AF101E Video Noise on Black parts of the image - looks like snow

Zak Forsman said:
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". :)
Click to expand...

I wasnt trying to sound rash about this. I just didn't know if Jan could comment, I hadn't seen anything from her in a while. Edit man's blog of info, and the 1.5 days with my cam post was very helpful. For a minute there it sounded like it was going to be hit or miss with the production cameras, so I was just curious. I figured if anyone would know for sure about this topic, it would be the source (Jan). I should have put those 2 sentences further apart, so as not to sound rude.
 
Jan_Crittenden said:
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
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Perfect, thanks Jan! Much appreciated!
 
Working on my tests as promised.

Shooting color chart and various subjects at a few different scene settings, all at 400, 600, and 800 ISO. Baseline at 400 since it appears that is the native ISO (0DB) of the sensor.
 
Clips are uploading to Stephen Mick's FTP as we speak. Clips are slated with detailed Scene file setting:

F5 Factory

F4 Mick's Recommendation

Det: -7
V-Det: 0
Coring: +3
Chroma Lev: -7
Phase: 0
Master Ped: -6
Cine Gamma

F-3 Editman's Settings
F-5 Defaults except for:
Det: -7
Cine- V
Matrix: Fluo

F2 Settings based off Timur's (I think)
F-5 Defaults Except for:
Det: -6
V-Det: -6
Coring: +2

F-1
F-5 Defaults except for:
Det: -6
V-Det: -6
Coring: +2
Chroma: -2
Master Ped: -2

I have uploaded MTS's to eliminate the ingest and output variables.

Camera was black balanced on each new scene file and ISO change.

For Each Scene File There are these 4 setups, all at ISO 400 and 800 (slated for difference):

ColorChecker Chart
3 Kids Toys, lots of shadows and various colors
Detail of a guitar amp with some deep shadow and dark textured areas
Girl in a dark chair

It was a similar chair shot that started all this for me- in the HPX vs AF100 setup we had done (still dont have those clips- wont till I get back from next week's shoot) it was the area in the subject's black chair that first stood out. The noise was distracting my eye from the interview subject's face.

Looking forward to the input and discussion.

Thanks for the hosting Stephen!
 
LightMast said:
Clips are uploading to Stephen Mick's FTP as we speak. Clips are slated with detailed Scene file setting:

F5 Factory

F4 Mick's Recommendation

Det: -7
V-Det: 0
Coring: +3
Chroma Lev: -7
Phase: 0
Master Ped: -6
Cine Gamma

F-3 Editman's Settings
F-5 Defaults except for:
Det: -7
Cine- V
Matrix: Fluo

F2 Settings based off Timur's (I think)
F-5 Defaults Except for:
Det: -6
V-Det: -6
Coring: +2

F-1
F-5 Defaults except for:
Det: -6
V-Det: -6
Coring: +2
Chroma: -2
Master Ped: -2

I have uploaded MTS's to eliminate the ingest and output variables.

Camera was black balanced on each new scene file and ISO change.

For Each Scene File There are these 4 setups, all at ISO 400 and 800 (slated for difference):

ColorChecker Chart
3 Kids Toys, lots of shadows and various colors
Detail of a guitar amp with some deep shadow and dark textured areas
Girl in a dark chair

It was a similar chair shot that started all this for me- in the HPX vs AF100 setup we had done (still dont have those clips- wont till I get back from next week's shoot) it was the area in the subject's black chair that first stood out. The noise was distracting my eye from the interview subject's face.

Looking forward to the input and discussion.

Thanks for the hosting Stephen!
Click to expand...

I'll post the links here shortly.

SM
 
It'll be interesting to hear what others see with these settings. Questions is not if the AF can be made to look clean but what settings gives the best performance.
 
Very interesting test, thank for sharing. The interesting thing for me is that blacks typically always look great on my system. Where I have the problem is with darker grays, with detail set around 0. Others have observed the same thing as well. That said, I think most of us must be looking at different types of noise. I have yet to see something shot at detail -7 that presented objectionable noise (and I mean stuff shot at 400 to 800 ISO).

I think the best way to test the DRS might be with some color and B/W step gradients if you wanted to test colors independently. For myself personally, it's not noise in the whole image.
 
Okay, here are the clips from LightMast's test shooting, with different settings as described in his post above.


http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00001.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00007.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00008.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00013.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00014.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00019.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00020.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00025.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00026.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00031.MTS

http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00032.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00033.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00034.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00035.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00036.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00037.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00038.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00039.MTS
http://www.proofcreative.com/lightmast/MTS/00040.MTS
 
I can only view them in VLC. Is there any other player to view them? In VLC the first file, the gray color closest to black seems to have quite a lot of noise dancing around. All others seem to look fine one my system.
 
If you are on a mac, I use clipwrap to change the wrapper of the MTS file to MOV. This is how I view them in QT or anything else that supports MOV.

it does not modify the compressed data, just the wrapper it is stored in.
 
grimepoch said:
If you are on a mac, I use clipwrap to change the wrapper of the MTS file to MOV. This is how I view them in QT or anything else that supports MOV.

it does not modify the compressed data, just the wrapper it is stored in.
Click to expand...

There is no way to ingest these MTS files into FCP? I'm new to this type of format.
 
Stephen, thanks for continuing to help like this! I noticed your site is getting hammered, so if you want a mirror PM me.
 
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