C300: C300 Mark II - Noise Reduction Artefacts / Gradient Bending / Firmware Issue

T

Thomaskl3d

Member
Hello Community,

i am a new C300 MKII User and just made my first experiences with this great camera. I really love and appreciate the handling and the overall look. Now i registered here, because i am seeking for some help.
Just a few words to myself: Iam an editor / Cutter from Frankfurt Germany and i am in business for nearly 20 years now. (its me on the last 2 frames...) ;)

So here is the problem:

Usually i do record in 1080p 59,9fps 4:2:2 10 Bit onto Cfast Cards with default Log2 CinemaGamut Settings at ISO 800. Firmware is latest.

I experienced quite evil artefacts when object move - especially out-of-focus when soft objects move. THis happens quite often on skin-tones and in DOF Areas. When objets dont move - everything is fine. Those are these gradient-lines which appear. (looks kinda color-bending) Look at the unsharp hand of the boy. The Gradient-Line mimics the border of the position from the frame prior.

I checked this against another c300 Mk2 at my local dealer and the camera behave exactly the same. So it`s not a unique bug to my machine.

I checked all resoultions, bit-Rates, and picture profiles. Its always the same. I did discuss this in a german forum and people said those are artifacs from a noise-reduction-algorythm which Canon introduced with a firmware a while ago - which CANNOT be disabled...?!

Today i tested this against a RAW recording on Atomos Inferno with the firmware from today!! (RAW enabled!) and on the RAW Footage was finally clean without those strange artefacs. Default Atomos recording resultet in the same issues.

Here are some Testshots, where the issue is clearly visible.

01grade.jpg01log.jpg02grade.jpg02log.jpg03grade.jpg03log.jpg04grade.jpg04log_.jpg


Here are the shots from another C300MK2 with a hard grading where you can see ghosting over at least 3 Frames.

A003C004_170404IS_CANON.00_00_35_11.Still002.jpgA003C004_170404IS_CANON.00_00_28_20.Still001.jpg

and here is RAW was Codec Comparism where you can see, that in RAW the artifacs are gone.


Codec2.jpgRAW2.jpg


and here is a dropbox Link to the High-Res FIles and a test Recording at 12Bit 4:4:4. Same problem there, too.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9sm1uiaanvpbivm/AACiYu4oL5mQTi12vxDVLC04a?dl=0

So, my question is:

Is this a common issue ?
Is this really some kind of internal noise reduction ?
Is there any setting somewhere hidden, so i can disable this ?

Thanks a lot and best,
Thomas
 
Thats really interesting. I always record in Canon Log 3 and have never noticed it. Can you do a similar comparison between the two log settings?
 
Just record some out-of-focus Movement with a little contrast. I checked Log2 vs Log3 Vs Log1 Vs 709 and the results were always quite the same. But i can do some more testing tomorrow :)
 
I've seen this too. While it's visible in still frames, I've never noticed it in moving footage (hadn't been looking for it though).
 
In moving footage the effect isnt visible directly, since it only occurs on faster moving objects. You can see it, when you look close. But when you digg into pixels and work on single frames in post production, vfx tools, etc - this is really massive.
 
I went through this issue at length with the XC10. Contacted Canon, etc. - they say it's normal behaviour. They confirmed it's due to in-camera temporal noise reduction. And you'll see that as ISO increases it becomes more and more evident. On the XC10, some profiles show more ghosting than others. C-Log is the worst and EOS Standard is the best.

http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/8343-canon-xc10-4k-camcorder/?page=45#comment-169625

For the XC10, it's possible to get very similar results to C-Log in terms of dynamic range by shooting at 1.66 stops lower ISO in EOS Standard, giving the same clipping point. (C-Log base ISO is 500 and seems to be a digital push of ISO 160). Colours and highlight saturation can be tweaked to additionally match. This is a great solution to help prevent ghosting in low light situations.

I imagine the same principles will hold true for the C300II.
 
WOW. I hope we can move canon, to implement a switch to toggle this "Feature"

I am currently in conversation with canon, too. At the moment, they suggested to better use Clog1 or Clog3. Well...doesn`t fix it either. This is so massive and really makes me crazy, when you see beautiful shots, but with weird gradients in the DOF Areas...
Best,
Thomas
 
Yes, I see this on my camera too. I noticed it a lot on a music video I did with a lot of shallow dof close-ups of a person. There's banding on gradients as well as this ghosting you've mentioned.

I remember they released firmware a while ago to clean up the shadows in c-log2. It seems like maybe this is the cause of it. Would be good if we could turn this off.
 
I think that if more people will contact Canon about this issue, the more chances we have to get that solved. If the Descision is "Grain or Artifacs" - i would like to have a choice. So it would be awesome to have a setting, where we can toggle.

And GRAIN is more pleasing to the eyes than those strange digital artifacts. Why does Canon implement a feature, which makes far more trouble than grain. There are Tons of Plugins and Stock-Grain where people destroy clean images with grain to get the "cinematic" look. I`ve never seen a bundle with "Ugly Evil Motion Artifacs" for the REAL cinema look ;)
 
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Unfortunately, I've noticed this in my camera also, as of the latest firmware - mainly in 2K 10/12bit 444. Last I noticed it was in C-Log3 and only when I've wrenched the lens completely out of focus. I'm going to be contacting Canon to atleast have my compaint heard in the hopes we have an improvement or an option to turn it off. The noise in C-Log2 is pretty crazy, so I'd rather have noise reduction applied, but this banding represents pretty disappointing performance for a $20,000AUD camera. Really hoping I don't regret choosing the C300ii over the VaricamLT.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/17620184_10154888383016084_5444192368949593910_o.jpg?oh=1835a468d01d0b11577cf05061483f38&oe=594EE904
 
Yup, just started investigating this about two months ago. The problem is resolved via recording raw->prores on the O7Q.

But let's hope for a firmware update. A real pity to waste the 2k 12bit internal.
 
Is this possible on the C100/II? If so, maybe this is what I saw a few weeks ago shooting at high ISO. I turned off noise reduction on the profile I was using but it didn't help matters much.
 

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So i just got a reply by the official canon support: (translatet via Google)

"We have contacted our product specialists with regard to the problems described by you. Unfortunately, we must inform you that the phenomenon you have described is actually known to us since the firmware version 1.0.4.1 at the EOS C300 Mark II. Our Japanese parent company, Canon Inc., is already working on a solution. We hope to provide a firmware update as soon as possible, which fixes the problem. Unfortunately, there is no specific date yet."

I think it`s a honest answer and makes me quite happy, that they aware of this and a trying to fix it.

Thx for your help and support,
Thomas
 
That's more than they did with the XC10, whose severe ghosting was "within specifications", they said to me.
 
I purchased my C300ii 7 months ago and sent it away to canon due to this exact issue, THEY RETURNED IT and said they could not replicate the problem, even though it is as clear as day when you go frame by frame.

This has completely deflated my excitement in the new camera, and also made me reluctant to even use it on commercial or personal projects. Really sucks.

Looking forward to finding your resolution, I was asked by canon to do further tests myself to show the issue. However, I recently shot with two c300ii and the other camera, with the same firmware has the exact same issue.
 
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