Low Light Streaks - Is my camera faulty?

Have perused the Magic Bullet stuff on their site, but haven't been able to tell the difference between Colorista and Looks. After viewing their videos, seems to me that Looks does everything Colorista does. Would be inclined to spring for Looks. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Have been wanting to get some faster glass, but do a lot of nature stuff so a zoom makes sense for me. Any suggestions on a fast, quality zoom? Have been looking at the Olympus 50-200mm Zuiko Digital f/2.8-3.5 -- not cheap, but am willing to spend for everything this lens seems to offer. Has gotten great reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...t_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ALAQLAKJ574UN&v=glance

Any other suggestions on a fast zoom would be welcome.
 
If you're doing nature stuff the slow speed of the GH1 stock lens should be fine, unless you're filming owls or something, if you're going to buy a zoom, buy one that goes substantially higher than 140mm (to like 300mm or so) or else what's the point?
 
Ben_B said:
If you're doing nature stuff the slow speed of the GH1 stock lens should be fine, unless you're filming owls or something, if you're going to buy a zoom, buy one that goes substantially higher than 140mm (to like 300mm or so) or else what's the point?
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Well, I live in the East. Our forests have thick canopies and lots of undergrowth that substantially reduce light -- especially early morning and evening and even on cloudy days. Those owls don't only come out at night and then go underground during the day. :)

Last thing I need is to be at 140mm with the kits lens and be 5.8 at 1/60 with ISO at 1600 and still be 3 stops underexposed. Not pretty.

I agree with trying to go higher with the zoom. Would love somebody to suggest a fast zoom that beats the 50-200 Olympus.
 
Ben_B said:
You should try out the trial versions of colorista and looks.
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Downloaded both. Worked with Colorista and now see the purpose behind having both. However, I didn't get any better results using Colorista than I can get with the 3 Way Corrector and RGB Curves in Premiere. Which turn out to be very good. And the effects are stackable as in AE.

Speaking of AE, I was editing in Premiere and then dynamic linking to AE to do the Colorista stuff. Crash city. Was able to finally get things done, but suspect Colorista's not playing nice with the newer versions of Premiere may have something to do with the instability when using dynamic linking. Which is normally a super feature of the CS4 Suite and one of the reasons I bailed from FCP to Adobe CS4.

Anyway, I got to the point where the corrections in Premiere using the 3 way and curves looked identical to what I was getting using Colorista in AE. Didn't notice any degradation using Premiere versus Colorista.

So looks like what I'll do is color correct using the built-in Premiere stuff and then use Looks for, well, looks. Anxious to try that.

Here are before and after stills of the clip I was working with. I am a complete novice at this so any advice would be welcome. As it will still be as I get better.
 

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Nice. I would have worked with it a little more to bring out more saturation in the greens and less in the dirt which is starting to look a little purple.
 
kenn michael said:
I'll try the test when I get a chance. I think I may have one of the worse bodies. Yes 3 (2.75) stops is a lot, but I'm getting banding when underexposing by just 1 stop at 100 ISO... So, that limits a lot visually.
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Hello!
Did you have a chance to make the test?

Cheers,
Jerry
 
Please stop hijacking the thread. The subject is: "Low Light Streaks - Is my camera faulty"?

I have the same problems. Did anyone have a real solution or is it a camera limitation?
 
I am really really confused about that. I hope that I am not prejudiced by what I read here, but for me the problem seems to have also faded a bit with time. I have the camera for over 2 months now, and its not that the problem has disappeared but I think it is a lot less noticeable... Now for me the worst thing is white walls in very low light. These seem to have some kind of ugly noise but far less a streaking effect as it was in the beginning...
 
I made one more experiment today, not intentionally. I wanted to share it with you, because it once again confirms what Barry Green and few more people are repeating so many times.

I opened RAW picture (photo) seriously underexposed in LR.
It was very dark. I have increased exposure. It was ISO 100.
What I saw - was like a frame with streaks which we discuss so long.
Another picture, propoerly exposed - no streaks even at higher ISOs.
 
Ensure there's enough contrast (IMHO) - which might involve adding light. There's not much if any drama you see on TV that doesn't involve lights, even when the scene appears to be shot at night in a coal cellar.
 
Hi,

Check these. First shot is 100 asa, second is 320 asa, histogram and everything told me theres too little light, but it is properly exposed though in a sense (this is what I was after). Still surprised its clean of any streaking. Whats your opinion on these particular shots?
 

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We also discovered, that streaks do not occur if there is a lot of BLACK.
Pls try to record eg. a light wall or wooden door in the room without.
 
The problem a lot of people are having is that they're using the kit lens which, at it's widest aperture (f/4) is right over the 3-stop no-banding underexposed limit for most indoor situations without added light. The minimum you need to shoot indoors (and this is in a bright room with lots of natural and overhead light,) without opening lots of windows, etc, seems to be f/2.8, but ideally something faster.....I don't shoot indoors with the kit glass...sorry, it's just a reality. This is an interchangeable lens camera for a reason, and I for one am happier that they gave us a great zoom range (that also functions as a somewhat wide angle) lens, with decent DOF for it's speed at telephoto focal lengths, and that also focuses pretty close, with our cameras, leaving us free to use fast glass at various focal lengths along it as we see fit...rather than putting something faster but with a more limited range in.
 
Jerry_R said:
We also discovered, that streaks do not occur if there is a lot of BLACK.
Pls try to record eg. a light wall or wooden door in the room without.
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Yes, seems to me it happens on certain shades that are underexposed. Underexposed whites and skin color. Any thoughts on this?
 
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