What is "video gain", and what does it do on my camcorder?

What is "video gain", and what does it do on my camcorder?

Tim Smith (Camcorder Training Specialist) gives expert video advice on: How do I record on my camcorder?; What is the "iris" of a camcorder?; How do I adjust my camcorder's white balance? and more...

One of the features you might find on your camcorder is called gain. Or gain up may be called gain down. What gain does is amplify the signal off of that image sensor, whether it's a CMOS or a CCD type of image sensor. It turns the brightness level up or down. It allows you to get a brighter image, but not having to deal with an f-stop or a shutter speed to do it. It allows you to brighten up that image, but there's a bit of a compromise to gain. The more you increase the gain, the noisier the image gets, or the film, or the grainier it gets. It's just amplifying the image off the signal... the signal off of the chip itself. So it works, but you have to use it cautiously. Too much gain, you can make a very noisy image. You can get a very grainy image. Too little gain, you get good dark blacks, but maybe your color saturation can fluctuate a little bit. So use gain, but remember it's affecting your image, it's affecting your brightness, without affecting a change in f-stop or shutter speed.