I know alot of people have mentioned this, but this weekend I finally had some time to try my XH-A1 in daylight.
I shot to tape, turned AGC off (was the first thing I did when I got it), set gain to -3db and tried all the 18 presets here.
Not one of them gave me give the results that I saw some of the clips posted here. I keep having some noise/grain in my pictures.
Can someone maybe tell me how they did it in their clips. Cause I bought the XHA1 based on the clips I saw here, and it is really frustrating when I can't get the same results. Or is the noise-reduction some post-process?
I searched the forum but couldn't find a real answer to my problem.
I'll see that I post some clips later on.

You shouldn't have much noise at all in daylight, only small microscopic grain, that is more abundant when you look for it. What was your aperture at? Some times at 6.0 or higher you will get grain. As far as any other explanation, the A1 is pretty clean at -3. I would never say that I have been concerned about grain, it is minimal and irrelevant to the other things I worry about; like DOF, exposure and focus (while I am shooting).

Sorry, I cant help much, someone may bring you solice though.

Which program mode was the camera using?

AGC is always on, even if it's switched off, in "Green Box" (easy record) mode.

Just buy the camera too, and made some tests this weekend, and have the same issue with noise, so I have the same frustrations as you. Perhaps it is the current bad weather in belgium ... my camera was set on manual with no gain and no noise reduction settings on.
I will make more test this week but it would be great to know how to achieve the good quality as the clips posted here.

Since you're bith in Belgium, maybe there was something wrong with the batch of A1s that Canon shipped there.

Noise can be introduced by underexposing your picture so be careful that your exposure is correct. Sometimes you have to make a trade off by blowing out some sky just to correctly expose your foreground and midground.

Going automatic to any degree is not recommended although you may not have a choice at the beginning when you are still learning.

So, in summary, I find that if I underexpose any camera, no matter what the make, noise is a problem to some degree.

Anyway, just another thing to consider.

I always shoot in manual mode. I'll check my camera this evening to see what all the settings were. I remember shutter was 1/50

can anyone take a still from the video and put it up for us to see?

Ok I test it some more this afternoon in my garden, and there is a lot of noise a 0db and -3db (don't ask about more gain ...), even with bright (cloudy) sky.
If I underexpose, the picture is very ugly. no deep black, I post a picture here.
but It look a lot beter (at -3db and 0db) with NR1 on low.

1/50 4.2 0db
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6295/420dbyf0.jpg

1/50 3.7 -3db NR1
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/7397/373dbnr1yq2.jpg

1/50 7.3 0db underexposed... ugly
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/2792/730dbhe7.jpg

I made a clip available:
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/Noise.mov

And here are a two stills:
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/still.JPEG
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/still2.JPEG

My settings were:
Shutter: 1/50
Aperture: f/9.5
Manual control
AGC off
and I went through the presets here on dvinfo.

PS: I just saw that in firefox the images are really dark.
I'm working on a Mac and on my screen it all looks bright (and also on viewfinder it looks bright). I captured it all in iMovie. (am saving money to get FCP)

I made a clip available:
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/Noise.mov

And here are a two stills:
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/still.JPEG
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/still2.JPEG

My settings were:
Shutter: 1/50
Aperture: f/9.5
Manual control
AGC off
and I went through the presets here on dvinfo.

PS: I just saw that in firefox the images are really dark.
I'm working on a Mac and on my screen it all looks bright (and also on viewfinder it looks bright). I captured it all in iMovie. (am saving money to get FCP)

Why f9.5 ???

With the iris that closed you'll run into softening of the image by diffraction. I have looked at the video and you are well under exposed. You have to make a creative decision to expose for the car and garden risking blowing out the sky or exposing for the sky and under expose the car.

Be familiar with signal to noise ratio SNR. If you under expose your signal will be low and in amongst the baseline noise of the camera a low SNR. By correctly exposing a scene you increase your signal away from the noise increasing your SNR. Learn to expose a scene properly will keep you away from noise reduction settings. Only use then as an absolute last resort.

A way to shoot a dark garden and stop the sky blowing out would be to use a graduated ND filter.

TT

Is there someone who owns an A1 PAL version, and has no problem with noise?

Is there someone who owns an A1 PAL version, and has no problem with noise?
Absolutely. With the kind of weather we're having now in Poland, I'm shooting at 0 dB; no visible noise. A couple of days ago we had snowy landscape and sunshine, so I went down to -3dB - even better!

Absolutely. With the kind of weather we're having now in Poland, I'm shooting at 0 dB; no visible noise. A couple of days ago we had snowy landscape and sunshine, so I went down to -3dB - even better!

How do your shutter speed and aperture settings compare?

How do your shutter speed and aperture settings compare?
Well, I'm trying to operate around the sweet spots of both the zoom (some 20%) and Iris (4.0-5.6) whenever possible, so when I see the exposure calls for iris of >7.8, I engage the ND filter and/or decrease gain to -3dB, if still possible. Shutter speed I'm trying to keep constant at 1/50th (I leave 1/25th for lowlight conditions, and faster speeds for special action situations). BTW, it's my favorite to shot in the "semi-manual" of the TV mode, which takes care of the exposure but leaves me the freedom to change the aperture manually (eg. for DOF effects) whenever I want, by simply pushing the Exposure Lock button whereby the Iris ring becomes active...That's my general rules, I guess.

Is there someone who owns an A1 PAL version, and has no problem with noise?
I have an A1 in PAL land. Noise is not a problem.

TT

Your probelm in the closed iris. Put an ND on, don't use 8.0 or higher, you will get grain.

PS: I just saw that in firefox the images are really dark.
I'm working on a Mac and on my screen it all looks bright (and also on viewfinder it looks bright). I captured it all in iMovie. (am saving money to get FCP)

Hi Jeremy. If this image looks bright on your viewfinder, I suggest you adjust the settings. The best way is to hook up the analogue video output to a TV monitor (preferably a calibrated one) and adjust the viewfinder brightness and contrast until it is a lcose as possible to what you see on the monitor. This will not give you exact settings, but it will be pretty close and will allow you to trust the viewfinder better.

Also, you can use the zebra bars to help avoid blowing out bright areas that you want to keep detail in (although you won't have that problem until you fix the underexposure :) ).

Richard

Why f9.5 ???
Easy reason: when I look at the lcd screen on the camera it looked much much brighter than what I see on my pc here at work.
Remember, I'm running OSX at home and there it looks as bright as the lcd of the camera.
Now I googled a bit and found out that OSX does colors differently. So I'll have to check to see that my OSX screen uses the same color settings as a PC.
So while I solved the reason why it looks bright on my Mac I'm still wondering why it looks so bright on the LCD screen of the camera (I didn't change the LCD settings).

EDIT: just read Richards answer. I'll try that out. Thanks, I hope this will solve my noise problem. I did find it strange that I had to use f/9.5 to make it not to overbright :-)

Your probelm in the closed iris. Put an ND on, don't use 8.0 or higher, you will get grain.
What is an ND?

ND = Neutral Density filter.

You wouldn't have to use F9.5 if you had engaged one of the two ND filters you camera has built in.

***Read your manual thoroughly***

I use OS X and that is no excuse for not being able to use your cameras controls effectively. Under or over exposing has nothing to do with which operating system you use.

TT

Sorry Tony, but when I see on the viewscreen of my camera a bright garden, and I see >exactly< the same on my OSX screen, then I'm thinking that both are giving me really a true image. Yes, I was wondering why I had to use F/9.5 (cause I never go higher than f/6 when I take pictures with my EOS10D), but the viewfinder showed me an overbright image, when I use anything lower than f/9.5
Then I see my clip on a PC and it's suddenly dark. When I googled I read that OSX handles screen colors differently than a PC (or a TV). So what I see on my OSX monitor can be different than what people would see on a PC screen (I tested this with an image that was very colorful in OSX and very dark on a PC).

And again: I was testing the dvinfo presets, so I didn't want to change any filter settings, only aperture and shutterspeed.

But as Richard told me, I'll try calibrating my viewfinder to make it give me a "true-er" image. And I'll also calibrate my monitor under OSX.
If I had seen that the clip was dark on the viewfinder and/or on my mac screen, then I would never have asked the question here. I would've known I had underexposed my scene.

Anyway, when my viewfinder is calibrated and also my osx monitor, I'll have a try again this weekend and I'll let you people know if I still have the noise.

Not that the LCD screen or CVF is going to truly show you exactly what the image is... but you CAN get it as close as possible in regards to brightness easily.

Try viewing your LCD screen "dead on" (no tilting). Use your color bars & adjust the pluge pattern (the three dark bars at the lower right... superblack, black, and gray. Adjust the LCD brightness until you can just see the gray bar & the superblack and black blend together & there's no difference between them.

Do the same for your CVF.


If you've already done this and/or already knew this, my apologies :)

Something just occured to me. Where's the "blue only" for better calibration? Ahemmm... new firmware wishlist addition :D

Bill

Bill, thanks for the info, I'll try that too :-)

Jeremy

Read this article on the use of colour bars.

http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

It will take through the process of setting up your LCD, VF and computer displays to match.

Flick the Bars switch on the camera and go from there.

Hope that helps.

TT

Tony, thanks for the info :-)

They put the zebra function there for a reason. The LCD and VF are decent methods to gauge your exposure if you are familiar with them but zebra is really your best pal to tell you if your exposure is correct.

While I'm getting used to the XH-A1, I have been using the auto-exposure modes as a starting point. I've done a few experiments comparing Auto and manual settings, including some sunset scenes with very bright sky and very dark shadows, and the Auto settings are pretty sensible.

You say you like to stick with 1/50th shutter speed (sensible), so try the Tv (shutter priority) mode, select 1/50th, and then press the Exposure Lock button see what the auto-exposure thinks the apperture should be. You should see the f-stop setting displayed together with a line with an arrow above, which is a sort of a light-meter read-out. The middle of the line is what the auto-exposure considers "normal", and the arrow indicates how under- or over-exposed the picture is. You don't have to accept the auto's settings, but it gives you a reference point.

Shot a new scene this afternoon (thank god the days are getting longer again :-) )
I first 'calibrated' my lcd viewscreen using my tv as a reference.
The aperture is now much lower (don't remember the exact setting though)
Shutter is in the first half at 1/120 (or higher can't remember) and in second half it's 1/100

I think the result is much better now
http://www.banapsis.eu/downloads/Noise2.mov

I'm glad this is looking better for you. It still looks like you have the NR filter on. I would definitely not use that because it turns detail into mush.

Having experience with both Sony VX2K/PD & Canon A1, I feel that both camera's behave quite different.

With the Sony I had the habit to maintain a more underexposed mode (then f.i. the Auto modes ever would do), resulting in excellent detail, somewhat filmic colours and surely an acceptable noise level.

The Canon has a completely other behavior. It clearly needs the driven into a more explicit exposure to achieve an acceptable noise level in the image, certainly in the dark area's - but by doing this, it remains to my feeling somewhat more stable in the resulting detail & colours over the exposure range.

I can imagine that the signal treatment in the Canon is a little more advanced and solid then the Sony VX ever was - which is after all a design of quite a few years ago. Probably the new Sony's FX1/7 and V1 behave as different as the A1, but I have no in depth experience with this.

I'm glad this is looking better for you. It still looks like you have the NR filter on. I would definitely not use that because it turns detail into mush.
Steven, it could be that in some images the NR is on. In the shot I went twice through the 18 presets that I found here. But between each preset I go the default setting (which is at the moment the low light setting which has some NR (it's default since the first days I only shot at low light))

It could also be the compression of the Web files.

A great way to illustrate exposure and noise is to do what I did at Christmas. Put the cam in auto mode, including auto gain and start chasing a 3 year old around. With the cam stabilized, I was jetting around from low light to very good light. The effect on noise was profound in the recorded footage. The noise "melted away" as I approached well lit areas, and returned (as expected) in very low lit areas. Although grainy, I was surprised I got any footage at all in some of the nearly dark areas.

I spent some time yesterday with the A1 hooked up to a Dell Ultrasharp 24" LCD (2407FPW) via component HD, and started playing with presets. This is a great way to tweak settings as the 1920x1200 monitor does a good job highlighting subtle differences in noise, contrast, noise reduction settings etc. A few hours like would be very productive in looking at the preset differences, and seeing immediately how they change the A1's image.

I have removed the clips from my site since they were eating bandwidth.
Also since the problem is solved I deemed it unnecessary to keep them online :)

Having dealt with this issue with still camera quite a bit, the best solution I have seen is now available for video cameras (www.neatimage.com). I have not tried it though. I would be curious to see it anyone has used it and if they like the results. It sure works wonders in 'still land' though.

cheers dave