Panasonic Ag-AF100 - Red artifacts problem.

T

Teknari

Member
Hello,
We posted here because we´re experiencing unexplained problems with two of our Panasonic Ag-af100 but we´re not sure if our problems occurs because of the cold weather or something else. One of the two cameras were in Panasonic repairs in UK, but they found absolutely nothing wrong with the camera after running a test for two days. Also we are not able to replicate the problem when we need to demonstrate it. First check out the video links below to see the artifacts we´re getting somewhat randomly;


Video1:
http://vimeo.com/35688019


Video2:
http://vimeo.com/36483136 (the video might be still encoding in Vimeo as I post this...)


So basically we´re getting red horizontal area/lines/artifacts overlaying the video. First we thought it might be something to do with the censor, but since the problem does not occur on every clip and situation, it doesn´t seem to be the right answer. It seems that this only happens when we have something dark (almost black) in foreground and very bright (over exposured) areas in the background, actually the most common situation is seen on the video where man is sitting inside the car (Video1). This is almost same as how CCD censors handle with overly bright spotlights... We get this now very often in similar situations. What is even more weird is when shooting inside the car and wide angle lens is moved or zoomed in (Video2) the artifacts seems to react to that. When we zoom in just a little bit the artifacts might change in width or disappear. We have tried different ways of over exposing and flaring the videos but are unable to replicate the problem. We came in to the conclusion that it might be the cold weather (example: 2hours in -20 celsius) we´re forced to shoot in the winter time since we could not see this problem in the summer time. Or maybe the problems is the memory cards we´re using? We really hope that somebody could replicate this problem because we´re out of ideas at the moment.


Here is the setup we are using when the problem occurs:


Panasonic Ag-Af100 (With the latest firmware, happens with both of the cameras)
Lumix G-Vario 14-140mm f/4-5.8 Asph.
Lumix G-Vario 7-14mm f/4 Asph.
Transcend SD HC (10) 32gb


I don´t know what in camera setting were used, but it doesn´t seem to relate the in camera settings.




Sincerely
Mikko Miettinen
T-Magazines
 
Wow, very interesting. Sorry for your problem. I am anxiously awaiting responses from the experienced shooters here.

Have yet to shoot with the AF100, I hope I do not encounter this problem.

Best of luck to you, sir.

Question: Did you see the bars when you were shooting or did they only show up in post?

Here's an idea: Maybe it's the SD card you are shooting on. Do you have any others you could do a test with? What brand and class SD cards did you shoot that on?
 
Something similar happened to me. The problem only occurred when I was shooting on a white sweep. I had 2 AF-100s. One was fine the other was not. Needless to say, I sent it in to panasonic, they had it for 3 weeks, racked up 150 operational hours and ended up replacing the imaging sensor. I think it has to do with areas being blown out, like in my situation where I was shooting on a white backdrop. I had experienced red pixel noise on the left 1/3 of the sensor and random red and green lines that would show up for a frame and be gone. I potentially lost a client over this.

af100 problem.jpg
 
Panasonic problem

Panasonic problem

Tyrant Lizard said:
Question: Did you see the bars when you were shooting or did they only show up in post?

Here's an idea: Maybe it's the SD card you are shooting on. Do you have any others you could do a test with? What brand and class SD cards did you shoot that on?
Click to expand...


Yes, one of the camera man claimed seeing that also in LCD screen/viewfinder while shooting. Not sure what other SD cards they used, but the one used in the example videos is listed in my original post.
 
811productions said:
Something similar happened to me. The problem only occurred when I was shooting on a white sweep. I had 2 AF-100s. One was fine the other was not. Needless to say, I sent it in to panasonic, they had it for 3 weeks, racked up 150 operational hours and ended up replacing the imaging sensor. I think it has to do with areas being blown out, like in my situation where I was shooting on a white backdrop. I had experienced red pixel noise on the left 1/3 of the sensor and random red and green lines that would show up for a frame and be gone. I potentially lost a client over this.

View attachment 47690
Click to expand...


So it could be sensor problem. But it does not explain that we have two of these cameras and we did not have any trouble when we bought the cameras and now the problems start to appear. Perhaps both of the cameras/sensors broke down simultaneously? Also we haven´t seen this problem while using other lenses for example Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95, but this might be just coincidence. I was hoping that Panasonic reps would find something wrong with the camera, but its weird that they did not.

Thanks for answering.
 
Teknari said:
So it could be sensor problem. But it does not explain that we have two of these cameras and we did not have any trouble when we bought the cameras and now the problems start to appear. Perhaps both of the cameras/sensors broke down simultaneously? Also we haven´t seen this problem while using other lenses for example Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95, but this might be just coincidence. I was hoping that Panasonic reps would find something wrong with the camera, but its weird that they did not.

Thanks for answering.
Click to expand...

Aaaah, maybe it's the lenses.
 
Teknari said:
So it could be sensor problem. But it does not explain that we have two of these cameras and we did not have any trouble when we bought the cameras and now the problems start to appear. Perhaps both of the cameras/sensors broke down simultaneously? Also we haven´t seen this problem while using other lenses for example Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95, but this might be just coincidence. I was hoping that Panasonic reps would find something wrong with the camera, but its weird that they did not.

Thanks for answering.
Click to expand...

My camera was working just fine for about 8 months and then the problem slowly started to show up, randomly at first and then it got worse. It is weird that you are having issues with both of the cameras.
 
811productions said:
Something similar happened to me. The problem only occurred when I was shooting on a white sweep. I had 2 AF-100s. One was fine the other was not. Needless to say, I sent it in to panasonic, they had it for 3 weeks, racked up 150 operational hours and ended up replacing the imaging sensor. I think it has to do with areas being blown out, like in my situation where I was shooting on a white backdrop. I had experienced red pixel noise on the left 1/3 of the sensor and random red and green lines that would show up for a frame and be gone. I potentially lost a client over this.

View attachment 47690
Click to expand...

Michael, do you remember what lens you were using for this?
 
Tyrant Lizard said:
Michael, do you remember what lens you were using for this?
Click to expand...

It happened with every lens I had. I tried it with the 14-140, various nikon primes and zooms with a novoflex adapter and a zeiss. It was definitely the camera as I was using both Af-100s on that particular shoot I referenced earlier with the white sweep. One cam had a 85mm and the other a 35mm. They were stacked next to each other and both had the exact same settings. The problem only showed up in the one.
 
Tyrant Lizard said:
"Transcend SD HC (10) 32gb"

I see, sorry. Did you by any chance happen to be using something called H4n Zoom with the AF100?

I found this article: http://shooteditlearn.com/blog/2010/09/09/warning-zoom-h4n-users/

A quick search for problems related to those cards didn't turn anything up. Strange problem.

I know I will be doing a test as soon as I get my AF100 up and running and will post the results back to you.
Click to expand...

We actually do have two H4n Zoom audio recorders, but I´m not sure if we used the same cards with Ag-Afs. Currently we´re not using the H4n Zoom recorders because of the Ag-Afs audio recording capabilities. But you mean that the Zoom recorder might have corrupted the cards?
 
Very odd.

Does appear to be a flare issue. I have all both those lenses, plus two dozen of those SDHC cards, & have never seen this problem, but also never shot them in those temperatures.

Definitely has to do with very bright sources within, or just outside, the frame. Can't imagine it has anything to do with the memory cards.

Perhaps the lens' mechanics were affected by the chill.
 
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Could be a battery issue. Batteries loose performance at sub-zero temperatures and can become very unpredictable in the current the provide to the camera.
 
chervas said:
Could be a battery issue. Batteries loose performance at sub-zero temperatures and can become very unpredictable in the current the provide to the camera.
Click to expand...

Batteries we use are VW-VBG6 and S-8BG6 (have to check this). I know that they are approved/recommended by Panasonic. What puzzles me is why Ag-Af100 can only operate between 0-40 celsius degrees according to the manuals. So you cannot use the camera at sub-zero weather at all?? Surely they made a typo in the manual? Or is the camera getting so unreliable at sub-zero degrees they wanted to be on safe side?
 
I've had this problem with my AF100. It's weird and has happened when it was cold and a lot of light hit the sensor (back light) and I was shooting at ISO 400 or higher. It sucks as I saw the problem and couldn't do anything about it at that time. Besides that the problem never showed up again only in that scenario I've seen it as they're similar to your conditions. Lens were both Oly 12mm 2.0 and Tammy 17-50 2.8 Nikon mount.
 
looks like the artifacts something of electronic or digital nature to me. Its just too perfectly distributed horizontally to strike me asa a lens issue. Its probably sensor or processing related.
 
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