Frustrated beyond belief with vertical banding

Azmyth

Azmyth

Veteran
I've tried everything I know to try, and no matter what I do, or what ASA I shoot at, or what shutter speed. The vertical banding everyone talks about shows up somewhere in my footage. The only way I can seem to eliminate it is to shoot 2 stops overexposed and with me doing mostly horror where its "dark" alot I'm not seeing a way to avoid the banding, even when lighting it well.. because I've had perfectly lit "objects" still show banding in some parts of the image. I don't know what to do at this point other than get a different camera.
 
I had the same problem and decided to send the camera to panasonic. I told them not to update the firmware... Didn't get the camera back yet...
 
are you asking for help or are you just venting?

I'd say that you sound like you're already done with the camera. I say get something else unless you try another GH1 and see if you just have a bad camera..
 
I'm gonna see if I can find someone who has a 7d or T2i. I really wanted to like the GH1, but I can't keep buying cameras hoping I don't get a "dud"
 
So yeah, sort of venting and "asking for help" where I'm already aware there really isn't any "help" for this problem. I have a friend who has the same camera, and I showed him my footage and he even played with my camera, and he doesn't have the same problems with his.
 
Azmyth said:
I have a friend who has the same camera, and I showed him my footage and he even played with my camera, and he doesn't have the same problems with his.
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What would be really helpful is if you could do a direct test with your camera and your friends. Same shot, same lens, same settings etc

I can't guarantee it'll reduce your frustration but at least we'll then have definitive proof of the difference in banding between cameras.

As posted elsewhere I had a very early model and was convinced my banding was worse than most, so I recently bought a second body (one of the last hackable ones). And the banding is pretty much the same. So there certainly doesn't seem to be a simply new vs old difference. But both models were made in china so that could be a factor.

Anyway, despite all the talk of banding I've yet to see a clear side-by-side comparison showing a big difference so if you have access to a "good" and "bad" camera that would be a step forward.
 
Have you done the "burn in" process with your cam. That fixed my banding up completely.

The canons are always the best bet for lowlight footage though, can't go wrong (but gh13 kills them in good light)
 
Homo Sovieticus said:
can you please explain me the "burn in" process
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It involves taking a dash of magical thinking, with a sprinkling of irrationallity and a good dose of anecdotal bullshit.

Mix it all together.... then leave your camera on for a couple of days with the lens cap on.

Voila!
 
It worked for some people, but not all. I left mine for 3 days and nights. It didn't work. I guess it depends on models.
 
the doc said:
It involves taking a dash of magical thinking, with a sprinkling of irrationallity and a good dose of anecdotal bullshit.

Mix it all together.... then leave your camera on for a couple of days with the lens cap on.

Voila!
Click to expand...


Absolutely. That was my thinking too until I did it and it worked.. And I still think it makes no sense but my camera was unusable when I unboxed it. I considered sending it back but I figured I would at least give the burn-in a try. While I still have light color banding when I underexpose, I can generally use anything less than 800iso without much problem at all, as long as I expose properly. When it was new I couldn't even use 200iso without horrendous color banding, even in bright shots.

A friend bought his GH1 as one of the last batch before becoming unhackable. His vid quallity out of the box was as good as my burned-in camera. I don't think it's improved much more from brand new so I think that's pretty much the best performance we can get from it.
 
Now, I would like to note.. are we all talking about the same kind of banding? From my understanding, there is more than one kind, and the type I am experiencing my friend has never seen before at all.. but he has had what he calls "color banding"...

Here's the type of banding I am referring to.. this was shot indoors with production lighting. We shot this scene with a canon HV40 and I was shooting right next to it (its a bit wobbly due to me just holding the camera, but I was just running tests. The HV40 stuff looks great, If you look at her chest area the bands are the most visible. Vertical bands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Tgst-NODc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBF7XUqCzw



and then I turn around and shoot stuff like this.. which I love.. but this was outside in the daytime. I've shot some other stuff at night time, OUTdoors that looked great also, and it was lit with production lights and work lights and there is no banding in it either. For all accounts everything I've shot outdoors in the day, has no banding as long as I shoot either directly in the middle on the meter for exposure, or 1 to 2 stops over exposed. This is at between 160 and 320 ASA. The Stuff I shot at night with no banding, was between 320 ASA and 400. I don't go over 400.

2ymj782.jpg


I did the Burn in for an entire day, should I do it for longer? Also, I'm a horror film maker.. pretty much all I do is horror films.. How can I shoot at night, without banding and it look "dark"? I know that you need to light properly, but how do you make something look dark if your having to light it up extensively.
 
I did mine for about 4 days or so. I set it to 1600iso, put the cap on the lens and just let it run.

The color bands are the same ones I believe. Mine were on everything regardless of exposure. If I took that picture you have posted above with my camera when it was new, you'd see the bands in the guy's shirt and in the background.

Now the other thing is that the bands are related to exposure but they also respond to contrast in the frame too. If your frame has minimal contrast then the banding shows up a low more than if you have some contrasting components, like a bright area.

I'm having trouble seeing the bands in your video. The YouTube compression, for me, kinda makes things blurry. Don't know if it's my monitor or what.

I probably don't have to say it but I'll mention it for those who might be interested, in full productions, even the dark areas of the frames are a lot brighter than real life. They just stop down or use a lower ASA film to make it look darker than it really is. Film needs a lot of light to expose properly without looking grainy and bland. The trick is balancing your lighting, not amount of light. That was a problem for me when I started and it's a problem for most folks when they get started too. They just light the areas they think need to be bright, they don't light the whole frame to a base level and then light *more* for the areas that need higher contrast.
 
I agree....I love my hacked GH1 in the daytime but use the 7D for almost everything else. My GH1 only seems to get worse...sometimes even in the daytime on skin I get FPN. It's not just happening when I'm more than three stops underexposed, it seems to occur unless I'm about a half-stop over exposed.

I'm tempted to buy a newer hackable body...as I was able to confirm side by side at Samy's that there is a difference.
 
If the area is properly exposed because the camera is being used with a less-contrasty shooting profile then that's gonna cause banding because the area isn't actually properly exposed. It's sort of like using i.Exposure...don't expect it to be without artifacting: it's doing stuff to it digitally. Pump up the contrast a bit in-camera if you're getting banding on a shot.
 
Azmyth said:
Now, I would like to note.. are we all talking about the same kind of banding? From my understanding, there is more than one kind, and the type I am experiencing my friend has never seen before at all.. but he has had what he calls "color banding"...

Here's the type of banding I am referring to.. this was shot indoors with production lighting. We shot this scene with a canon HV40 and I was shooting right next to it (its a bit wobbly due to me just holding the camera, but I was just running tests. The HV40 stuff looks great, If you look at her chest area the bands are the most visible. Vertical bands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Tgst-NODc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBF7XUqCzw

Also, I'm a horror film maker.. pretty much all I do is horror films.. How can I shoot at night, without banding and it look "dark"? I know that you need to light properly, but how do you make something look dark if your having to light it up extensively.
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First of all, it is difficult to reasonably analyze image issues that went through some form of compression. Please post samples to Vimeo (with download option enabled) or another site like Mediafire or Rapidshare.
Secondly, even to someone as uninitiated into film-making as myself the first clip (the one with issues) looks underexposed in the parts that matter. If viewer's attention is supposed to be directed "at her chest area" then this is the area that should be properly exposed, either by camera settings or by lighting.

I would think that lighting for a "horror" atmosphere is actually quite easy -- a lot of "scary" images tend to have super-exaggerated contrast. Which as Ben says should help quash banding. Check IHartVideo's flicks for example. He uses GH1 and explained his set up in the in the Footy Subforum (do search).
 
the doc said:
It involves taking a dash of magical thinking, with a sprinkling of irrationallity and a good dose of anecdotal bullshit.

Mix it all together.... then leave your camera on for a couple of days with the lens cap on.

Voila!
Click to expand...

Thankfully, life is full of anecdotal evidence, irrationality and magical thinking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't..... about the same ratio of success as science that gave us the wonderful GH1 banding in the first place. I've been told this banding is inevitable given a CMOS camera ... well, not in my experience of CMOS cameras, it's not.
However, I love the GH1 and all it offers me, but banding was an unexpected flaw I regret at this price range. I now know roughly how to mitigate it's worst effects with a little care and attention ... it has it's own sweet spots that can be avoided .... unfortunately, this can often involve crushed blacks and a high contrast approach.
 
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