GH2 Excessive colour noise / grain on GH2

I think the OP may have fallen victim to the 320 bug. We've been sticking with 160, 400, and 800 to stay out of trouble. Also, I know it sounds boring, but try Standard with all at -2. I think you'll be pleased with the noise, hack or not.
 
I think you actually may have a strong case for Standard -2... especially with 5DtoRGB + 1.8 Gamma lift... That also goes for Cinema Mode...

Can't believe I haven't been trying this out, totally forgot.
 
Is there a listing somewhere that notes the characteristics of each mode? What would the advantages of standard vs smooth?
 
I wonder if there is. I didn't do any tests worth publishing but what Bullio said seems to hold weight, or rather Standard has a different kind of noise than Smooth and Cinema. To my eyes, and I'm open to anyone else's opinion or thoughts, it looks like Smooth has a lot more luminance noise than any of the other profiles. I also remember someone saying that Smooth looked a little sharper than the other profiles, well if there's more luma noise then that makes sense.

Standard has more chroma noise than Smooth but less Luminance noise all around, which isn't necessarily bad, and feels a touch softer than smooth. However, after a bit of adjusting and toying I noticed that Standard actually had a competitive amount of detail still left in lower IRE range. It also handled a curve that was pretty mid heavy rather well.

Cinema is definitely the least noisiest of the three, at the expensive of being the softest of the three as well. Also, the curve is pretty bold: I'd be hesitant to claim it as the one I used unless I were going straight out of cam to delivery. It's not unpleasant, but it would have to be a very conscious choice.

I haven't tried grading Cinema > 5DtoRGB but I imagine that it wouldn't be bad.

Another thing I noticed was that Standard's got a bit more before it clips to white, in comparison to either Smooth or Cinema. It also "appears" to hit black faster, but running it through 5DtoRGB + 1.8 showed me that there was TONS of detail in the lower mids to shadows and it wasn't noisy enough to scare me out of raising them. I think the same would apply for Cinema, which looks like a middle-ground between Smooth and Standard to my eyes and on my studio monitor.

I've come to some temporary conclusions here:

1. Smooth being the flattest you can get, it would almost be TOO flat for those of us using old lenses like Nikkors (the older 70's 80's set) or Canon FDs. It's dangerous to push the compressor to flat territory, and it just makes grading--even on a high end level, that much harder. Going back to the GH1 days, I'm pretty sure Smooth became popular because a lot of the people testing profiles had Panasonic glass, which of course is much more contrastier.

2. This isn't RAW. No matter how bad people want it to be... When I shoot Epic I don't tweak picture profiles, I just shoot. When I get to RCP-X, I grab the look I want, apply denoise if necessary, then spit out my offline files. GH2, Canon, DSLRS, and heck some of the professional offerings without external recorders STILL have picture profiles and look menus. Why?

Because one look just cannot be THE look for every single situation when you are not shooting RAW or something closer to it. 10-bit 4:2:2, or better yet 10-Bit 4:4:4 you know?

I've got to get into the mindset of using what fits best for given situations. Cinema mode COULD be my best friend when using ETC and S16 lenses. Or, if I'm using old NIkon glass then should I be employing Standard instead? What about controlled night interior lighting? Should I use Standard so that the lamp shades don't go too fast and I still have leway elsewhere? Or do I use Smooth?

It needs to be tested on a per situation/setup basis.

That's what I think, anyway.
 
DevonH said:
Is there a listing somewhere that notes the characteristics of each mode? What would the advantages of standard vs smooth?
Click to expand...

For me Standard give cleaner grays in the lower mids and - as Kholi has pointed out - reasonably strong blacks, with good highlight handling (though I'd say smooth does highlights a litle better). I like smooth as well, and cinema for the right shot. There's a lot more color in Standard which is why we use it at -2. Smooth at -1 or 0.

All - Beware the GH2 ISO 320 monster... we've been bitten a few times.
 
Personally, I've found that I don't like Standard much. Looks a little video-ish to me. For brighter or moderately lit scenes I tend to use Cinema because the gamma curve is more straight and I'm able to control exposure better in most cases. For dark scenes I use Smooth because the shadows aren't as dark as in Cinema so I expect to retain more detail. I do need to experiment more though. Now that I don't have an AF100 anymore I really need to get comfortable with shooting with the GH2.
 
A while back, I posted this GH2 chart which may give you a better idea of what the curves look like. My test does not display less than 20 IRE, so it won't show this info, but it will give you an idea how these curves roll into the highlights. I shot a gradient gray chart under direct sunlight. Smooth does offer the best roll-off for highlights and cinema is the most linear curve as mentioned here. Cinema does look real good under controlled lighting. Of course, you have to be real careful not to crush your blacks and clip your whites

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/uploads/FileUpload/3a/64ba92a9a6cac03cd812e220de8c8e.jpg
 
Last edited:
Cosimo Bullo said:
I think the OP may have fallen victim to the 320 bug. We've been sticking with 160, 400, and 800 to stay out of trouble. Also, I know it sounds boring, but try Standard with all at -2. I think you'll be pleased with the noise, hack or not.
Click to expand...

What is the right 'safe' ISOs to use?
Someone in the thread said 200, 400 etc, but you're saying 160 is ok?
 
I would avoid anything under 320, unless you want to have more visible banding. I try to stick between 400 - 800. Hell, even 1600 with the right hack has a very pleasing grain structure.
 
160 is still my favorite, any bluesky banding can be dealt with in post in after effects with grain and other tricks. 160 is a lot cleaner than higher ISOs (see OP). Seriously, be careful, all, with 320.
 
Cinema does seem to have the most well balanced curve of the profiles. Honestly, I am pretty certain based on experiences with other cameras and profiles that even with the sharpness and NR dialed down there is still some going on in the film mode profile setup.

I can't wait to get control over these things.

But for now I am more than happy with any of these three and just need to experiment more with cinema and standard.
 
I agree that cinema seems to have some noise reduction going on. Compare file size between equal length shots of cinema and smooth. Smooth always larger, often much larger. Info/noise.
 
Cosimo Bullo said:
160 is still my favorite, any bluesky banding can be dealt with in post in after effects with grain and other tricks. 160 is a lot cleaner than higher ISOs (see OP). Seriously, be careful, all, with 320.
Click to expand...

After extensive testing, gotta disagree with you on that one. But if it works for you then cool. I'm not shooting under 400.
 
Yeah honestly I think that adding noise doesn't do the same job. Doing it in camera and denoting turns better results to my eyes.
 
Cosimo Bullo said:
I agree that cinema seems to have some noise reduction going on. Compare file size between equal length shots of cinema and smooth. Smooth always larger, often much larger. Info/noise.
Click to expand...

And smooth also may have some in profile sharpening. Just a slight bit. Which is why the -2 makes sense for smooth but I don't mind -1 in camera for cinema or standard.
 
If I was not "onthe road", I'd run some low light tests under fixed lighting looking at full frame stepped gray chart and pull each of the channels (RGB) and look at each channel's noise levels. You could run this on ISO 160, 400, and 800 and compare all of the GH2 profiiles for noise levels. This may offer more info and be less subjective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top