hi. actually, my friend was messing around with RED ALERT and even got it to be brighter than this, without noise. Maybe it's because the lens was a RED prime and it helped being wide open at 1.8. The scenes with the band playing was dark as hell. As far as settings, I always just record with default sensor setting, ISO 320 and 5600 temp since that what the sensor sees (i think). can always mess with that stuff later, so why not see the original for what it is while recording.