testing for split screen

[brianluce]

What's the best way to test for SSE? I put my lens cap on and set the gain at 18 and saw some. but then it went away. I'm trying to induce it to see if it is or is not a problem and how and when it occurs so I can avoid duplicating those conditions.

I'd also like to know the best way to test for dead pixels.

and anything else a new owner of the hd100 should do during sea trials.

thanks

b

 

[Barry_Green]

Even flat surfaces seem to make it most visible. Forget the idea of gain, that's a red herring; every time I've seen SSE it was at 0dB of gain.

Take the camera into a medium or low-lit room and point it at a flat evenly-lit wall, that's triggered it before. Or in broad daylight on a shot mostly filled with sky, that's triggered it too. You can't really know for sure, but those are the circumstances I've had it in.

As far as dead pixels go, those are most visible on a monitor, not really so on the on-cam LCD or VF. Play back footage on a pixel-accurate 720p LCD and shoot something white and something black; dead pixels should be easy to see as black pixels on a white background; stuck pixels would be easy to see against a black background.

 

[mmm]

...Forget the idea of gain, that's a red herring; every time I've seen SSE it was at 0dB of gain.

Gain certainly has an effect on SSE, on my camera at least. I have seen it at 0dB when the camera is first switched on (for a second or two), but it is quite easy to trigger at 18dB.

White balancing often masks the effect. Generally, in order to trigger SSE, the shot conditions have to be so extreme that the image quality will be very poor anyway. If you are seeing it in normal shooting conditions, return the camera. Like Barry said, flat, even colour in low light tends to show it up best.

I also think that image processing such as black stretch contributes to SSE. This is in effect a type of gain, applied only to the blacks.

 

[Ivan Oe]

In my short experience with the cam, i can say that the test that Barry mentioned, in a low-lit room, make the SSE appear (with 0db gain). But, in my case, it's in the first minutes of operation of the camera. After 10min that SSE disappear with 0db gain, but returns with 12db. With the white balance, under the starting conditions, it only appears with 18db.

But i found it and didn't look for it. Barry is an expert and i'm sure that his tests are more exhaustive than mine.