EVA1: EVA1 deals with Horizontal Banding Noise

Le Chat Errant

Le Chat Errant

Active member
Hi there

I've noticed a weird noise pattern (kind of.. Fixed Pattern Noise or Horizontal Banding Noise..?) in low light/underexposed scenes with my EVA1.
It's clearly visible with V-Log at 800 and 2500 native ISO and increased when I push ISO to higher values. It's not affected by any artificial lighting, nor shutter speed, frequency (24, 25, 50p.. all the same), powering (problem still remains with AC power supply).. Nor lenses. Auto Black Balance doesn't solve it.

I've never seen that before, neither with Sony Log or V-Log L from my GH5.. With this little bro it's noisy for sure, but not in a "banding" way. The noise is homogeneous and dispersed, moving randomly.. Like a normal noise I would say, without strange horizontal lines.

It's very easy to reproduce : just grab an EVA1, leave the body mount or lens cap on it (for a total black scene). Then check the image by slowly increasing ISO from 800 to 25600.
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​​​Did you ever encountered a similar issue with your unit ? Or is it normal (like the FPN from Blackmagic) ?
I've added some native rushes and screenshots to download from Drive.
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Thanks for your help, best regards.

Le Chat
 
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Personally - after using over 100 cameras in my life - I would say this is normal. But it's also important to note that other EVA1s may perform better because it's unrealistic to expect exact camera model performance across hundreds of thousands of imaging chips across the planet.

Depending on which one you get off the conveyor belt, some cameras are really good with their dual-ISO (or even regular non-dual) where you find the exact sweet spot (has to be exact) and they look very clean (or as clean as possible for that system), and then change in either direction (as they naturally should, although results vary from camera to camera).

At the end of the day, the EVA1 is an older camera...hopefully a grade hides some of it.
 
Thanks NorBro,

You reassure me.. partially. Hope Panasonic crew will reassure me totally.
I understand what you mean with the unpredictable factor on a such complex production line.. Similar at 99% but not the same.
We can expand this concept to our displays.
Some other EVA1 may perform better coz their owners may not see it too..

The EVA1 is a quite frustrating camera. I'm ok with its limitations and ergonomic quirks.. If there are no compromise in image quality (according to codec capabilities).
Objectively, the dynamic range is respectable, highlight rolloff is nice, color science is so natural and easy to deal with (especially skin tones), there is no aliasing and no moire (even in 1080p, which is very good), the rolling shutter is well contained.. Everything is fine, but what da fluff is that banding noise !?
The PMW-F3 is even 6 years older but its Log is creamy clean !

I've done some research,

In his EVA1 test, Adam Wilt said :
"As you boost gain, noise builds proportionally and naturally, with a tight grain pattern evenly balanced between chroma and luma noise."
Source : https://www.provideocoalition.com/re...camera-part-2/

In the ungraded V-Log part of Matthew Allard low light test (start from 2 min 30), I can see a similar horizontal noise pattern despite the slight Vimeo compression : https://vimeo.com/240801969

At 26 min 30, Philip Bloom compares the EVA1 to the C200 in low light conditions. The compression is more aggressive in this vidéo, but EVA1's noisy lines become perceptible around the higher ISO : https://vimeo.com/249892668

Now, if someone could check it with his own Panny and talk to us about that, I would be grateful.
 
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This forum's not that active anymore but hopefully someone with the camera will chime in.

FWIW, I've seen worse; especially chroma noise where brutal purple-ish blocks are dancing around.
 
The bottle was thrown in the sea now, we will see..
Thank you NorBro, to still remain an active and relevant ghost from the Golden Age.
 
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