HMC150 noise question.

M

Mountain Wolf Films

Member
I used my HMC150 at an event I shot and noticed a lot of image noise in the picture. I was using the f1 scene file all at default settings except for the chroma level at +1.

Here is a screen grab. On the ceiling there were three track-lights and that one desk lamp. I did black balance and used NO gain. The iris was also on auto.
Is this the normal amount of noise I should be expecting from this camera?
Any suggestions?
 

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Check out the thread below this which has a similar theme. Me thinks you are under-exposed which will promote grain. The stock scene files are not finely tuned and only a place to start. Scene file 1 is a very neutral setting which will give you a video look if that is what your after. These cams have a huge amount of adjustments possible to the scene files and to get the look you want, it will take experimentation. If you have Barry Green's Book, he gives a great explanation of how all the various settings interact. Just to get you started, try using B-Pres. IMHO it has the least noise, but it also has a bit more contrast, though not extreme. Welcome to DVXuser.

Grant
 
Thanks for the reply. I have Barry's book which is pretty much my bible. He did do a good job of explaining what the settings do! But I will say this, I also have a panasonic tm700 which is their top end consumer model from 2010. It does use 3 cmos sensors and from what I can tell, it produces cleaner, less grainy images than my HMC! Even when set up on greenscreen, if you look close enough, you can still see a bit of chroma noise on the screen and on shadowed areas on peoples faces! (I will note that I'm watching the raw clips back on a Dell LCD monitor from 2009 on full screen with Windows media player. I also connected the camera via HDMI to my Panasonic LCD HDTV and it looked slightly better, but the noise was still apparent if you look close enough) I know that CCD's generally have a higher noise floor than CMOS, but I wouldn't expect such a grainy image from a professional camcorder. I've tried various scene settings but none of them are "clean" enough for me. Is this because I came from using a CMOS camera and I'm just used to seeing a cleaner image because of it? Also, I want to get a good film look straight out the camera but I don't know what settings are best for this. I was shooting on Cine D, but according to Barry's book, it is the noisiest gamma curve. I've also tried Cine V but the default settings for that seem pretty noisy too, although not as bad as Cine D. I would use B. Press, but I don't think you get a good "film look" with that gamma curve. I also don't like doing a bunch of color grading in post, I like to get a good look straight out of the camera. Is there anything that you'd suggest for a good film look right out of the camera? I'm trying to get that "Panny Mojo that everyone's talking about, but I don't know what settings would best get you that look.

Sorry for the longwinded message, I'm really nit -picky about image quality and maybe I'm over analyzing. But I have seen other complaints about noise from this camera and the HPX170 on this forum. Obviously I'm new here and I still have a lot to learn!

Thanks for your help!
 
The chips out of the TM, I think, are the same as the hmc40 and would be very very clean indeed. I use a hmc40, and the image will whack my hpx170 in everything but low light and motion. The hpx records 422 color to a I-frame codec which has advantages over avchd. The 150, has the same chips as the 170, but records to avchd like the 40. The real advantage the 150-170 has over the 40, or other small CMOS cams isn't image quality, it is user interface and features. There are cleaner image cams for less money.

I'll post up a nice generic scene file later this evening.

Grant
 
Here is a generic scene file, nothing very special, but it is somewhat low noise, somewhat saturated, and very mildly sharpened. If you want a scene file that you can use right out of the can without too much tweaking, this will do. I use this on a 170, but have a very similar version for the HMC40, so I suspect it will be fairly close on a 150 YMMV. This will be a pretty big change from using stock scene file 1. A really good thing is to take your cam and load one scene file in each of the 6 positions, but make a small change for each setting. Change things like detail, chroma, gamma, and matrix. Go outside and shoot something that has a wide variety of color, blacks, bright whites, movement like blowing leaves, you get the idea. Shoot a few seconds on each scene file; you can switch while shooting as long as you don't change frame rate. Plug your cam into a well adjusted TV or a monitor and check the results. Rinse, tweak and repeat. I did this for half a day and learned more about my cam than any book could do.

You will reduce noise more by reducing detail at the price of some sharpness. Probably the very best results could be obtained by shooting a flat scene and then editing, but that takes more skill than I have.

Film cam
Rate = default
Detail = +2
VDetail = +1
Det Coring = +2
Chroma = +2
Chroma Phase = -1
Master Ped = -5
DRS = Off
Gamma = B.Press
Knee = high
Matrix = CineLike
Skin = Off
VDetFreq = Thick
 
I appreciate your help and suggestions! I tried out the scene file and it seems to be the cleanest image I've ever seen out of my HMC. Maybe even cleaner than the SPARK scene file!
 
It just shows how much difference a little tweaking can make. That scene file is pretty bland, yet effective for being versatile and not offending. I think many agree that no matter what else you do, the B.Press gamma has the lowest noise without being overly contrasty. Seems like the cine-gammas, while attractive for the film grain look, really degrade the IQ more than I like. But that is just an opinion and one of the great things about the cam is the ability to have so many different looks in a not very expensive cam.

Grant
 
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