noise in bright, noise in low light?

O

onmi

Active member
Hey,

I have seen alot of posts which says that DVX produces very easily noise: In bright scenes, in dark scenes, when the camera is too hot, when cine-effects are switched on, when there is flat straight colors on background, in blue & reds etc... It seems like the picture is noisy in almost every situation according to those ~1000000 posts ;D Do I have wrong picture about this noise thing or is it really that "you will see it on every scene, but not just so strong in bright light" -thing?

Any advice how bad that really is?

Thanks :)
 
Last edited:
The DVX may be marginally more noisy in challenging circumstances than say a PD150 or XL2, but I don't think its as severe a problem as you've heard.

The DVX100B has less noise than its successors, but with any DV camera, good lighting is essential.
 
I haven't noticed any noise problem with the 100b. I have shot in almost every situation possible. It gets a little noisy at around 6 lux, but what camera does'nt. In very intense light the color tends to wash, but again not as bad as some. I wouldn't consider this to be a pitfall with these cameras in the slihghtest.
 
Thanks for replys..

Thanks for replys..

msconce,
I checked your pics, some of them looked noisy. How much light did you got?

The DVX may be marginally more noisy in challenging circumstances than say a PD150 or XL2, but I don't think its as severe a problem as you've heard.
Click to expand...
..But it seems like that there isnt any DVX user who hasnt got 'problems' with noise :D So I dont know what I should think about this noise thing, that is it so pain in the ass or not :) ..Probably people who has 5000w lights and shoots outdoors arent getting it ;)

I film alot indoors, I have only 1x 300w and some little 64w lights. Im bit worried that are those enough for DVX. Also I wouldnt like to make that DVX video to look blurry to get that noise off..
I havent got much of problems when shooting with my older cams near that 300w light.. Will there be some problems with noise with ~300w light in a 10m x 10m room?

When all those noise reduction settings are switched on in the camera, will that video quality be very blurry? (Something like some 400$ handycam has)
 
I think what you're seeing as "noise" in the above link is actually grain due to the usage of a 35mm adapter. The DVX itself is actually pretty clean. If you like, take a look at this video shot at night:-

http://blog.tsebi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=9

That was shot using whatever light was available - the park lights - not really the most ideal lighting. I shot this partly to see how the camera would perform under darker conditions. It wasn't bad at all.

Like I said, don't confuse noise with grain from 35mm adapters - ground glass. A lot of the work you see here may well have been shot using such an adapter, and if so, you will see grain that looks like noise if the adapter's diffuser is just static ground glass.

Daniel
 
1156485006.jpg


I dont see any problems. NAtural light.

The trick to eliminating noise in the DVX is to make sure youre exposure is right. As long as some part of the picture reaches about 70-90 IRE, you will have a nice clean noise free image. The DSP needs some dynamic range in the image to create the grading smoothyl.

Lemme post an example.

This has low contrast. the peak is like, 50 IRE. 50% of the possible brightnes. loo kat the flat colors you can see teh noise.

1156485402.jpg


this one has more contrast and propper exposure. Hmm on second glance the noise still sems to be there, but its less notice able of the image has proper exposure. I think the Jpeg compression might be expediting the problems too.
1156485545.jpg
 
Last edited:
I think what you're seeing as "noise" in the above link is actually grain due to the usage of a 35mm adapter. The DVX itself is actually pretty clean. If you like, take a look at this video shot at night:
Click to expand...

I thought that grain and noise is same thing :) But your video looks very clean and nice. I didnt saw any annoying noise on that clip..

TimurCivan,

Your example shots looks very nice! That noise on flat colors isnt so noticable..
If DVX produces only that kind of noise on medium lightnin, I dont think that noise is going to be a problem..
...But still I cant get it why some people have got so ugly noisy footage when shooting on proper outdoor light.. It may be those options or something..
 
Like I said, I think you're looking at footage shot through a 35mm adapter with grain. If you do a search for 35mm adapter grain, you'll understand that the noise is not integral to the DVX but is the result of the static diffuser.

Daniel Wee
 
Based on that clip I would say that my shots are nothing near what you saw in those screen grabs. The only way to get it that bad, I think would be to shoot under-exposed and then try to boost the brightness in post using brightness and contrast. I think that's what happened there - whoever shot it made some errors. Secondly, the problem can be exacerbated by using excessive sharpening. I can only say, that it's not easy to make things look that bad if you do things correctly.

Daniel
 
Yea those shots were bit radical examples..
But more likely I meant this kind of thing:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=46831

Under that yellow box where that bike is, in that shadow there is that noise stuff..
Does that kind of stuff appear usually?

(Sorry MiniMan, dont mean to disrespect your work, just found quickly these shots for example of noise.. :) )
 
One way to get noise like that is to turn the GAIN up to 12db and then compensate for it with ND filters, iris, and shutter speed. You can get noise into almost any shot this way, even outside day shots. Also, by underexposing and pumping the brightness and contrast in post.
 
I guess this clip is about as low level light as you would possibly want, and although there is some noise most of the clip seems more than acceptable to me... this is very compressed and the audio added some pops not sure why but just soundtrack and clip is experimentation only.

http://www.singmealullaby.com/DUSK/dusk.mov
 
My experience is that there is no reason to see that kind of grain under that sort of lighting conditions if the camera is set and operated correctly. Those guys must be new to the machine or had the ND filter on and forgot about it, and then tried to compensate with more than +6dB gain. The fact is any camera will be noisy when operated wrongly which is probably what's happening in those clips. As you can see from Timur's clip, it isn't anywhere near that bad.

You should also know that the DVX100B/102B has improved noise suppression compared to the DVX100/100A/102/102A.

Daniel
 
Daniel Wee said:
My experience is that there is no reason to see that kind of grain under that sort of lighting conditions if the camera is set and operated correctly. Those guys must be new to the machine or had the ND filter on and forgot about it, and then tried to compensate with more than +6dB gain. The fact is any camera will be noisy when operated wrongly which is probably what's happening in those clips. As you can see from Timur's clip, it isn't anywhere near that bad.

You should also know that the DVX100B/102B has improved noise suppression compared to the DVX100/100A/102/102A.

Daniel
Click to expand...

Did you look at mine?
 
ncie, nice!

Your clip looks about just what one might expect. That's pretty extreme as far of low light shots go. Omni may also notice that the characteristic of the noise is nothing like what the other threads' screen grabs show which is more like over sharpened noise. I've got a nagging feeling that a lot of guys don't understand the tradeoffs for some of the camera scene settings. If you've go some good background in digital photography, one would be more familiar with sharpening tradeoffs and noise issues. Probably users eager with their new camera but haven't taken time to figure out the settings.

I notice that when shooting in "normal", there are all kinds of auto settings going on such as auto gain, auto iris, auto WB. Personally I shoot completely manual because I don't like any surprises and I know what I want the camera to do and don't need the computer to adjust those settings for me.

Daniel Wee
 
Thanks all,
Thats very good to hear that there actually isnt such a big problem with noise in DVX...Very very good to hear :)

ncie,
Your clip looked nice, that compressing takes away or smooths that noise so I couldnt see it almost at all in that clip..
 
onmi said:
Thanks all,
Thats very good to hear that there actually isnt such a big problem with noise in DVX...Very very good to hear :)

ncie,
Your clip looked nice, that compressing takes away or smooths that noise so I couldnt see it almost at all in that clip..
Click to expand...

There is little noise to begin with, what you see is a little worse than the original. But very little difference at all.

Here are some grabs from my FCP timeline:

d1.jpg


d2.jpg


d3.jpg
 
When I compare pictures of a DVX 100A directly to those of a Sony DXC D30 (2/3" DVCAM with a Canon 9-162mm lens) I see the noise immediately in almost every shot. However this is not a big problem, most people would never notice, I think, not even if you tell them to look for noise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top