Noise Again...

taubkin

taubkin

Veteran
ok, so I knew my problem with noise wasn't solely due to the fact I am an idiot that recorded with gain on accidentally. this is what I'm talking about:

239072335.jpg


I'm very proud of that still. I was all on my own to do the set up. Hired as camera op by the museum of image and sound for a recording of memory on the great brazilian artists. This is Eduardo Salvatore, 90 years old, one of the greatest Brazillian photographers and a pioneer in modern photography. I know a little backlight in his left would be killer, but it was already crammed as hell and I didn't want to burn any of his nice books.

Now, I didn't want the bookshelf any brighter. And yet, I can't get over the fact the books to the right of the frame reveal a significant ammount of grain. Man, I doubt it's a problem with my cam only, but there's gotta be something I can do about that! Ah, and that image is F1, so no cine matrix or whatever...
 
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I used a technique that an old boss taught me, and then I saw it much better explained over the net. It's basically the Poor man's Chimera. My main lightsource was at the right side of the frame hitting a bouce board on the left that made for my soft key. The fill is done by the spill of the light reflector. The guy that does the same thing is Walter Graff:

http://www.film-and-video.com/broadcastvideoexamples3point.html

Actually after I saw that site I realized what I did over here is the "identical" approach. And I tought my old boss was creative...
 
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I'm no expert but I'm going to venture a guess, It looks like the white collar is the hottest source of light, which probably set the f stop. The fill light was not quite strong enough to supply a crisp image. You may want to try a partial silk or a half scrim over the light to reduce the hot spot and allow the full light bounce off the reflector.

With all that said, if this is the worst image I personally think your in great shape because this doesn't look bad at all.
 
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That's an image I like. It's much better than the worse I have... ;D

The main problem I see is that I think the exposure is good. wouldn't change a thing. I like the contrast relation and I like the slightly overexposed face (a TV look). And I think the lower backround accents the classical look of the whole thing. But how do I get rid of the noise without changing exposure? See? That's the main problem I'm having with this camera (maybe it happens to all of them, I'm no expert, I'm just trying to learn...). It's making me really mad! And since this in undetectable on the LCD/EVF, this is getting hard to judge on set.
 
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Sounds like you didn't have enough room to move the guy far away from the books. If you could have done that, with the books a bit out of focus would have looked great.
 
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taubkin,

that image looks perfect to my eyes.
I like the natural look it has, as if there was a window at his right.
VERY nice work !

congrats !
 
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Well I am looking through some other grabs and I'm starting to think the noise is there for everyone. Maybe on the small res clips it gets a little hard to see, but they seem to be there for everyone. Perhaps I'll just have to get used to it. About the nice words, thanks again. It's really not a frame grab posting more of a tech thing that is bothering me, but it's always nice to hear what you guys have to say!

Cheers
 
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If you didn't set for gain up, then that's what you get with this cam. Noise is most visible in dark gray uniform area's.The same noise level is present on the whole pics. Try to unsharp the pic if you can live with reduced sharpness.
 
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Are you getting alot of artifacts? Herring Bone Suit? One of the first things I do when I'm hired to do a shoot is tell the client what I want them to wear and NOT TO WEAR!

I think the image that you have is wonderful. I also like the fact that you're using F1.  It's a pretty good setting right out of the box.  I have added a few settings to it to give it a more "cinema" look. ex. Master Ped -1 or -2, Gamma (Cine-like), Matrix (Cine-like) and I set my Auto Iris (for run and gun situations) to minus 1 or minus 2.
 
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Andre, thanks for sharing that's what I actually wanted to know.

Ericcosh, yeah, that suit is hell! But then again, the man was over 90, at his own place where I had brought a whole crapload of videostuff and relocatted every furniture piece, and there were two researchers running impacient to run an interview. It was basically not my F***ing problem... ;D (On a different note, never hire researchers, academicals to run interviews. They will always want to be sitting in the wrong chair. Jornalists, Documentarists, will do much better on the job... )

About my grain problems I think I solved them. I watched last Tango in Paris again. I'm not afraid of grain anymore. I do wish I could have cleaner images if I wish, but that's a limitation that can be assimilated easily.
 
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Taubkin,

The best way i found to reduce noise is to use the "normal" color matrix instead of "cinelike". Then adjust the color phase to +2 to compensate for the chroma phase shift between the two modes...and maybe dial chroma level to +2 to compensate for the reduction of the chroma saturation.

Let me know what you think.


...again...That picture is AMAZING !
 
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[quote author=Antoine_Fabi link=board=Events;num=1093617204;start=0#11 date=08/29/04 at 19:42:02]Taubkin,

The best way i found to reduce noise is to use the "normal" color matrix instead of "cinelike". [/quote]

This was what i was going to say. Cine-like matrix funks out a little in dark areas.
 
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[quote author=Oppressor_LOB link=board=Events;num=1093617204;start=0#13 date=08/30/04 at 12:26:10]

This was what i was going to say. Cine-like matrix funks out a little in dark areas.
[/quote]

The more digital processing the camera does, the more noise you'll have. Adding gain is a digital process that clearly adds noise. Using the matrices, I've found that "normal" is basically a normal color response, and "fluo" really jacks up the saturation on the non-green colors, and then "cine-like" just boosts basically everything else. So with that much image manipulation going on, you'll pick up noise. Try it on "normal" matrix and see if it cleans up your image...

... but man, that cine-like matrix makes for some excellent eye candy!
 
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======================================
"... but man, that cine-like matrix makes for some excellent eye candy! "

dixit Barry
======================================


he he...

true !
but there is a price....a little more noise.


that's why i want to see if the XL2 will preserve his "low noise reputation" when the cinelike color matrix will be enabled.
The image texture and color richness in Taubkin's grab are absolutely great ! ...so natural and filmlike.
 
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