C100: Noise Reduction

C

Carroll B

Active member
I filmed a small graduation and I filmed it at ISO1000 and it appears to have a lot of grain or minor flickering, what do you do to remove the noise?
 
I assume you meant to post that you filmed it at ISO 10,000 not 1,000? Noise shouldn't be a big problem at ISO 1,000. Also for next time, doing a black balance before shooting will help give you the cleanest image possible at any given ISO. To clean up noise in something you've already shot try a noise reduction plugin. Neat Video is very very good at cleaning up noise.
 
Watched it. The uploaded video is at 720p so I'm not sure if this has been recompressed. I see some compression macro blocking on the green walls that's a little distracting when nothing is happening onstage. Nothing I would call noise. You might be able to get rid of it with Neat Video. My computer takes about an hour per minute of footage to render Neat Video, so be forewarned if you plan to run an entire event through a denoiser.
 
When I saw your post about noise at 1000 ISO (I did not have time to respond then) I said to myself it must be because there was a large area of one, non-moving color. I get it too unfortunately. I shot three days of talking heads in a conference room, the client didn't like the background so asked me to bring a backdrop. So I brought a mottled grey backdrop and put a blue gel on a Arri 650 for a gradated fade behind the subject's shoulders. IT LOOKED BEAUTIFUL!

However, when I looked at it in AVCHD on QuickTime Player I saw noise in the areas of one color (the blue) where nothing is moving, even though I had NR set on 3. Very disappointing. And for those who recommend Neat Video, that doesn't help cameramen like me who pass the footage on and perhaps no grading will be done let alone noise filters. And who wants to tell a client to buy more software for noise reduction? So, looks like the solution for me would be to buy a Ninja Blade, maybe I should have bought a C300 in the first place?
 
Black balancing is a must if you change ISO settings. It's in the manual for a reason. Get used to performing it for the cleanest picture.
 
Last edited:
Which gamma, FPS (progressive/interlaced) did you use?
WDR at 50i is noisier then cine1/log at 25p.

But the best help is to make ABB and used NinjaStar/Ninja Blade recorder (with NR2-4 in camera) because AVCHD has a lot of artifacts in two frames from three.

See this from 10:56 (25p, NR2, cine1 gamma, AVCHD vs. Ninja recording / vs. wdr, there are 2000 ISO and 4000 ISO parts)
https://vimeo.com/88598926
 
All
Thanks for the responses! I don't know much about video, I basically was using the c100 as a fixed position camcorder while I was taking stills at the event.. I have heard the term macro blocking but did not know what it meant until now.

When you black balance do you perform this with the lens on with a lens cap or do you take the lens off. I typically do it with the lens on. Does it make a difference?

Thanks,

carroll
 
I run ABB with the lens and the lens cap on but I would try to do it with the camera in the bag so that its as dark as possible.
 
Watching that video, I actually started thinking that it might be more aesthetically pleasing if the ISO was actually higher and the NR reduced so that the real sensor noise would break up the macro blocking. Just a thought. I think there was a thread suggesting that as a possible solution for breaking up the macro blocking on the 1DC.
 
Curnsie said:
I run ABB with the lens and the lens cap on but I would try to do it with the camera in the bag so that its as dark as possible.
Click to expand...
Canon recommends putting the the body cap on when performing ABB. The point is to have a completely light free environment so the camera can do it's thing. Second best practice is lens cap on and close down the lens to f22 like Drew does.
 
I find it hard to imagine many clients having a problem with the noise or macro blocking in that video. If you looked closely at the Blu-ray version of any Hollywood blockbuster, you might find similar patterns in the video.
 
drummondb said:
I find it hard to imagine many clients having a problem with the noise or macro blocking in that video. If you looked closely at the Blu-ray version of any Hollywood blockbuster, you might find similar patterns in the video.
Click to expand...


true that. it drives me nuts having to watch beautiful shows like game of thrones get wrecked by compression to stream it, but no one else seems to care.
 
sonofaresiii said:
true that. it drives me nuts having to watch beautiful shows like game of thrones get wrecked by compression to stream it, but no one else seems to care.
Click to expand...
I care. I've even complained to Comcast about it. More of us need to complain so hopefully they actually do something about it. I was chatting with an engineer a while ago who told me that a lot of the compression artifacts that are on TV are not because of the bandwidth limitations but because the providers are milking their old encoders instead of upgrading to newer better ones. I don't know how common or true that is, but it wouldn't surprise me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top