A7s and 8bit banding

Shirozina said:
but it makes it a hell of a lot better than an 8 bit camera.........
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disagree.
i'd rather have an a7s+shogun than the pocket camera, the 2.5k cc and even the 4k cc (i've never shot on the ursa, so i can't really compare). it's not that i think they're bad cameras, but their individual limitations (sensor size, battery issues, DR, form factor, menu/firmware features) mean that for my needs, a FF sony with great ISO performance, a great log format, 60fps HD, and 4k capabilities works better even with the limitation of only 8 bits. that's not to say this sony is perfect, it has many flaws, but even with those flaws, it's still a great choice.
i'm not sure why you're getting as much banding as you are (maybe you could post some screen shots), but maybe for your work, the a7s isn't the best choice?
as you've seen with a few posts, a lot of us are getting great results with no banding, so i'm sure something is going on, we just have to figure out what it is.
 
Shirozina said:
but it makes it a hell of a lot better than an 8 bit camera.........
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There is no single technical spec that 'makes' a camera. The entire optical-electronic-software chain ultimately decides the personality of the image captured. The form factor and all the components that influence the operational personality are very important as well. 8 bits are not a problem at all, as long as those bit are chosen wisely. Sony seems to do a good job of choosing bits. They had a LOT of practice during the implementation of HDCAM. Not many people even knew it was an 8 bit format after using it for years.

My personal view is that BM is an infant camera manufacturer using primarily off-the-shelf technology and stuffing it into some of the worst industrial design the industry has ever seen. I would prefer an A7s over any of the BM offerings.
 
The T2i now records 14-bit RAW video. At reduced resolutions, with line skipping, etc, but it does. High bit depth is icing on the cake, but you need to start with a nice cake for it to work well!!
 
I really like Casey's Kodak film LUT with SLOG and S-Gamut - very natural looking with good seperation of hues. The Cine 4 based profile I'm not sure about - it seems to exaggerate certain colours esp greens and reds and paint them all the same hue but I may need to experiment with different colour profiles. Tonaly it's not as compressed as SLOG so will have to test it for banding.
 
Just been using Resolve Lite for the first time and banding doesn't seem to be as obvious as it is in Premier........
 
Shirozina said:
Just been using Resolve Lite for the first time and banding doesn't seem to be as obvious as it is in Premier........
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Now that you mention it, this isn't the first time I've heard of premiere banding footage, but I'm not sure why for some people and why not for others.
I think eoshd.com has an article on it.
 
caseywilsondp said:
Now that you mention it, this isn't the first time I've heard of premiere banding footage, but I'm not sure why for some people and why not for others.
I think eoshd.com has an article on it.
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http://www.eoshd.com/2015/01/is-adobe-premiere-to-blame-for-banding-in-8bit-dslr-footage-canon-1d-c/
interesting reading indeed!
i'm shooting NTSC to get 24fps so could PP be thinking these files are 16-235 and not 0-255. Also mention of Turning off hardware rendering but that maybe just a Mac issue. BTW I'm using a PC with the latest PP 2015 version on CC.
 
Shirozina said:
http://www.eoshd.com/2015/01/is-adobe-premiere-to-blame-for-banding-in-8bit-dslr-footage-canon-1d-c/
interesting reading indeed!
i'm shooting NTSC to get 24fps so could PP be thinking these files are 16-235 and not 0-255. Also mention of Turning off hardware rendering but that maybe just a Mac issue. BTW I'm using a PC with the latest PP 2015 version on CC.
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I'd still really like to see what you're seeing, can you post a screen grab from something experiencing banding?
 
caseywilsondp said:
I'd still really like to see what you're seeing, can you post a screen grab from something experiencing banding?
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+1

Banding is pretty minimal for one very good reason, the output is really noisy, on a subtle level as well as more obvious. You just have to look at accurate waveforms to see the noise distribution.

So if you are seeing banding it could be something else in your pipeline.

One suspect area are certain LUTs, i've seen banding produced in some commercial emulation LUTs and very noticeable banding too.

cheers
Paul
 
The GH2 was horrible when it came to banding. I notice banding rarely with the a7S. You can can make the banding show in shots if you heavily de-focus.
 
I'm currently running some more tests on PP vs Resolve and also different grading methods and so far it's proving difficult to get the banding to show in resolve. Will post some samples as soon as I can.
 
Yeah I definitely think something funky is going on with your NLE or camera settings. I've mentioned before somewhere here that I got back a card full of raw HBO footage shot on a C300 from a rental house. HBO were using the internal 8bit compressed codec for stuff that made it to air and it looked awesome even un-graded. That really opened my eyes to the fact that maybe we get too hung up on specs sometimes, and that 8bit is only bad if you need to REALLY eff with that image in post. Standard exposure and saturation adjustments work out just fine.

If it's good enough for HBO, it's good enough for the vast majority of us...

(I'm also just at a point where I want the tech side of filmmaking to just get out of my way and let me focus on just being creative, and the easier the files are to work with, the better.)
 
Fahnon said:
Yeah I definitely think something funky is going on with your NLE or camera settings. I've mentioned before somewhere here that I got back a card full of raw HBO footage shot on a C300 from a rental house...
If it's good enough for HBO, it's good enough for the vast majority of us...
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what show was it, if you don't mind?
 
Fahnon said:
Yeah I definitely think something funky is going on with your NLE or camera settings. I've mentioned before somewhere here that I got back a card full of raw HBO footage shot on a C300 from a rental house. HBO were using the internal 8bit compressed codec for stuff that made it to air and it looked awesome even un-graded. That really opened my eyes to the fact that maybe we get too hung up on specs sometimes, and that 8bit is only bad if you need to REALLY eff with that image in post. Standard exposure and saturation adjustments work out just fine.

If it's good enough for HBO, it's good enough for the vast majority of us...

(I'm also just at a point where I want the tech side of filmmaking to just get out of my way and let me focus on just being creative, and the easier the files are to work with, the better.)
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The Canon c-log (if that's what they've used on your card) is a quite cleverly designed 8-bit friendly curve with less DR than s-log2 and smarter distribution, and the c300 shoots a 4:2:2 codec, and it uses the full highlights coding space.
Lots of "ands" that the a7s lacks.
 
Nothing to show but I just tried to 'break' some test footage in PP and Resolve - SLOG / S-Gamut and Picture profile off. It's IS harder to break it in Resolve. With picture profile off ( Portrait setting with contrast and sharpness off) I was getting more banding than SLOG in a graduated evening blue sky. I'm not now convinced that with a mid to low contrast scene it's better to shoot in a more contrasty picture profile that fills up the DR but more testing needed. In resolve if I play with curves and keep the the line straightish in the tonal areas likley to band it helps a lot. The new highlight and shadow sliders in PP 2015 seem to be problematic and maybe because they are wrenching apart one set of tones from another? After starting off looking for an alternative to SLOG2 / S-Gamut I may be sticking it out and it does have significantly more DR that PP off. I feel more confident now exposing it properly for a start and even though I still don't think the final image is as 'clean' as from my BMPCC I think it's acceptable with the potential for looking very good when I have more grading practice. I'm now more relaxed about getting the Shogun and starting to work in 4k......
 
cpc said:
Well, three actually. And four assertions if you count the leading one. :)
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i don't know if i'd count less dynamic range as a plus (unless i misunderstood what DR was intended to mean), and our version of slog2 was likely designed with 8bit in mind (as well) as it had to be designed specifically for the a7s (evidenced i suppose by how it reacts differently than slog2 on other sony cameras).
as for smarter distribution, i think that's a personal preference (and i'll cede that your preference/opinion might actually be more correct or in-line with the industry than mine). you like it saved in the shadows, but im fine with the dr of slog2 protecting the highlights and then later boosting shadow and denoising a bit. even with a super (several stops) underexposed face (like in the link that you shared from my recent shoot), clearly something is lost, but it'll boost back up a stop or two pretty easily i think and still look fine (as an underexposed face... obviously if i was trying to bring it up to 60ire or something it'd be a lost cause).
the two 'ands' though that i agree with are indeed big ones, and a good reason the c300 is in a different league and price point than the a7s
 
Shirozina said:
I still don't think the final image is as 'clean' as from my BMPCC I think it's acceptable with the potential for looking very good when I have more grading practice. I'm now more relaxed about getting the Shogun and starting to work in 4k......
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i think i'd agree with you, but then again slog2 is shooting at a minimum iso of 3200 with no internal denoising, and again, at 8 bit, so there definitely is a compromise. i think what'd be interesting is testing a scene with your bmpcc and downscaling 4k slog2 footage and seeing if it felt comparable in 'cleanness' or not.
 
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