GH4 Extreme noise even at ISO 200. Anyone else? (video inside)
- Thread starter antonionhb
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@ Bruce Foreman
Yep I agree with most of your points actually, and you have obviously had a lot of experience.
But I think the OP had already made up his mind, so most of the conversation on this thread doesn't really involve him or his problem anymore, its more about wether there is something else that could have contibuted to that result, so RickyMorris and others can derive some benefit..plus I am also curious about it.
If you look at the first Vid link I posted...the Out of the Box one...you will see he used a 2.8 12-35 mm lens and got really good results with very little light up to ISO 1600 and 3200 is pretty good too (that vid has a lot less light that the club one)
Check it out...if you havent already...so he did not have much light to play with. there are city lights in the background and stuff, but his vid is at the same 2.8 aperture and looks miles better than the OP vid with possibly the same lack of light and the same basic exposure!
Could it be that he screwed so much with the Cameras settings that it made the codec collapse a bit...its interesting...the Out of the Box guy did nothing and it looks fine whereas the OP vid looks like s*%te!!
Any thoughts...it may be just exposure as you say, but it could be the dreaded EOSHD settings maybe I dunno.
Yep I agree with most of your points actually, and you have obviously had a lot of experience.
But I think the OP had already made up his mind, so most of the conversation on this thread doesn't really involve him or his problem anymore, its more about wether there is something else that could have contibuted to that result, so RickyMorris and others can derive some benefit..plus I am also curious about it.
If you look at the first Vid link I posted...the Out of the Box one...you will see he used a 2.8 12-35 mm lens and got really good results with very little light up to ISO 1600 and 3200 is pretty good too (that vid has a lot less light that the club one)
Check it out...if you havent already...so he did not have much light to play with. there are city lights in the background and stuff, but his vid is at the same 2.8 aperture and looks miles better than the OP vid with possibly the same lack of light and the same basic exposure!
Could it be that he screwed so much with the Cameras settings that it made the codec collapse a bit...its interesting...the Out of the Box guy did nothing and it looks fine whereas the OP vid looks like s*%te!!
Any thoughts...it may be just exposure as you say, but it could be the dreaded EOSHD settings maybe I dunno.
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I entered the OP's exposure data in my light meter. He would have needed an average light level of at least 20 foot candles for good exposure. Based on the way the scene looked I would say he had that only in the direct key light at best and everything else was below 5fc which would be typical for many night time street light scenes. So he was probably at least two stops underexposed for f/2.8 at 1/120sec. at 1600 ISO. He would have been OK at 1/30sec at 30fps.
To my eye the result and noise is a product of underexposure. This is a chronic issue I see in a lot of low light footage posted here. If you don't measure the scene lighting by some method or another, how do you know what a correct exposure should be so you can set the camera for that? Visual reference off of a camera monitor in those conditions is worthless. The GH4 has decent built in metering capability at the very least for checking exposure index. High ISO is not a cure all.
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RickyNorris
Member
Hey guys an update on my end, shot this weekend with two bodies to see if my sensor was having issues. The huge discovery for me was that noise reduction set to 0 VS -5 is massive. Really recommend setting at 0. Seems -5 is completely no NR vs 0 is a basic and very reasonable amount. The footage has cleaned up a ton and is very smooth, and I can run higher ISO then previously seemed. Feels close to having my 5D back. Pretty happy about it, makes the camera much more usable.
Mark Williams
Veteran
It is not unusual with cameras that have complex settings for things to get off where you want them. Then you end up spending an awful amount of time trying to figure out what went wrong.
Cosimo Bullo
Veteran
Haven't read the whole thread but my GH4 is quite clean at 200 ISO, Cine D, and good up to 800ISO to my eyes. Amazing little camera and really undersung for stills as well.
Bruce Foreman
Veteran
Yes, however those city lights constitute a lot of light sources and with night work all the light sources that make up a cityscape at night generally make it easy to get decent exposure. A sufficient quantity of light sources used to register nicely on Kodachrome 64. I got a lot of decent night scenes of TaiPei while stationed on Taiwan in the late 1960's and again in the mid 1970's.
I suppose but it looks like the underexposure I would get when trying something with really low light just to see what worked and what didn't. Exposure meters don't tell the whole story in situations like that. Again, working with Kodachrome 64 I had to bracket a lot while learning. At f16 I would range from 1/2 sec to 30 seconds or even 1 minute exposures (tripod mounted of course) so I often got some very underexposed attempts (that got tossed) and I know that look! Plus had to wait a week or two for the film to be processed and returned.
Bruce Foreman
Veteran
Alright!
Glad you have a better handle on it.
I'm without my GH4 for a week or so, sent it off for the audio buzz "fix" today.
Jaime Valles
Veteran
I'm super happy with the noise performance of my GH4. Use it with a couple of f/0.95 lenses and I can see in the dark with little noise up to ISO 800. There has to be something wrong with the OP's footage, either user error or a defective camera.
Here's a video I shot with a GH4 & two GH3 cameras. The medium shot is the GH4, the wide shot and close-up shots are GH3s:
https://vimeo.com/98896167
Everything was shot at ISO 800. The singer is well lit and properly exposed, and the background remains inky black with almost no visible noise. Of course, if I tried to bring up the shadows to expose them as bright as the singer is, it would be a mess of noise. But that just shows how important proper exposure is to the look of footage.
On a side note, you can see the how significantly sharper the GH4 4K footage looks when downscaled to 1080 vs the close-up shot with the GH3. Granted, the GH3 was using an old SD broadcast B4 zoom lens and the GH4 was using the Panny 14-140 f/4-5.6 lens, but still, the difference is stunning.
Here's a video I shot with a GH4 & two GH3 cameras. The medium shot is the GH4, the wide shot and close-up shots are GH3s:
https://vimeo.com/98896167
Everything was shot at ISO 800. The singer is well lit and properly exposed, and the background remains inky black with almost no visible noise. Of course, if I tried to bring up the shadows to expose them as bright as the singer is, it would be a mess of noise. But that just shows how important proper exposure is to the look of footage.
On a side note, you can see the how significantly sharper the GH4 4K footage looks when downscaled to 1080 vs the close-up shot with the GH3. Granted, the GH3 was using an old SD broadcast B4 zoom lens and the GH4 was using the Panny 14-140 f/4-5.6 lens, but still, the difference is stunning.
GH4 acts different than GH3. I used with GH3 natural: contrast -5, sharpening -4 and NR -5. With GH4 image is too flat and noisy with those settings in general. I use contrast -2, sharp -2 and NR 0. With 4k image is even flatter and it is best to keep everything in default if noise free and normal looking video is a goal.
I finally got my GH4 a few days back with the 12-35mm lens...gotta say I love it so far, I pre ordered and paid for it over 2 months ago...so I have read a zillion posts and reviews and seen loads of footage
One of the first shots I tested (with all profiles) is shooting through some shadowy trees into the bright blue sky (right outside my door).
This is a difficult shot cause the extremities between the shadows and light is so great, so its challenging for the dynamic range of a camera...and the GH2 always blew the sky out or the shadows were too dark to bring up in nicely post even with the best hacks.
Well...a bit of tweaking and the GH4 handled it so well, good detail in the shadows and no real sky blowout (this is with very bright white clouds...).
I even tried with pushing the shadows +5 and highlights -5 and that worked fine...great looking image and NO EXTRA NOISE.
I shot last night at 200 thru to 3200 ISO and again no real noise problems (aside of a fine grain increase at 3200 at 4K), I have read the complaints from some users for a few months now...(about noisy image etc..)
and I simply dont see it (yet) so I dont know what its all about.
And another thing, I thought the micro jitters in 4K would be quite bad, but with the OIS on in the lens I was able to get really nice and smooth hand held shots too, I simply wasn't expecting this!
In my books the GH4 is an awesome camera with much better than expected noise performance.
More testing to do obviously, but so far I am very happy with the results.
One of the first shots I tested (with all profiles) is shooting through some shadowy trees into the bright blue sky (right outside my door).
This is a difficult shot cause the extremities between the shadows and light is so great, so its challenging for the dynamic range of a camera...and the GH2 always blew the sky out or the shadows were too dark to bring up in nicely post even with the best hacks.
Well...a bit of tweaking and the GH4 handled it so well, good detail in the shadows and no real sky blowout (this is with very bright white clouds...).
I even tried with pushing the shadows +5 and highlights -5 and that worked fine...great looking image and NO EXTRA NOISE.
I shot last night at 200 thru to 3200 ISO and again no real noise problems (aside of a fine grain increase at 3200 at 4K), I have read the complaints from some users for a few months now...(about noisy image etc..)
and I simply dont see it (yet) so I dont know what its all about.
And another thing, I thought the micro jitters in 4K would be quite bad, but with the OIS on in the lens I was able to get really nice and smooth hand held shots too, I simply wasn't expecting this!
In my books the GH4 is an awesome camera with much better than expected noise performance.
More testing to do obviously, but so far I am very happy with the results.
David Del Real
Well-known member
What were your other settings in day shots and night shots? (Profile, Ped, Contrast, Sat. etc.)
Hi Yep I should have put those, even since then I have conducted loads of tests.
Ok the Outdoors (Day shots) I only tested CineD and Standard, pedestal at Zero, ISO 200 (A lot of glare in the clouds) 2.8 (12-35mm Lens) all contrast etc...at Zero, Ap 18 and +5 shadows, -5 highlights.
The only thing I screwed up a little was the WB at 5600 (it looked better at 4000) nicer greens, the 5600 WB made a yellow hue I didn't really like.
Other than that the vid (full 4K) looked great and very clean.
I also today did more tests at 1600 and 3200 ISO in a dimly lit room...with 2.8 Ap and also 20mm Lens at 1.7 Ap, without going into too much detail, there was no real problem with noise, there was a bit of fine grain noise in some parts,
but nothing compared to older tests I did with the GH2 in similar conditions, these were noise city with a much chunkier grain, but still they cleaned up in Neat Video.
I also did a bunch of caps and short vids on these same settings with NR at -5 and also at Zero, I found that the Zero settings were cleaner, but not miles cleaner...just a little bit, and a tiny bit softer, again not much...so I am undecided about that, probably I may leave it at zero.
I havent dicked around with the master pedestal much, I try to keep the tests a bit confined to a certain number of things otherwise it gets confusing, my usual work is I am a composer/arranger/audio engineer, and 3d design as well...so I have to deal with complex problems a lot and I always try to keep it simple when trying to figure out what works best...and why.
Then earlier tonite..I did a bunch of night tests where the sky was still with some light, but it was quite dark..tests were in Cine V and Cine D.. all done at 6400 ISO all Zero params and 2.8 12-35 and another set with shadows (same settings) but with +5 shadows and highlights -5...these were good, but I noticed that in CineV although the shadows were darker, they were less grungy than CineD, whereas the sky (still had some evening light...looked better in CineV)...Interesting.
All in all I could use even ISO 6400 in quite a few situations, I could definitely use it with 1.7 Ap or less and a speed booster, I am almost sure I could use 3200 ISO or less in that situation and get a very clean looking image.
Its no A7s as far as low light goes, but unless I plan to shoot bats in caves, for me the GH4 useful for 90% of what I want to shoot and its nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be after reading some reviews and seeing some vids that people have posted from time to time.
Mine is a late shipment, I hear no audio buzz, I dont know what some people are doing, but I find the GH4 really quite good in low light and no real noise problems unless the Ap is around 3.0 to wherever and there is very little light and at ISO 6400.
Ok the Outdoors (Day shots) I only tested CineD and Standard, pedestal at Zero, ISO 200 (A lot of glare in the clouds) 2.8 (12-35mm Lens) all contrast etc...at Zero, Ap 18 and +5 shadows, -5 highlights.
The only thing I screwed up a little was the WB at 5600 (it looked better at 4000) nicer greens, the 5600 WB made a yellow hue I didn't really like.
Other than that the vid (full 4K) looked great and very clean.
I also today did more tests at 1600 and 3200 ISO in a dimly lit room...with 2.8 Ap and also 20mm Lens at 1.7 Ap, without going into too much detail, there was no real problem with noise, there was a bit of fine grain noise in some parts,
but nothing compared to older tests I did with the GH2 in similar conditions, these were noise city with a much chunkier grain, but still they cleaned up in Neat Video.
I also did a bunch of caps and short vids on these same settings with NR at -5 and also at Zero, I found that the Zero settings were cleaner, but not miles cleaner...just a little bit, and a tiny bit softer, again not much...so I am undecided about that, probably I may leave it at zero.
I havent dicked around with the master pedestal much, I try to keep the tests a bit confined to a certain number of things otherwise it gets confusing, my usual work is I am a composer/arranger/audio engineer, and 3d design as well...so I have to deal with complex problems a lot and I always try to keep it simple when trying to figure out what works best...and why.
Then earlier tonite..I did a bunch of night tests where the sky was still with some light, but it was quite dark..tests were in Cine V and Cine D.. all done at 6400 ISO all Zero params and 2.8 12-35 and another set with shadows (same settings) but with +5 shadows and highlights -5...these were good, but I noticed that in CineV although the shadows were darker, they were less grungy than CineD, whereas the sky (still had some evening light...looked better in CineV)...Interesting.
All in all I could use even ISO 6400 in quite a few situations, I could definitely use it with 1.7 Ap or less and a speed booster, I am almost sure I could use 3200 ISO or less in that situation and get a very clean looking image.
Its no A7s as far as low light goes, but unless I plan to shoot bats in caves, for me the GH4 useful for 90% of what I want to shoot and its nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be after reading some reviews and seeing some vids that people have posted from time to time.
Mine is a late shipment, I hear no audio buzz, I dont know what some people are doing, but I find the GH4 really quite good in low light and no real noise problems unless the Ap is around 3.0 to wherever and there is very little light and at ISO 6400.
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j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
I finally got a chance to watch the OP's kickoff video clip... Noise... sure... under exposed... definitely. Since I don't have a Sony Mumble-Foo-MKXX, I have no idea what other cameras would do...
The image looked 'grainy' but I didn't see the more atrocious types of noise.
As for X is better... well then obviously use it...
I've been shooting some stuff recently at 1600 with my GH-1, and getting acceptable results... I just don't have large dark areas in the shot, have some 'texture' everywhere, and that tends to break up any pattern noise.
Unfortunately I did a shoot with a Canon C100, but didn't have time to shoot a test shot of the scene setup with my GH-1 to compare...
But the C100 was @ 3200 and only in the dark oak paneling did I see 'crawling' values. Fortunately those areas were minimal, and the talent and light walls were lit well enough to avoid that sort of thing. And as I recall, the lens was at f/4 or 5.6. Unlike some people I use higher ISO to allow me to shoot with deeper DoF, and I have noticed that images that have sharp subjects, tend to be received better, even with grain/noise, than out of focus subjects, with less grain.
There is a philosophy about noise... does one expect the camera to 'take care of it', or does one use post production tools to get some abatement. I've been tending to the latter, as tools that run on a computer could do far more than whatever the camera manufacturer can cram into the box.
And for some situations... noise is just 'part of the picture'... so use some sort of grain filter to 'cover'. This is a well known industry practice. But obviously adds another processing step... oh well...
The image looked 'grainy' but I didn't see the more atrocious types of noise.
As for X is better... well then obviously use it...
I've been shooting some stuff recently at 1600 with my GH-1, and getting acceptable results... I just don't have large dark areas in the shot, have some 'texture' everywhere, and that tends to break up any pattern noise.
Unfortunately I did a shoot with a Canon C100, but didn't have time to shoot a test shot of the scene setup with my GH-1 to compare...
But the C100 was @ 3200 and only in the dark oak paneling did I see 'crawling' values. Fortunately those areas were minimal, and the talent and light walls were lit well enough to avoid that sort of thing. And as I recall, the lens was at f/4 or 5.6. Unlike some people I use higher ISO to allow me to shoot with deeper DoF, and I have noticed that images that have sharp subjects, tend to be received better, even with grain/noise, than out of focus subjects, with less grain.
There is a philosophy about noise... does one expect the camera to 'take care of it', or does one use post production tools to get some abatement. I've been tending to the latter, as tools that run on a computer could do far more than whatever the camera manufacturer can cram into the box.
And for some situations... noise is just 'part of the picture'... so use some sort of grain filter to 'cover'. This is a well known industry practice. But obviously adds another processing step... oh well...
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antonionhb
Active member
I've been really trying hard not to reply but here is my posture on the situation;
1.) why so many flaming posts? lots of people questioning my credentials as an experienced shooter. trust; i am. if my camera was defective, why flame me?
2.) whether my initial shot is underexposed or not is irrelevant. there will always be parts of your shot underexposed, and in those shadows, there will be noise. in some cases, even at 200 ISO it was the clients jeans that had severe noise issues.
3.) no. noise is not just "part of the picture". it's not. if my dark areas are getting extreme noise like a moth to light...unacceptable.
5.) mask the noise by adding grain? um, maybe if i'm going for that look...but nah. I won't compensate. Neat video is also not an option. It will make the image too soft.
6.) this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMypfYrKgw
7.) this http://philipbloom.net/forum/threads/gh4-noise-issue.47706/
8.) oh, and this: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/6814-gh4-noise-test/
Listen guys. You are really fan girling over this camera. Be more realistic. Some people are clearly having issues. Never question the operator. I told you guys I am an experienced shooter. I simply asked you if it was defective. Most of the posts were poor attempts at flaming me. I am the creative director for a large news company. Trust me, I have shot in every situation you can imagine. I've worked with cameras with far worse noise than this one. I can understand brand loyalty, but don't let it cause you to be THIS defensive.
1600 ISO at 2.8 on a 28mm lens 120 shutter is acceptable. The sky was still dark blue. It was not completely dark out. The street lights were on. This camera performed horribly.
Sorry I posted and asked for advice. I jumped right into the fire.
1.) why so many flaming posts? lots of people questioning my credentials as an experienced shooter. trust; i am. if my camera was defective, why flame me?
2.) whether my initial shot is underexposed or not is irrelevant. there will always be parts of your shot underexposed, and in those shadows, there will be noise. in some cases, even at 200 ISO it was the clients jeans that had severe noise issues.
3.) no. noise is not just "part of the picture". it's not. if my dark areas are getting extreme noise like a moth to light...unacceptable.
5.) mask the noise by adding grain? um, maybe if i'm going for that look...but nah. I won't compensate. Neat video is also not an option. It will make the image too soft.
6.) this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMypfYrKgw
7.) this http://philipbloom.net/forum/threads/gh4-noise-issue.47706/
8.) oh, and this: http://www.eoshd.com/comments/topic/6814-gh4-noise-test/
Listen guys. You are really fan girling over this camera. Be more realistic. Some people are clearly having issues. Never question the operator. I told you guys I am an experienced shooter. I simply asked you if it was defective. Most of the posts were poor attempts at flaming me. I am the creative director for a large news company. Trust me, I have shot in every situation you can imagine. I've worked with cameras with far worse noise than this one. I can understand brand loyalty, but don't let it cause you to be THIS defensive.
1600 ISO at 2.8 on a 28mm lens 120 shutter is acceptable. The sky was still dark blue. It was not completely dark out. The street lights were on. This camera performed horribly.
Sorry I posted and asked for advice. I jumped right into the fire.
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Yes. I have issues with people that under expose a shot, then claim the 'camera didn't perform'. This is a general statement, and based on your example clip, you underexposed the shot. Since people like 'automobile analogies', it's like buying a low end cheap car, ramping the RPM's up to 6K, then having the engine blow, and then complaining that the car didn't perform like a blown out hot rod.
From my investigations with my GH-1, and asking around NAB, the 'ISO' of a camera is pretty iffy as to exactly what that means. And that goes for Canon, Nikon, or Panasonic. All the 'booth babes and studs' had no idea how the ISO is determined for their cameras and what 'principles' were in effect. There are several specs, and one reads paraphrased, 'what the engineering thinks looks good'.
You didn't like the results of your 'test', definitely not a controlled conditions test in the least. It was one step up from 'point and shoot'.
When I decided based on about 3 months were of testing, that the GH-1 ISO setting required an adjustment to my meters, as in increasing the ISO value by 1.5 stops, because of that testing. I'm pretty firm on that claim. I've only seen a few other posts from others who have come to the same conclusion.
Even in Film film days, one had to do tests on film and not take the manufacturer as gospel. Perhaps early on one would do full step by step in 1/3 stop increments... but after about 5 years of that, perhaps then one would do a 'quickie' test on a new Film film type... but generally when wanted to make definitive statements, more serious testing than happy shots was in order.
The biggest problem I have with high ISO and 'noise' is the fixed pattern noise that often crops up. I can live with 'higher' grainy look for such conditions, as long as the grain/noise is randomly distributed over the image.
As for why camera X has better noise... a number of things figure in, sensor type/resolution/quality. There is also processing done by the camera in transforming sensor data in to a codec stream. Some cameras given more expensive, may have higher performance processors that can do more than the lower end. That may be an astonishing revelation to some.
Here's a calculation:
For a situation that has .5 Footcandles of light falling on the subject...
One would need f/.5 @ ISO 1600 @ 60 fps @ 180 deg(1/120 sec).
With a 2.8 lens... one is 5 stops under exposed.
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I like the GHx series because they are a very lightweight and compact alternative to lugging around my C100 or even a Mk III. But in a truly low-light situation, you'd have to be nuts to pick a GHx over one of the higher-end Canons, Nikons, Sony's, etc.
After all, what good is 4K if it's just higher-resolution noise?
After all, what good is 4K if it's just higher-resolution noise?
Bern Caughey
Veteran
The only one "girling" (WTF) is the same person who can't take responsibility for not using the exposure tools that were at your finger tips.
Talk all you want about how experienced you are but the truth is you screwed the pooch. Man up to it!
j1clark@ucsd.edu
Veteran
Well... yeah, use the 'right tool' for the given situation, and if one does not have a tool for that situation either don't shoot the scene, or live with the results.
As for 4K... I'm sure in reasonable lighting situations 4K is 'great'... personally I've been beating the 'better intensity resolution as in 10 or 12 bits...' drum... and perhaps eventually the low end cameras will start coming out with deeper bit depth at affordable prices...
And need less to say... if the sensor is 'noisy'... having more bits of resolution for intensity doesn't help either...