Defective 200A? Check this frame grab

[bhdfield]

I've had my 200A for a week and a half or so. Initially, I thought this beast is a little noisy in low light, but, well it is a 1/3" chip and I'm used to 2/3". But I'm seeing strange things now, very subtle sometimes, but noise issues in dark areas, and sometimes these blueish horizontal bands lightly visible in very low light. I've attached a frame grab from this little concert I shot pro-bono, with a frame, and the same frame enhanced a little in Photoshop to illustrate what I'm describing. THis was probably 0db, 6db at the highest. I've seen what to me is just too much noise for a camera that's supposed to be pretty good in low light. What do you think? Warranty time?

[bill totolo]

" I've seen what to me is just too much noise for a camera that's supposed to be pretty good in low light."

That's not my experience. I'd rate the camera in the 125 ISO range and NEVER use gain.

[TedRR]

To be honest, you don't have enough light in there for ANY camera...except for night vision maybe. ;)
And another heads up, we have 2 HVX's and I love them. BUT...the HVX has never been known as a great low light camera. I'm not sure who told you that.
If these people aren't watching a movie screen up front, you could have bounced a 1K off the ceiling near the camera to bring the level up enough.

[bhdfield]

Hey I appreciate the pointers. I know there's not enough light in there, but I'm not asking about the right way to light a big dark room with no lights. I've bounced lights many times. I need to know whether the chip in this camera is generating an abnormal amount of noise for a 200A. Are horizontal blue streaks in dark areas of the image normal for this camera in 0db or 6db gain? Have you guys experienced the same phenomena with your camera?
Yes I know it's dark, but if the chip is defective and generating too much noise, it will likely be an issue within areas of better lit video that tend to be more noisy, like blue sky, or backgrounds of well lit areas that are much darker, etc.

[Jim Carswell]

You might want to share your scene file settings with us. They will be a direct indication as to how well your camera was set up for that situation.

That much noise in an unlit room is not unusual for an HVX. This is especially true if you boosted the gain which is a big no-no with this camera.

Jim

[bhdfield]

Thanks for your thoughts Jim. The camera was set at the standard Cine D, which is everything 0 except for Pedestal of -1, as you probably know. What I'm seeing that concerns me are these blueish horizontal bands. This is definitely a low light phenomena. When shooting the interior of a well lit room, perhaps with ambient light from windows, I do not see this noise. I think if I just knew if other people with 200A's see the blue horizontal bands under low-light, I'd have some idea as to whether this was normal and acceptable for this camera. Barry? You out there?

[TedRR]

BHD, Sorry if I sounded condescending. It's easy to misread the intention when you aren't chatting in person. None intended. :beer:

I think "PART" of the Blue streaking is being added in PhotoShop by trying to read/re-create information that isn't there.

I don't think your HVX is defective. I can get similar noise including some color banding if I push the gain up too far in post.

Ideally you want to light and shoot it properly and only make minimal changes in post.

The best test is to get a couple HVX's side by side and do a shoot test. There is always a possibility of sensors having an issue. But I think this is a case of pushing a camera beyond its capabilities.

[Ted Spencer]

Cine-D is the worst of all possible settings for something like this. I've used the "Spark" preset very successfully for ultra low light shooting. You might want to set up a test shot and give it a try.

[bhdfield]

Thank you for your advice and input. I am still experimenting with this camera, and am putting the camera in worst-case scenarios in order to reveal what I thought to have been a problematic image sensor, generating excessive noise. I figure that if it is a bad sensor, increasing the low-light demands will highlight the trouble.
I found a resolution test chart Barry shot in 2006, presumably with an HVX200, and not a 200A, but I'm not sure which. So I downloaded the same chart and shot it at the same resolution. I cannot thus far match his resolution, and his camera was setup for high contrast, but - it does not look from this example that I have excessive noise. The gray scale blocks look noisy because you're seeing my laser printing being a cheap laser printer. But the interior of the circular area was clean white paper. I may have less noise than Barry's camera. But really no significant difference.
As suggested, the only way to really know if I have a noise problem is to put mine and an identical model side by side, and duplicate the scenarios exactly.
I will add, however, that Photoshop did not create the blue bands in my original frame grab above left. They are present in the unaltered original, just enhanced in the second photo, to the right, in order to illustrate what was concerning me. I believe this was 6db gain. I'd still love to know if anyone else has seen these blue horizontal bands of noise coming from their 200a's.
btw - I wish I knew Barry's scene file settings for his resolution chart shoot.

[Ted Spencer]

Yes - when you combine extremely low light and gain, I've found some color banding of this kind can show up in the blacks. It's the camera's way of telling you not to do that.

Any piece of gear has its limits, and if you torture it hard enough it will scream. While your camera may be defective, my guess is it isn't. You've likely just pushed it to its breaking point and - it broke.

Like you said, the only way to be (reasonably) sure your camera is ok (or not) is to A/B it with another, identically set up. Like most Japanese products, defective units are quite rare, so I suspect you'll find you're within spec.

Used properly, an HVX200A is a beautiful thing. Extreme low light and factory Scene File 6 (Cine-D) would not be an example of that...