Major grain issues with this camera help!

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Finner

Active member
I am a new prof at a film school that has 5 of these panasonic cameras we also have some old HVX cameras. We just shot some doc interviews with the AF100's over the weekend and the grain they have is terrible. The interviews were shot at iso 400 at an F-stop of 5.6 with the darkest part of frame being between an F stop of 2.0 to 2.8. The grain in the dark parts is beyond horrible. I am considering shelving these cameras and having the HVX used instead for anything that matters as they seem to have much better dynamic range and much less grain than these AF100's. Not sure if others are having this same problem but it seems to be a constant with all the AF100's we have. Going to do some tests this week but am overall confused with the terrible grainy images of this camera.If a camera can not handle a couple of stops under perfect exposure then it is not really a very usable camera in my mind.

If these cameras are indeed this grainy we will be trying to get rid of them as soon as possible to get some 7D's instead. From what I have seen if people are thinking of buying these cameras they should not just walk away but run.
 
You're a professor and yet you haven't done basic research on this camera. These cameras provide excellent images and there are plenty of examples. There is discussion about scene settings for various shoots and there is discussion about computer monitors displaying noise that isn't there.

You're a professor. Do the research before jumping to conclusions. You are telling people to run away from the camera, yet you know nothing about it. I'm glad I'm not taking your classes.
 
Finner said:
I am a new prof at a film school that has 5 of these panasonic cameras we also have some old HVX cameras. We just shot some doc interviews with the AF100's over the weekend and the grain they have is terrible. The interviews were shot at iso 400 at an F-stop of 5.6 with the darkest part of frame being between an F stop of 2.0 to 2.8. The grain in the dark parts is beyond horrible. I am considering shelving these cameras and having the HVX used instead for anything that matters as they seem to have much better dynamic range and much less grain than these AF100's. Not sure if others are having this same problem but it seems to be a constant with all the AF100's we have. Going to do some tests this week but am overall confused with the terrible grainy images of this camera.If a camera can not handle a couple of stops under perfect exposure then it is not really a very usable camera in my mind.

If these cameras are indeed this grainy we will be trying to get rid of them as soon as possible to get some 7D's instead. From what I have seen if people are thinking of buying these cameras they should not just walk away but run.
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These sentiments were common in the early days of the AF100.

As Douglas Adams wrote repeatedly, Don't Panic.

You'll find fairly clean footage being produced at much higher ISOs. While the camera isn't "clean" by any means, it definitely compares favourably against the venerable HVX-200.

It would help to know what scene files/settings you're using for the camera(s) and a little more information about the shooting situation. We've spent some time with the camera, a few charts, and waveform/vectorscopes as have many other here and get acceptably clean images.

Also, your lighting source will make quite the difference (IE daylight balanced lighting results in less noise than tungsten-balanced lighting). We've noticed that these cameras behave somewhat poorly if the blue channel is starved of input although the HVX-200 (and many other units) have the same requirements/shortcomings.

And, ultimately, if you find they're still too noisy after some initial setup work and testing, then by all means, shelve them; but please be mindful of the fact that there are many users here using the AF100 in high-pressure, commercial/artistic situations and asking people to "run" from buying these cameras will only incite unnecessary flaming and trolling.
 
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consider seeking the assistance of your film school's cinematography professor...

You have 5 of these. I teach beginning video production at a junior college, and would kill to just have 1! Send 'em my way if they're un-acceptable :)
 
Hey Finner. We have four AF100s at the University where I teach, and everyone around here loves them! I will say that I was a little put-off at first, as the vanilla image from these things is definitely inferior to the vanilla image from the HVX-200 (IMO), but once I started messing around with the scene files settings a bit I was hooked. I've gotten some absolutely beautiful footage out of my own personal AF100, and I'm sure you guys can too given the right settings. There are a lot of threads on this forum that give some great scene file "recipes" that should get you started, but to give you an idea, I can shoot properly exposed footage at 1600 ISO and get very little, if any, noise in the blacks with my settings. I don't have the camera in front of me, so I can't give you specifics, but there are a ton of resources out there as far as scene files go. Do some experimenting and see what happens - you might be pleasantly surprised!

As always, happy shooting and I hope things work out for you!

- Jon
 
editman said:
Noise is not an issue with this camera if set up properly. Period.
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Agreed, except I would have ended the sentence with "Exclamation point."

Finner, we've been using these things for over a year now. We've got them to the point where they're basically absolutely grainless at anything up to 800 ISO.

I would strongly recommend black balancing, use norm2 matrix, turn the detail level down to -4 (for both), and view your footage on a properly-calibrated production monitor (not on a computer screen or some bogus junk monitor, but a real monitor) to see what the camera's REALLY delivering.

There are all sorts of places along the way that your signal can get screwed up, not the least of which is trying to view the footage on a non-gamma-corrected computer monitor. When shot properly and viewed properly, the AF100 is utterly grainless.
 
if you are going to run from this camera?? can i have it?? :)


i suggest buying barry's book, or even better his DVD...
 
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