Noise in X5R footage, ISO 100

Jonathan Ross · Jul 12, 2016

Hi Gang,

Been processing some X5R footage and we are noticing quite a bit of noise in the blue sky. ISO 100 scopes look good, histogram looks good but alas noise in the sky. Has anyone dealt with a noise issue at ISO 100? We have been film makers and still shooters for 25 years so are pretty comfortable with gear.

Thanks,
J

Jonathan Ross · Jul 12, 2016

Cleaned up great with Neat but still would love any feedback.

Thanks,
J

ianwood · Jul 13, 2016

Can you post up a screen shot? Pre/post Neat.

Jonathan Ross · Jul 13, 2016

Yes sir, I am filming all day today but I will post tomorrow.

gsafarek · Jul 14, 2016

What video setting do you use? Log footage usually needs slightly "exposing to the right", overexposing to avoid too much noise.

Richard Hurst · Jul 14, 2016

I've found it better off shooting at ISO 200 rather than 100. No noise seems to appear then

Jonathan Ross · Jul 14, 2016

Thanks for the feedback everyone. We were shooting log, the files are exposed perfectly according to the Histogram on the individual DNG's in PS. The histogram has everything just north of center nothing clipped and lots of room left on the shadow end. I have been a professional film maker/still shooter for 25 years so I feel I am exposing the data correctly. Here are a couple of screen grabs, look at the blue sky that is where we are seeing the the noise. Neat cleaned it up great but we shouldn't have to at ISO 100 exposed properly. I will do a test at 200 and report back. Really appreciate the feedback everyone. The first is before Neat the second is after.

Richard Hurst · Jul 15, 2016

On a bright sunny day like that you shouldn't be seeing noise like that. Have you changed your style settings and set your sharpness & Contrast numbers too high?

Joe Lawry · Jul 15, 2016

If youre shooting RAW there is no reason to shoot Log.. unless you require log on the h264s.

Jonathan Ross · Jul 15, 2016

My mistake Joe we were shooting to raw. Thanks for pointing that out. We have since checked our footage and the one clip with noise was a bit underexposed. It cleaned up and the rest of our files from that day have no noise. Keep that histogram way to the right, we did a test yesterday where we clipped the highlights by a stop and it processed beautifully, not clipping and lots of color data. Going to shoot a SUP group today we will report back on results.

Cheers,
J

erikgraham · Jul 23, 2016

Jonathan Ross said:
Going to shoot a SUP group today we will report back on results.

Cheers,
J

Any update on this?

Jonathan Ross · Jul 24, 2016

Hi Eric,

Yes, it went really well. We had perfect weather with very little wind. We film twice a week for the stock film industry and we haven't finished post on this shoot yet. When we do we will post a link or two. Off to fly a winery on Tuesday as well as some bikers along the seaside. Our UAV work only covers 5-10% of our content as most is shot from the Movi or Jib, but happy to share some links. I will get one of the team to upload this week if possible.

Cheers,
J

erikgraham · Jul 24, 2016

Jonathan Ross said:
Hi Eric,

Yes, it went really well. We had perfect weather with very little wind. We film twice a week for the stock film industry and we haven't finished post on this shoot yet. When we do we will post a link or two. Off to fly a winery on Tuesday as well as some bikers along the seaside. Our UAV work only covers 5-10% of our content as most is shot from the Movi or Jib, but happy to share some links. I will get one of the team to upload this week if possible.

Cheers,
J

Awesome. Thanks.

Wing Commander Smyth · Aug 16, 2016

Joe Lawry said:
If youre shooting RAW there is no reason to shoot Log.. unless you require log on the h264s.

Ok so I've not heard this one before!

If shooting RAW why does it not make a difference to shoot in Log??

Surely Log gives you more flexibility in the edit with regards to grading etc than if you used a baked in DJI colour profile????

I thought RAW was quality and Log was post flexibility.........no???

Would go live to hear why there is no reason to shoot log when shooting RAW.

Thanks!

apsussex · Aug 16, 2016

Wing Commander Smyth said:
Ok so I've not heard this one before!

If shooting RAW why does it not make a difference to shoot in Log??

Surely Log gives you more flexibility in the edit with regards to grading etc than if you used a baked in DJI colour profile????

I thought RAW was quality and Log was post flexibility.........no???

Would go live to hear why there is no reason to shoot log when shooting RAW.

Thanks!

No matter what setting you have LOG, CineD etc, this will have absolutely no affect on the RAW files. It only affects the video recorded to the SD card.

Wing Commander Smyth · Aug 16, 2016

Oh yes, of course......because its just stills not video....... I get it now.

Thanks ....... So what colour profile do you prefer to use? None....I guess? Its just for monitoring??

Wing Commander Smyth · Aug 24, 2016

OK, now this is weird. There is definitely a difference in the picture colour profile when I shoot RAW Log and shoot RAW none...... So @apsussex why could this be?? Surely we are telling the camera to take stills with a certain look - as we would be when setting colour balance etc???

Brain can't compute this one!

Jonathan Ross · Aug 26, 2016

Yep it is weird, We just ran a test on all settings today and all settings look exactly the same on the DNG's from the SSD. Me thinks you might want to check that again.

Cheers,
J

Wing Commander Smyth · Aug 26, 2016

Hi J

Ok so this IS weird. Just done a full days shoot in 4K RAW, colour profile "None" and it looks a WORLD apart from all the previous stuff we have filmed in D-Log......so on my camera, with my settings, the picture profile definitely has an effect on the RAW image.......but for you it (and others it seems) it doesn't?!?!?!

I can see a difference right from the start. Opening the two different days shoots in cinelight, the D-log stuff is always VERY dark (so we've been over exposing a lot to compensate) and yet the "None" stuff is perfect.

Exporting to premiere .DNG and then putting through resolve is the same. D-Log stuff, VERY dark and flat and the new "None" stuff is perfect.

Weird.

Or is it. As essentially I totally get that shooting raw is a bunch of stills that we then turn into a movie....but, we still control how that picture looks. White balance, exposure, etc all affect the image so why wouldn't the colour profile option??

It seems to have been proved in my camera. Set to D-log, get a very flat image. Shoot in none, get a very nice image.

So what am I missing, I can't think of a setting?

All thoughts and ideas most welcome.....as this is frazzing my brain!

Just to clarify, my question is why does it not matter what colour profile you have when shooting in RAW?? I kinda think it does.....but seriously look forward to being educated on this one!

Cheers!

x5yo · Aug 26, 2016

My guess is when you select a colour profile vs none, you simply have more of the work done for you by default which results in a better looking image closer to the one you would want.

If you're shooting none, it could be that you're not hitting the right sliders to get the most information out of the frame.

By using a colour profile it should NOT be embedding anymore data into the image that you do not obtain under NONE but as I said, its probably providing you with a better base image, and if this is your first foray into editing raw (as it is for a lot of owners) you might just be missing a couple of sliders which bring the best out of the image.

People in the creative media industry are employed as full time colourists to do this sort of stuff.

My guess is its because its a skilled job to do it right.