The Footage from Leo's shoot...

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I expected some noise, but it to me it was just incredibly evident, even with well lit footage like this one.

I remember reading people said the GH2's ISO 1600 was very clean.

Personally, judging from this footage I found ISO 800 unuseable for anything but documentaries.
 
In addition to the noise... the dynamic range looks fairly poor at 400-800.

I think I'm still on the GH2 boat.

It still looks like a good cam if you're going to be doing allot of outdoor nature type work.
 
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I am watching on a Panasonic ***PH9UK 50" plasma, fed via HDMI from a PS3, and have all the test videos on a hard drive. The Japan test pieces shot by Philip and another which was much lower in saturation and detail (looked very nice) were conspicuously lower in noise in black, even in an indoor scene with the Japanese tea being made. The two from Japan were shot Cine-D, but this test was not. Though overexposed in Cine D in Japan, they looked far less noisy, and quite frankly, I thought they were stunning. This test piece I find just a bit troubling, for both highlights and especially noise.
 
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Joe Walker said:
Cool, thanks Jim!
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I just downloaded the full rez Vimeo version, I'd also suggest doing one of the following, as you can see some pretty nasty 4:2:0 issues on key edges (under her chin as example )...

In Keylight, add a touch of Screen Pre-blur or drop a Channel Blur effect before Keylight and experiment with small amounts of both red and blue blur (both horizontal and vertical) to erase the edge breakup.

Green screen wise, I nanoFlash everything at a high bitrate that has an HD-SDI or HDMI out on it, but this tip can help make the chroma limiting issues of the codec a bit less obvious. The original black chatter issue in the key would be there irregardless of the codec or bitrate, FYI, and is a tell-tale of Keylight and the way it removes spill.

Overall, the piece when viewed at the proper gamma looks great, skin tones very nice, and most of the noise in the high ASA shots is much harder to detect when viewed correctly on a properly set up plasma using the right display gamma.

A bit much on the sharpness/edge enhancement, specifically on the lemon squeeze shots and the champagne fountain in slow-mo... thanks for sharing, I know it's a ***** when people nit-pick, however I composite for a living, and I'm usually on the receiving end of this, so... :)

Jim A.
 
I've put the footage through Neat Video and the results are impressive, I really can't wait for the pro res file to download....
 
+1 to Jim, yeah...playing out of my FCP timeline through an AJA Kona 3 to a Sony BVM monitor and a Panasonic Pro LCD, I can tell all of you that it looks stunning. Period.
 
I think it looks great. Viewed through HDMI on a 47 LED was awesome. Then on HDMI on on my 100in viewing wall looked wonderful!!!, and On an Imac 27in looked stunning. On the Imac I see the noise, but to me looks like a nice tight film grain.
I'm sold. For the price of this camera, my HVX and 5dmk2 will be combined with the AF100. I also plan on the GH2 as well. I can handle noise. I can't handle moire and aliasing though....
 
Please tell me if my eyes are deceiving me and I am going half mad, but I saw far less noise in Phillip Bloom's GH2 videos so far than I saw in this.

And apparently he does crank the ISO higher than what was used here in this video.
 
Thomas Church said:
Please tell me if my eyes are deceiving me and I am going half mad, but I saw far less noise in Phillip Bloom's GH2 videos so far than I saw in this.
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I think you are right Thomas, as it appears on my plasma. But there's something funny about this footage, that tells me some of the settings have been tweaked in a way that might have looked good when concentrating on one aspect of the image, but may have led to new issues on other aspects. Perhaps one of those was core detail to noise.
 
I downloaded and watched the footage on my imac and there was a noticeable amount of noise in every shot. Is this a compression thing? Could it be my monitor? At :52 the black top is dancing with noise, it is almost distracting. Is anyone else experiencing this?
 
Thomas Church said:
First of all, I think you guys did a great job, congratulations.

Now, to the bad.

Is it just me or the image is pretty noisy even at 400 ISO? If you look at the model's black dress, there's just so much noise there.

I though this would be an improvement over the noise levels I get on my HPX 170, but it doesn't seem any better.

And ISO 800, way, way too noisy! Sadly I don't think I'll ever be using anything above 400, and that is very disapointing. :embarasse

I thought the larger sensor would somehow drastically reduce the amount of noise on the footage.
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I'm seeing the exact same thing. I downloaded the ProRes HQ file and played it back on my brand new 17" MacBook Pro and on my Pioneer Elite Pro150HD 60" plasma. Lots and lots of noise in the black dress, black skirt, black bra, and black hair, and the candlelit shots look horrid as far as noise goes.

EDIT: I'm also seeing quite a bit of noise in the gray background, even in the food shots.
 
mrmoonay said:
In addition to the noise... the dynamic range looks fairly poor at 400-800.

I think I'm still on the GH2 boat.
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You're welcome to whatever your chosen tool is. But one thing I cannot fathom is how anyone can think a GH2 would do better. There is likely common ancestry and common development between the cameras, but the AF100 being the broadcast side, gets the best of the best. Shoot a GH2 against an AF100 and I guarantee you the AF100 will look *at least* as good, if not better, in every conceivable circumstance.
 
One thing I do when watching Vimeo clips full screen on my computer is BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!!! DO you sit a foot away from your TV? Ever seen a billboard 3 ft away? INCREASE YOUR VIEWING DISTANCE pixel peepers! Go and turn on your HDMI TV and watch it 1 foot away. It looks gnarly!

Back up people! Like 10 ft.!!!!!! Then watch it again...
 
dustylense said:
One thing I do when watching Vimeo clips full screen on my computer is BACK AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!!!! DO you sit a foot away from your TV? Ever seen a billboard 3 ft away? INCREASE YOUR VIEWING DISTANCE pixel peepers! Go and turn on your HDMI TV and watch it 1 foot away. It looks gnarly!

Back up people! Like 10 ft.!!!!!! Then watch it again...
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Even better, I downloaded the ProRes HQ file and watched that with scaling off. About 12ft back from my plasma, 5ft back from my 17" MBP. Still noisy. It's not a resolution or sharpness issue. It's noise.
 
I don't think it's compression causing noise. But something looks a little weird about the compression in the clip I downloaded from vimeo, and am watching on the big Panny plasma. The smoke effect at the top of the video is pretty color banded. Who knows if it's there originally or a result of some compression that could also be effecting the rest of the video. So far I'm the only person to notice the large highlight areas that are reflecting off of foreheads as basically one shade. And look, I know this camera's a great value. I'm in the process of trying to weigh the pros and cons of going with the AF100 or stepping up to the F3. I was totally on board the Af100 as a steal. But when I see the noise, and the large highlight areas, I realize I need to know more about what's going on here. And probably, I need to see a few more tests too. (I have actually already ordered the AF100!)
 
Thomas Church said:
Please tell me if my eyes are deceiving me and I am going half mad, but I saw far less noise in Phillip Bloom's GH2 videos so far than I saw in this.
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Okay, seriously, for the last time (hopefully) -- it is impossible for the GH2 to be cleaner than the AF100. Simply impossible.

Now, what you're likely seeing is the result of Philip's aggressive Magic Bullet Looks grading. There is noise in the medium-dark to darks in all Panasonics -- and in just about everything else. Magic Bullet Looks pushes the contrast and shoves those medium darks down to darker, and in the process it blends and compacts the noise. What you're seeing here in this AF100 footage is camera-original, as Joe Walker said -- it's basically ungraded.

For all I know, Philip may have even used the MB Denoiser in his footage, as it's an amazing tool. If you're seeing noise that you don't like, run Neat Video's noise reduction and it'll come out whisper-clean.

Okay, more on noise -- run some color bars on your computer and look at the PLUGE. It is very likely that your monitor is not calibrated to properly show video. I know mine wasn't; I have a new laptop that I was using in Japan and I was seeing a lot of noise, and I complained to the Japanese engineers about it. They said "show us" -- so I ran the footage on the 25" monitor they had there and it was nothing short of gorgeous. Stunning, beautiful, crisp, with little to no visible noise ANYWHERE. We ran color bars on the monitor and got it calibrated and it looked fantastic. I then ran bars on my computer screen and found that the lows and medium-lows were way, way too bright, which is like shining a spotlight right on where the general noise is. But viewed on a properly-calibrated monitor, it was extremely clean and nigh unto noiseless on anything at 200 ISO.

I just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - in digital projection. And it was definitely noisier than this AF100 footage.

Seriously -- run some color bars on your computer screen, and look at the PLUGE in the lower right. There should be three bars, a super-black, a black, and an extremely dark gray. If you can easily discern between them, then your monitor is not properly calibrated for showing video. You shouldn't be able to tell AT ALL between the super-black and black, and you should only just barely be able to detect the extremely dark gray bar. It should be almost invisible to tell it apart from the black and super-black. Set up your monitor right, and then report back, and I think you'll be infinitely happier.
 
bhdfield said:
I think you are right Thomas, as it appears on my plasma. But there's something funny about this footage, that tells me some of the settings have been tweaked in a way that might have looked good when concentrating on one aspect of the image, but may have led to new issues on other aspects. Perhaps one of those was core detail to noise.
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We experimented a little with detail coring to see how they liked it in context with noise, especially on the shot of the flowers. But after that we took it right back down and it stayed at no more than +2 throughout the rest of the shoot.
 
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