Hey all, I shot this as a test. I over-exposed it on purpose to see if there would be any noticable noise or grain if I pulled down the exposure (the black circle and the main one on the left hand side with the bar)

First shot is no exposure darkening, second is some but not much (I do like the richness in the colors and I didn't even touch saturation, although I may grayscale it 5 percent or so to not make it so rich), and third is extreme (a little too extreme for my tastes)

The iris was on 6.3. First question is:

If I keep the ND on clear and go lets say all the way down to f22, would I get more grain compared to doing 1/4 ND and matching the same exposure on f8? I'm curious about which brings more grain. Does the grain built with the more interior ND you put on? (ie:, 1/4, 1/16 etc)

My second question is, is this the best way to darken in post production and to get the sharpest quality? I notice on overcast days there's more chance of video noise on greens, browns, etc but as far as this footage is concerned, I'm happy with the 2nd clip out of the three.

Comments welcome on how to get a better result is possible? I don't want to shoot too dark and not be able to fix it in post. The less noise, the more happier I am.