ON THIS PAGE:

What is gain?
Setting gain manually
Setting low, med and high
How much gain?
Hypergain

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PART 4: GAIN AND HYPERGAIN

by Christina Fox

There are four controls on the camera that affect exposure…

S     SHUTTER

I      IRIS

N    NEUTRAL DENSITY

G    GAIN

On this page we'll look at gain. On other pages we'll look at Iris and the ND filters and the shutter.

WHAT IS GAIN?

Gain is an electronic way to boost the brighness of your video images.

When shooting in low light conditions (e.g. at night) the iris is will be fully OPEN at f1.6 but, the camera may still needs more light to produce a picture. If you cannot light the scene then the only way to brighten the image is to electronically boost it with GAIN.

The great thing about gain is that you will be able to see in the dark. This is a shot from my bedroom window. With 18dB of gain you can see more. The downside is - the 18dB image looks grainy and poor quality (on a TV screen).

So, only use gain when you really have no choice. There are four gain levels to chose from: Low, Medium, High and HyperGain.

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SETTING THE GAIN MANUALLY

1. Set the AUTO LOCK switch to the middle position
2. Press the GAIN button. A number will appear in the viewfinder/LCD between 0dB and 18dB.
3. You can now select the gain level you want by switching between Low, Medium and High

To return to AUTO mode just press the GAIN button again.

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SETTING LOW, MEDIUM AND HIGH

If you want to adjust the levels at which Low, Medium, High are set you will have to enter the MENUS.

• Press the MENU button
• Scroll down to the CAMERA SET MENU using the silver SEL/PUSH EXEC wheel. Press in to select.
• Select GAIN SETUP

The default settings are:

LOW               0dB

MEDIUM       9dB

HIGH            18dB

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HOW MUCH GAIN?

For most of the time gain should be set to 0dB. If light levels are low you can usually get away with 3dB or 6dB without people noticing. At 9dB and above you'll start to get grainy pictures.

18dB will allow you to shoot at night and in low light. At 18dB the shots will be grainy, but if the subject matter is compelling you'll probably get away with it.

If you don't want your pictures to look too grainy adjust menu setting to:-

LOW               0dB

MEDIUM       6dB

HIGH            12dB

Then if you need more just switch the gain to auto and it will adjust accordingly.

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HYPERGAIN

If you are working somewhere very dark then you may decide to use the HyperGain function, which will boost your picture by 36dB. To access HyperGain you will have to assign it to one of the six assignable buttons.

• Press the MENU button
• Scroll down to the OTHERS MENU using the silver SEL/PUSH EXEC wheel.
• Press on the SEL/PUSH EXEC wheel and select ASSIGN BTN
• Choose a vacant ASSIGN button
• Set HYPER GAIN to that button.
• Exit MENU.

Remember HyperGain is very noisy and extremely grainy. Only use it as a last resort.

© 2000 - 2010

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Move on to...

Part 5: SHUTTER

Or back to...

Part 3: EXPOSURE - IRIS , ND FILTERS AND ZEBRA STRIPES

Also check out our images showing a night scene recorded at 0dB up to 18dB of gain.

Need some help?  We do video camera training.

Find out more about our one-to-one Sony Z1 camera training.

We also offer in-company training for groups of people.

Christina Fox