So your saying it's a roll of the dice whether we'll receive a camera with a good sensor, or one with a faulty one? Mine should be here this week, and this is kind of discouraging to hear. Where is Jan on all this talk? Seems she has somewhat disappeared as of late. I want to know whether or not my $8000 plus, including accessories is going to seem to be a bad purchase.
AF101E Video Noise on Black parts of the image - looks like snow
- Thread starter jourman
- Start date
So your saying it's a roll of the dice whether we'll receive a camera with a good sensor, or one with a faulty one? Mine should be here this week, and this is kind of discouraging to hear. Where is Jan on all this talk? Seems she has somewhat disappeared as of late. I want to know whether or not my $8000 plus, including accessories is going to seem to be a bad purchase.
astigmatic
Well-known member
I don't think he is saying it's a faulty sensor. It's just the way the sensor is. Editman posted settings to reduce the grain, which would lead me to believe its not the sensor. More like the supplied gamma curves that push the sensor into grain, for the sake of color depth and stretching the dynamic range. You know, so it will look good on show room floors.
pulpfiction007
Veteran
swanny.....Hopefully it's just a case of a few isolated cameras. I have seen a lot of clean footage and some that had issues for whatever the reason. The Verse film looked great, as did Blooms tests and Barry's no light test. A bunch of users have already posted wonderful stuff as well. I think either way...you will be taken care of, either through firmware or a replacement if your camera is faulty. Hopefully though, you are going to be like a kid in a candy store by next Friday! Would love to be in your shoes right now.
Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
an accumulation of posts like that would be a great way to make sure she stops visiting the forum. she's a valued guest here, and has contributed much information over the years. none of which were we entitled to. so go easy. this is turning into "The Noise Panic of 2011".
an accumulation of posts like that would be a great way to make sure she stops visiting the forum. she's a valued guest here, and has contributed much information over the years. none of which were we entitled to. so go easy. this is turning into "The Noise Panic of 2011".
I don't think I would use the word panic, but I am definitely concerned about the noise that I see.
Benjamin Eckstein
Well-known member
Thank you Zak. I agree that on this holiday weekend, nobody should expect Jan to be responding to forums.
astigmatic
Well-known member
It seems like there's always a noise panic when a new camcorder is released. xha1, hvx, hmc, I think even the ex1.
Melvin Harris
Black Flag Member
+1
Shooter
Veteran
What does "under exposed" mean in the context of this comment?
There is "proper exposure" for every tone from Black to White ( shadow thru mid tones to highlights).
ie... to expose black as BLACK requires the "proper exposure". Same goes for every other tone in the photographic image.
SO ...when some one doing a test says that noise is seen to creep into "under exposed objects" I would say that might just be something that you would expect due to bad photgraphic practice (lighting and exposure) or bad understanding of the photographic imaging process (reproducing light and shade on a sensor or emulsion).
The longer these threads go on about "NOISE"... the more I wish to get my hands on one to test it.
BTW - I am absolutely confident that Panasonic engineers would have seriously tested this camera out at a technical level, prior releasing it.
I do think they may have made an error of jugdgement launching this camera before any 4/3 lenses (high quality cine style) were available for it though!
What happened to their Leica friends who could have produced a superb cine zoom lens as they did for the DVX / HVX?
Stephen Mick
Totally Usable
Have you posted any footage we can review? Or are you seeing this in other people's footage?
Stephen Mick
Totally Usable
Post some recorded footage and your camera settings. There may be a problem with the SDI on your particular camera, but without seeing ay footage at all, there's not much anyone can tell you.
How about telling us exactly what your settings are? If you are interested in a solution let uss see how youre shooting.
Panasonic is known for not shooting clean out of the box. Sony is. I cant remember a time since the DVX where this wasnt true. And on the other side Sony is a fairly flat image out of the box.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
By the way, another thanks to editman for the AF100/7D comparisons. The settings you are using are what I had determined before I even got the camera from working with other footage posted.
I'd like to see these shots as well to compare on my system to see what type of noise you are seeing. I looked at the ProRes material posted for "Verse" short and there was NO noise in the blacks. At -7 detail at low ISO I've yet to see much noise that stood out at all.
I'd like to add, I just want to see it to help, because my system (macbook pro, nvidia) definitely amplifies noise
I'd like to see these shots as well to compare on my system to see what type of noise you are seeing. I looked at the ProRes material posted for "Verse" short and there was NO noise in the blacks. At -7 detail at low ISO I've yet to see much noise that stood out at all.
I'd like to add, I just want to see it to help, because my system (macbook pro, nvidia) definitely amplifies noise
Alpha Beta Omega
Veteran
If you have things that you want to be clean you have to not under expose these and in particular blue which is more prone to noise when under exposed.
The three things that influenced the character of noise the most are first of the gamma setting. Cinelike V or B press are the cleanest and of these I like Cinelike V the best. Next is Matrix and Cinelike has higher noise than Norm1 or fluo. Norm1 had less noise in the blacks but higher noise in blue and fluo had the direct opposite.
Last the detail setting changes noise from a setting of 0 or higher where the noise is very course to -7 and then it's smooth.
The worst screen and player is my laptop and VLC and even this looks okay when using my settings. When you look upon a calibrated monitor there is no noise to speak of. I would say the level of noise in ISO320 is comparable between a Canon 7D and AF101 and I consider that to be okay.
Updated: I shot a short clip in ISO320/640/1250 with the tweaked settings. Download the original MTS file.
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I just shot at all ISOs on black (with caps on) to see if the "native" ISO exists. I black balanced every time i switched ISO
setting is detail -7, v detail -7, pedestal -2, coring +2
and the result..
there isnt seem to be a native ISO.
200 -> 800 seems to have a very close noise ratio. (higher ISO has more noise but its a very small difference)
noise jumps up at 1000 then goes slowly up to 1600
then the noise again jumps up to 3200
If anyone is interested in this clips i can upload em for you
setting is detail -7, v detail -7, pedestal -2, coring +2
and the result..
there isnt seem to be a native ISO.
200 -> 800 seems to have a very close noise ratio. (higher ISO has more noise but its a very small difference)
noise jumps up at 1000 then goes slowly up to 1600
then the noise again jumps up to 3200
If anyone is interested in this clips i can upload em for you
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
I am here, but until some posts some footage that shows the noise, and along with that all of the settings in the camera, and make that a downloadable scene file please, I will have to change it to an AF100 as I do not have an AF101 for testing. And keep in mind that if you have the Dynamic Range Stretch on and it really isn't needed, it will just add noise to your picture. My first suggestion is to reset your camera, use the menus, on the scene file you wish to use. Then make your recordings.
At this point I do not believe that there is any issue with any camera or any chip set, so Swanny your investment is fine. Go record something with it and see what you think. Learn how to use your camera and balance the settings to your liking. I have looked at video that has been recorded by other Panasonic cameras, like the HPX170, some of it is noisy and others, not at all. What is the difference? The settings in the camera. Now the difficult part is that those settings can be messed with, and influence what happens in the camera. Not to have them there, means that you would just have to live with how the engineers thought the camera should look.
I know I did a demo a few weeks back at a well known film school and when I first turned the camera on it was noisy. Then upon scratching my head, I found that the DRS was on at +3. There are a number of ways to screw up the image with the menus, so start a clean slate, initialize the camera and post the footage along with the Scene file. Yes you will need to zip those so that they reach us in tact. That way we can make our camera act just like your camera.
Thanks,
Jan
Benjamin Eckstein
Well-known member
Thanks Jan for being involved in these conversations. It's certainly not expected of you, but speaks highly of you and your product. Looking forward to receiving mine this week!
OH, I adjusted the curves to see the noise. normally you can hardly see them