Look at this footage and tell me what's up...

[taormina]

Check out this clip I shot today on Hollywood blvd. What annoys the hell out of me is the "mosquito swarm noise on the left hand side of the tree.

What is it and how do I get rid of it!!!!!!

www.taorminafilms.com/hollywood.wmv (http://www.taorminafilms.com/hollywood.wmv)

clip is 7.27 MB - shot with HVX and Letus Extreme.

******PS...ignore the part where I hit the camera - yes, I'm an idiot********

Thanks guys!

[Chris Santucci]

I see it on the building on the far left also... and on the light post too...

I assume you had it set to 0 gain? No auto gain?

.

[Luis Caffesse]

Its kind of hard to tell from that clip what is actually noise in the DVCProHD footage and what is compression noise. I'm seeing a lot of blocking artifacts which I assume are from the WMV compression.

Maybe if you could export a very short clip in full res it would help?

[taormina]

No gain or auto gain - shot at 1080 during broad daylight albeit the shady side of the street. This has happened a few times in the past and it really pisses me off.

Scene file was FILMIC right off of Barry's CD. What am I doing wrong????

Hey Luis - what would be the best format for exporting it full res.....uncompressed .mov???

This noise also appears in the actual .mxf - I can see it during playback in my NLE.

[Luis Caffesse]

A quicktime DVCProHD clip would be best (1080 & at whatever framerate you shot at).
Though if its mosquitto noise... I don't know that there is a whole lot you can do to be honest. You may want to consider your settings up against Barry's suggestions for lowest possible noise - just a thought.

[Ursa]

yeah cinegamma_d gives a huge dynamic range, but that also means lots of noise (always a trade-off, especially on smaller chip cameras like the HVX). Try cinegamma_v for less noise in the shadowy areas (note I didn't watch your clip) and you can even try to lower your gamma pedestal (or what it's called) to -2 or -3

Hope this helps! Good luck.

PS: there have been a couple of HVX cameras in the past that have had really grainy images, so there might be a hardware error if this problem is really huge (again note that I didn't watch your clip).

[taormina]

Hey guys, my master pedestal is set to -5.

Te cam should not be doing this in such ample light. Can a few more of you PLEASE watch the clip and render an opinion????

I just displayed it on my 50" HDTV and yes, it's still there like a million ants swarming on the darks.

I wonder if the LEX has anything to do with it.

[Luis Caffesse]

I wonder if the LEX has anything to do with it.

What Fstop was the taking lens set at?
Might be possible that what you're seeing is the grain of the LEX if you were shooting above an F4.0 or so, or if you had the shutter set high on the HVX.

But what you're describing sounds like mosquitto noise in the DVCProHD codec.
I'll check out the WMV again.

[taormina]

Thanks Luis. Now Idon't remember what stop the Nikon was at, but pretty sure it was 5.6. Shutter was not changed from std. I had an ND1/8 filter on.

What is your experience with this noise?

[Kholi]

It's the Codec and your settings. Stay away from Cine_D. B.Press produces the least noise of all the curves, Cine_V is the medium.

Try it out for yourself from your HVX Component out to your TV. Stay away from Cine_D!!!

B.PressKr3wForLife!

[Luis Caffesse]

I would try Kholi's suggestion, and would add that you should use the HVX iris to control your light,
along with the ND filters, and try to keep your taking lens at F4 or below.

I have actually seen grain at 4.0 depending on the content of the frame and nature of the light -
but for the most part it seems a good place to not go past.

[taormina]

Thanks very much, guys!

[reem12]

I Think it's a combination of codec and 35mm adapter. These adapters love light and 1/3 ccds hate dark areas.

[taormina]

Well I'm kinda stuck with the codec....

[SPZ]

1- How does the HVX with the same settings looks without the Letus?

2- Did you turn up the Sharpness settings on the scene file menu?

3- What was your shutter speed? Do not go over 250 Shutter speed...

4- 4 to 5 is the best aperture area to shoot, and where the lens performs best, in my experience.

5- Cine-d gives the best dinamic range. When going to other modes, you'll lose much dinamic range. Its a big compromise!

[Luis Caffesse]

By the way - if you have Barry's book I would highly recommend reading back over the section about the different Gamma curves available.
He does a great job of breaking each one down and explaining the compromises inherent in each.

[taormina]

Hi Luis,

Been poring over Barry's book. I think you guys have convinced me to try Bpress and report back

SPZ - are you talking about the adapter lens or the camera lens?

[SPZ]

Hi Luis,

Been poring over Barry's book. I think you guys have convinced me to try Bpress and report back

SPZ - are you talking about the adapter lens or the camera lens?

I was just trying to see if the noise was added by the Letus with lens or if it exists without the adaptor. You know, I've had these results with some footage, but it happened with a very fast shutter speed and an almost closed Iris... Try both ND filters to keep the lens bellow 6 and a shutter speed not over 250...

Do tell us how it worked out!

[Ursa]

After I've looked at the footage I can definitely say that this is some clean images. I can't exactly see what you're complaining about. The HVX has grain in grey and shadow areas, it's the tradeoff for having the greatest latitude on the market. You probably come from a production environment where you've used 2/3" cameras, which will (obviously) be more noise-free than this smaller cam. Also: if you want perfectly clean video images, you'd be more happy with a Sony cam.

Maybe you're referring to the "grain screen effect" (GSE) where you can see the Letus screen vibrating "in front" of your image? In that case you need to stop up your stills lens (not the HVX lens). On my Brevis, I must use an aperture between 1.4-5.6. As soon as I get above that, the GSE becomes visible and my shots are ruined.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

[Arson]

Try any Sony or Canon and you'll have even MORE noise AND LESS COLOR depth.

Shoot 35mm and then you'll just have 10x as much noise but your film negative cutter will insist you call it grain.

[taormina]

Guys - seriously - not questioning the camera. I've owned it for over a year, shot plenty of 35mm and also 2/3" video.

The only thing I was looking at was noise in the darks - everything else looks great. Barry saw it and told me it looked great. So I guess it looks great.

Even so, I'm going to redo the footage with bpress and see if I like it better.

Appreciate the help though!

[ulisses]

I shot with B. Press and it offers less noise, but HVX has that mosquitto noise even in light areas, I love the Pana colors and gammas but when shooting HD I expect a clean image, maybe I am expecting so much from a 5k camera :)

Ulisses

[drdimento]

Thanks Luis. Now Idon't remember what stop the Nikon was at, but pretty sure it was 5.6. Shutter was not changed from std. I had an ND1/8 filter on.

What is your experience with this noise?

Not sure if this is anything close but we had our shutter speed off and it looked a lot like what you're showing. In fact, noise was all over the screen after we found the setting was off and began testing it. Also, had awful times in lower lights scenarios and especially indoors and never noticed that we were off on the shutter. Fixed that and the cam was back on course. Just a thought, easy to overlook.

[ulisses]

Dr D, which shutter speed was better ?

Ulisses