns a BMD Ursa 12k. Before that I only shot on Arri Alexa and before that I had a bunch of Red cameras. The BMD 12k is a noisy camera. My feeling is the plan from BM is that you would deal with it in your color grade. This does not change the fact that you have to light well and the highest ISO you can shoot at is 800 no matter what. Yes, what your looking at on set and the image in camera should be 1-2 stops brighter than your intended result, always. Even when we shot film you would light meter your brightest spot and expose a half stop brighter.

If you believe you can shoot dark your dead wrong. you'll end up with a result like these horribly dark Netflix shows or like Godzilla where the entire image is living below 300 maybe even 200 in your scopes in Resolve and you can barely see the show. Dark does not make dramatic, contrast does. Especially with BMD cameras where they're not like Alexa where there is built in real time temporal noise reduction alongside rather large photo sites.

I can't speak about Sony because I don't shoot with them and have no desire to at all. The BMD 12k has color that matches the Alexa but the noise is way higher. When I have a chance I'm going to do some ISO and quality tests, because my feeling is that the camera maybe should be shot at 400 iso and no less than 5:1 compression, perhaps at constant quality settings to get some noise out.

Hope this helps.

Pete