GH2: Blue horizontal banding?

[ICD Films]

Ok, just a quickie.... Japenese body.

The fixed "blue" line seems to be 50/50 blue-green channel. On my unit it's only visible at 3200.

Will try to reproduce AKED's sky shot issues tonight.



(since it's a fixed line it's obviously more apparent in motion, blown out to be more visible on screencap)

edit: Ok, visible from 800 aswell. Luckily though, this issue is only related to underexposure; also, the blue line dissapears completely at 30 shutter. IMO it looks totally acceptable shooting at 30, and besides, you probably mostly do static shots in extreme low light.

 

[sir_danish]

It's a current limitation of the camera, so until new firmware is released that fixes this, our options are: Faster lenses or Rent/Buy an AF-100

So you think, this problem could be solved by a firmware update? I hope so. Some GH2 owners assume this to be a hardware issue. The interesting thing is, that here in Austria, the GH2 is completely out of stock since february. You can´t even get one from Amazon. A salesman told me, there´s no certain delivery date in sight. For me, it looks like Panasonic is struggling with a major problem, regarding the GH2. I might be totally wrong, of course...

 

[roei z]

So you think, this problem could be solved by a firmware update? I hope so. Some GH2 owners assume this to be a hardware issue. The interesting thing is, that here in Austria, the GH2 is completely out of stock since february. You can´t even get one from Amazon. A salesman told me, there´s no certain delivery date in sight. For me, it looks like Panasonic is struggling with a major problem, regarding the GH2. I might be totally wrong, of course...

allow me to giggle..
it might be hard to understand but panasonic don't really give a damn on this little banding at high iso's..
they sell enough GH2's, there's high demand for it, and also, they're not in a hurry to publish any new firmware soon.
a shortage in supply could have many reasons (especially with Japan disaster) and i have a little hunch that 'fixing the banding' is not one of them'..
besides, the color 8-bit banding is such a bigger problem (which cannot be fixed), so i wouldn't be worried with the minor high iso banding myself.

 

[TheDingo]

So you think, this problem could be solved by a firmware update?

Post sensor image processing makes a big difference with all of todays video cameras, so a firmware processing fix might be possible.

A salesman told me, there´s no certain delivery date in sight. For me, it looks like Panasonic is struggling with a major problem, regarding the GH2. I might be totally wrong, of course...

I always wonder if the GH-2's biggest problem is the AF-100, where GH-2 performance comes uncomfortably close to what the AF-100 produces. I would not blame Panasonic for this, as video is a very competitive market and they have to make a good profit to survive.

For example, it appears to me that Sony is being very protectionist with how they crippled the VG-10 camera ( and the FS-100 camera in a different way ) in order that neither of these cameras will eat in to their higher end professional markets.

 

[sir_danish]

Hm... You have a point there. I will have to search for a faster lens, or simply avoid dark areas. Also, I´m going to take a closer look at the AF-100.

 

[sir_danish]

It seems like a horizontal line appeared in my viewfinder today!?°-° It´s not a dark line, like the one mentioned above, but a bright stripe in the upper third of the image. It´s always visible, no matter which mode or ISO setting and it´s as thick as the disliked line in video mode. Exactly the same size! But it only concerns the viewfinder. It is not visible on the screen.
I dont´know, what´s going on in my little camera... A dark stripe, a bright stripe and a really annoying yellowness in the center of the viewfinder. Now I should really send my unit back to Panasonic. Hopefully they repair it soon.

 

[butler360]

Recently saw Meek's Cutoff and the night scenes brought this topic to mind. I think some of the people here would have told the crew they were lighting the night scenes "wrong." :laugh:

Just take a look at this:
http://www.filmsnmovies.com/video/18256/meeks_cutoff_promo_trailer/

Or the ending of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI9rcistAjw

If a forum member posted video like this they'd be told that this scene is not properly exposed.

And having read through this entire thread, the discussion can be very frustrating. What is the problem with asking to get what you paid for? Others have brought up the fact that film has "flaws" too. But nothing like this. And I don't think a print scratch counts, either. One is built into the source, the other usually develops after. This weird black band is a defect. Film noise is an organic result of having less light. It doesn't distract you. A band of black that does not move with the picture is very distracting. Just because people are pointing out this flaw does not mean they are asking for "perfect" ISO 3200 video. They are simply asking for the weird little black line to be gone. Is that so strange? We can accept normal degradations in image quality as you progress from 800->1600->3200. The problem is the very abnormal degradation that occurs above 1/30. Why does it suddenly appear after that?

And what's the point of silencing people from complaining about problems with what they buy? We should just buy things and not mention any problems? Maybe I'm crazy, but aren't there benefits to putting pressure on Panasonic to fix their problems? Yes, people should contact Panasonic and not just post on here. But I see the forum posts as beneficial because it puts it out in the open for discussion rather than just a private conversation with Panasonic. Again, more pressure on them is good and if this is out in the open and adversely affecting their brand/reputation perhaps they will be more likely to listen.

Sorry for the long post, but these retorts of "STFU and buy it and like it and never complain about problems" just seem so nonsensical to me (also the "You're lighting it wrong!" ones). I'm planning on getting a GH2 because the banding is much better than on the GH1. But it's good to know beforehand what I am getting into.

 

[cordvision]

I totally agree with the above poster. I'm also frustrated by people always saying that "you just have to light it properly". It's just normal to have parts of your picture underexposed in many cases, there's nothing wrong with that. To just light everything very flat is not a solution...

 

[xsa]

Hi butler360,
I am agree with most of your points.i tried 2 gh2 before and i sent them back because of fix horizontal banding.for me it was defect aswell, i didn understand how panasonic can sell camera like this.also so a few people talking about it.there are other issues but you can work around them or technological limitations.
However i bought my 3rd camera, and seems to be there is no or very litle banding. In low light situation there are still a lot going on,like 8 bit banding , postarization, strange distrubition of noise.but it looks like panasonic silently fix the problem of horizontal banding.I couldn also quite belive my self the difference between cameras i tried.my conclusion is there are good and bad Gh2s out there.may be that is why there were bot so huge reactions on this forum because some people never had this problem.
I am going to keep this one, in good light image from camera is very good.i will still not use highest isos, but if i need to , i know i can.
For the information, i bought the camera 2 days ago in Holland, so it is pal and serial number starts with WE1CA
I hope this helps to some people

 

[sir_danish]

To work around the banding problem, I tried to shoot some videos with shutter 25 instead of 50. The horizontal line is not there at shutter 25 and I find the lower ISO settings to be a very nice side effect. Less noise and less posterisation.
I know, this means breaking the 180° rule, but I don´t really care about judder or strobing in THIS case. For me it´s less problematic than fluid motion with a lot of noise.