I have no quarrel with you Beppe. Here are some thoughts:
Beppe Pezzullo wrote:.. while a lot of them are user error indeed, IMHO this is not.
You admit that you see a lot of 'user errors' being made. But you don't think this is one—how come?
And we don't have to label it as an error, necessarily. It can be an oversight or a misunderstanding, or whatever.
OP says ISO400 and the images looks like it does. My mind goes to: not exposed correctly.
Beppe Pezzullo wrote:...you probably mistook me for a kiddo with a baseball hat, skinny black jeans and a gimbal. But I'm not.
If it matters, I did not. I don't assume anything about people here, basically. My comment was more about you referring to "a lot of history of apologetic behavior, but your account didn't reflect that. I actually assumed that you DID have some substantial forum history—just not here.
Beppe Pezzullo wrote:if the clip was shoot at 400 iso and was not manipulated in post to bring up exposure, that kind of noise is not an expected behavior.
That's a big AND. You seem to assume everything was shot optimally, but my take is that all we know is the ISO was 400. I'm more interested in everything that hides behind the AND in the OP's case.
My take is based on my experience having owned the P4K and the P6K (but I currently don't own one, unfortunately.) We might all have different expectations, but my view is: don't crop the sensor width and saturate your exposures, and you'll be more than fine.
Even a low-key shot can be photodiode-well saturated. It's a more technically correct approach, IMHO. You can then grade it down to taste in post. The look of the shot will be determined by lighting ratios between key and fill.
In fact, many "moody" sets you see in films would feel like well-lit offices if had you been there in the room. But with well-managed lighting ratios, you bring everything down in post for a low-key moody feel that still gives you a rich, fat negative to work with.