Hours of darkness - Gh13 (lowlight)

photoSmart42 said:
Done with the burn-in process. Not sure if it made a difference, but I can't tell. Here's some stills from before and after.
Click to expand...

I've been following this thread with interest myself. From what I have understood, is that there are two types of banding. Horizontal, which is seen at high ISO in both stills and video - which you can see a bit in your shots.

But the most disturbing is the vertical banding we are seeing in video at all ISOs in less exposed areas. I'm hesitant to use the word 'under' exposed, as with a lot of scenes there will be some light areas, and some darker areas.

The video in this thread is a perfect example of low light shooting with areas well exposed and other areas purposefully under exposed. If I was to shoot this scene with my GH1, it would be subject to horrendous vertical tracks throughout.

I'm now going through the 'burn-in' process that I've read about elsewhere, and I'll let you know how I get on. I'll be leaving it on at ISO1600 in Manual Movie mode until next Friday :)

Tim
 
My GH1 is also a victim of horrendous "high iso" pattern noises in both the vertcal and horisontal planes. I guess mine is one of the early chinese ones. I have tried the burn in process a few times but only leaving camera on overnigth or so. I am not sure but there might have been a littlle improvement but nothing dramatical.

Now I am getting mad at my cam after seeing that someone can actually shoot clean footage with iso 1250. I cant even imagine shooting anything higher than iso 160 or 200. After that the image is just garbage... full of noise, colorfull horisontal srtipes and fixed vertical darker lines.

I will try leaving the camera on for few days... will let you know if it improves.

If that doesnt help maybe I have to go to shop for a new body.

Is there anyway to tell if the camera is from the newer batch? I mean before having bougth it.
 
@itimjim -- How did the burn-in work for you?

@Jasketti: As far as telling if a camera is newer or not, my guess is that the firmware that came on the camera could be a good indication. Unless Panasonic is still manufacturing cameras loaded with old versions of firmware (possible, but unlikely), lower versions of firmware would suggest an older camera. The easiest way to confirm this would be if anyone has bought a camera that has had firmware 1.2 or higher loaded.

I bought a camera from J+R within the last month, and was surprised to find that it had firmware version 1.1. (Vers 1.2 was released in September '09. Vers 1.3 was released in May '10.)

This camera (made in China, 1.1) had horrible banding even with properly exposed shots at ISO 200. So I sent it back to the retailer. I learned about the burn-in process when my window to return the camera was closing, so I did not have the chance to try that.

But I'm with you, I look at that clean ISO 1250 footage and just think -- that wouldn't be happening with the camera I had! Quite frustrating.
 
Hi PhotoSmart 42!
In your example that shows us, there is only little bands, but much more noise.
Perhaps what you see is the normal noise and FPN. (Fixed patern noise).
Here I leave an example of banding at its best.
I will test the burning process in these days and I will report on the matter.

Cheers!

4781366644_9a5ddf5960_b.jpg
 
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Anyone have any accurate proof that the "burn-in process" actually works?

My GH1 was bought in April this year and is manufactured in China and I see these terrible bands almost any iso. Properly illuminating barely visible.

I leave here an example with my GH1 filmed a few days of having bought and well cared for lighting.

Cheers.

http://vimeo.com/12502040http://vimeo.com/12502040
 
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Have been again "burning" my GH1 for two days and I'll be damned if the isnt some more change for better. FPN and colorfull striping noise is still there but apparently again a little diminshed.

I'll try to shoot some test shots that might reveal the change and repeat them again after leaving tha cam on for another 48 hours.
 
John Caballero said:
Buy a lighting kit and the problem will be gone.
Click to expand...

Like everyone's been saying, it happens even in the darker areas. Unless you have flat lighting across the board your always going to have an interplay of light and dark. I had issues with banding in a recent music video and we had two 4bank kinos and an HMI blasting from behind, yet there was still banding in the lesser exposed areas.
 
John Caballero said:
Buy a lighting kit and the problem will be gone.
Click to expand...

Oh, really. Gee thanks. ;)

It might be that your cam doesnt suffer from this symptom. That however does not mean that it isnt a problem for others.

Attached are the results of my burn in test (ISO 1600, lens cap on)
mjpeg pictures before and after. Levels are pushed to reveal the noise and difference. At least for me the difference / improvement is clear. Will keep burning my cam...

Before.jpg

After.jpg

Strange to see that the noise is not uniform as it is much stronger on the rigth side of the picture.
 
Jasketti said:
Oh, really. Gee thanks. ;)

It might be that your cam doesnt suffer from this symptom. That however does not mean that it isnt a problem for others.

Attached are the results of my burn in test (ISO 1600, lens cap on)
mjpeg pictures before and after. Levels are pushed to reveal the noise and difference. At least for me the difference / improvement is clear. Will keep burning my cam...

View attachment 19028

View attachment 19029

Strange to see that the noise is not uniform as it is much stronger on the rigth side of the picture.
Click to expand...

Well you can't argue with that pic. If you can remember try to post the end results just like this after you have done it for longer. Pretty strange. Guess it's time for me to do some tests of my own now.
 
Hi Jasketti!

Apparently, has less noise the image below.
But it also seems to have fewer ISO or Exposure.
It's the same setting for the two images?

Could show some other examples?

Thanks!
 
interested..........my cam is from october 2009 so not sure if it's the chinese ones or new ones but has pretty nasty banding...will keep my eye on this thread
 
hernan said:
Hi Jasketti!

Apparently, has less noise the image below.
But it also seems to have fewer ISO or Exposure.
It's the same setting for the two images?

Could show some other examples?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi hernan!

Other than these pics I dont have anything that could be directly and absolutely
compared. I could try to shoot some similar shots that I have done in the past before burn in but I dont see if they much of a proof since I dont recall all the setting I used. I'll see if I can come up with something that makes sense.

ISO is the same, shutter is the same, aperture, WB is the same, lens cap is the same :)... the levels of the both pictures has been boosted in photoshop with the same settings (0,1,22).

Same everyhting, exept for the ~48 hours in between with camera connected to external power in manual video mode and left on for that time at ISO1600.

The process:
- I set up camera ready for the "burn in" and took a short mjepg video about 10 sec.
- turned off the display and left camera on for ~48 hours.
- after that before doing anything else recorded an another ~10 sec clip

I'll post pictures of a much longer burn in when I can find the time to leave my cam unused for a loger period of time.

I cant even quess what is the mechanism that is in the works here, all I know
the result is there to be seen. Calling this process a "burn in" might sound scary to some. I havent noticed camera getting but very mildly warm on the surface below the LVF.
 
sorry to ask this again, but when you do the burn in prozess do you have to press the record button? or is it enought to just leave the cam on with the lenscap attatched? im asking cause i cant think of any way how you cold record for 2 days straight without getting into space problems on the sd card.
 
leondakara said:
sorry to ask this again, but when you do the burn in prozess do you have to press the record button? or is it enought to just leave the cam on with the lenscap attatched? im asking cause i cant think of any way how you cold record for 2 days straight without getting into space problems on the sd card.
Click to expand...

Just leave the camera on using the power adapter.
Set it on high ISO and manual (creative) video mode.
I used high shutter speeds since it semeed to cause more noise.
Not sure whether that matters or not.
No need to record. Shut down the LCD.
 
Jasketti said:
Hi hernan!

Other than these pics I dont have anything that could be directly and absolutely
compared. I could try to shoot some similar shots that I have done in the past before burn in but I dont see if they much of a proof since I dont recall all the setting I used. I'll see if I can come up with something that makes sense.

ISO is the same, shutter is the same, aperture, WB is the same, lens cap is the same :)... the levels of the both pictures has been boosted in photoshop with the same settings (0,1,22).

Same everyhting, exept for the ~48 hours in between with camera connected to external power in manual video mode and left on for that time at ISO1600.

The process:
- I set up camera ready for the "burn in" and took a short mjepg video about 10 sec.
- turned off the display and left camera on for ~48 hours.
- after that before doing anything else recorded an another ~10 sec clip

I'll post pictures of a much longer burn in when I can find the time to leave my cam unused for a loger period of time.

I cant even quess what is the mechanism that is in the works here, all I know
the result is there to be seen. Calling this process a "burn in" might sound scary to some. I havent noticed camera getting but very mildly warm on the surface below the LVF.
Click to expand...



Thanks!

Then wait for these revealing videos!
I will see if this week I do the burn-in on a "before and after."
hugs!

Hernán.
 
Jasketti said:
Just leave the camera on using the power adapter.
Set it on high ISO and manual (creative) video mode.
I used high shutter speeds since it semeed to cause more noise.
Not sure whether that matters or not.
No need to record. Shut down the LCD.
Click to expand...

will try it over the weekend, thnaks again, i hope this works
 
wow 1250 ISO i just tried shoot in low light, anything near 800 iso and up was utterly unusable footage. even 400 was starting to get too noisy for my tastes but my 400 iso in low light looked about as good as your 1250 ...what the hell???
 
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